Why We Can't Finish Stephanie Meyer's Twilight

Trey and I read aloud to each other at night while we're putting Olivia to bed. It gives us a chance to read books we're both interested at the same pace and talk about the content. Twilight was the third book we decided to read aloud together. We made it through a little over 100 pages before giving up. We found ourselves doing whatever we could to not read to each other at night - Trey would go clean up toys downstairs, refill the humidifier, and I'd suggest we just talk about our days instead. What's the point of reading a book you're constantly trying to avoid? We all graduated from having to do that after we left college.

The story wasn't the problem. I'm all for teen-angst-driven plot lines and tossing in vampires and werewolves really spices things up. This book should have been exciting, but Meyer suffocates the exciting bits with her extensively detailed narrative. Do I really care what color the walls of Bella's school's office are? Does it matter that Edward chuckles all the time and Bella is accident-prone? Nope.

Initially skeptical of the book for many reasons, Trey and I held off attempting to read the series until Trey was given Twilight as a gift. We felt we had to read it to see what all the fuss was about. Maybe the book would be better than the movies (although they turned out to be much more entertaining when compared to the book,) but I can finish watching the movie whereas I couldn't finish reading the book. I can't even write more of a review. We didn't even make it to the part where Bella figures out Edward is a vampire.

I know I read a lot of escapist books so it sounds contradictory for me to be so cruel here, but I stand by my feeling that you can write all kinds of crap as long as you write well, as long as you put forth an effort to engage the reader. This droll babble doesn't even come close. So my advice if you're one of the few people left yet to jump on the Twilight bandwagon -- see the movies and be done with it.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

The Passage by Justin Cronin (Audiobook read by: Scott Brick)

The Passage is the story of a virus released in the US that turns 10% of those infected into blood-craving, sunlight-avoiding vampires. The story focuses on the people who caused the outbreak, those who survived it, and the one person who can save humanity from it. The novel starts out a handful of years into the future and follows a young orphan named Amy Bellafonte and an FBI agent named Brad Wolgast. The book traces the roots of the virus from the jungles of Bolivia to its eventual release from a top secret army facility in Colorado where it is being developed and studied. You become quite attached to all the characters you meet leading up to the release of the virus, then suddenly the narrative jumps 90 years into the future, and we are treated to an entirely new story. Cronin drops us into a world that bears little resemblance to the world we know today. We're introduced to an (almost) entirely new cast of characters who are just beginning their voyage to reclaim the world from the virals who have replaced them as the dominant species on the planet.

I simply can't say enough good things about this book. Cronin uses some very distinct narrative techniques that make the book an unique experience. It's not often that a book can be clearly split into 2 stories and still hold itself together. The stories are connected only vaguely, but they work together to give you a deeper understanding of the world of "The Passage." The emotion that Cronin pours into the pages of this book brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion and, as with any great book, I felt a real hole in my days when I no longer spent them with the characters of this book.

As with any audiobook I review I have to discuss the narrator, Scott Brick. He is amazing, just spot on with all the character voices. His pacing and tone match the story perfectly. He imbues the story with emotion and passion without it seeming forced. Audiobooks can often detract from the story if the narrator isn't right for the book, this was not at all the case with this book, and if you have a long road trip (as I did) I highly recommend this audiobook.