Book Review: Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer

Title: Midnight Sun
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Reader
Publication Date: August 4, 2020
ISBN: 9780316707046

Synopsis from Goodreads:
This unforgettable tale as told through Edward’s eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward’s past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following his heart if it means leading Bella into danger?

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I’ll admit it. I was a huge Twilight fan when it first came out. I was 13–what do you want? So obviously, I’ve had to read all of the subsequent books. I held out with Midnight Sun for a few months, but I finally caved. And you know what? It wasn’t terrible. Told from Edward’s perspective, this book fills out a lot of the details of Twilight that we, the readers, never knew. We get a lot of backstory that provides expanded characterization of the Cullen family, which I enjoyed reading about.

Edward is quite an annoying character though, I have to say. He’s repetitive and often self-deprecating, which I guess is to be expected for a “vegetarian” vampire. I liked the things he had to say, just not the way he said them. His point of view is also a lot more verbose than the original book was. I attributed this to the fact that he’s a vampire with supernatural observational and memory skills, but it did make for a long novel.

Overall though, it was a lot better than I was expecting and it was the perfect bit of fluff that I needed this week. And now I might have to go and revisit those original books after more than a decade. For nostalgia’s sake of course.

Happy reading!