134 of 142 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very long, thorough review of the Guide, April 12, 2011
This review is from: The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (Hardcover)
*The rating should probably be a 4, but out of principle I give everything Twilight related 5 stars. Silly, but that's the way it is.
I am evenly split between happiness and disappointment. There were so many wonderful bits of information in the Guide, things I never thought to wonder about and answers to numerous niggling questions. However, so many things were left out - things that I'm sure Stephanie knows and are really essential pieces of information for any Twilight lover.
On the bright side, the paucity of information means there's lots left to the imagination. Readers and writers of Twilight fan-fiction will not lack for story options. I also wonder if the major holes in various characters' biographies (specifically Alice and Jasper, as well as Renesmee and Jacob) were done in purpose to leave room for future books. I already know that she won't answer certain questions about Nessie and Jacob in case she explores it later, but there was so much left out of Alice and Jasper's early lives that perhaps Stephenie envisions another story (I doubt it though).
I'll go over the good and bad points. I am making an effort not to put any spoilers in my review (e.g. the substance of Alice's story), but I'll be referring to what is and is not in the Guide. If you're as picky about spoilers as I am, you might want to be careful. Also, given the level of my emotional investment in Twilight, my criticisms will likely not be as diplomatic as I normally try to make them.
The Good
1. Vampires Generally: I learned almost everything I wanted to know about the physical qualities of vampires. I already knew much of the information, but there was just enough new to keep me happy.
2. Alice's Human Life: Brava, Stephenie! You told me everything I wanted to know and so much more. Alice's human life was fascinating from beginning to end, although not in a good way. In some ways, it's better that Alice doesn't remember any of it. One of the highlights of the Guide.
3. Edward's Life: Not entirely complete, but I loved learning more about Edward's relationship with his parents, particularly his father. I already knew that his father was an attorney and they were fairly wealthy, but I loved filling in the gaps in Edward's story. It was also fabulous to learn what degrees Edward has received over the years. I was happy to get a little more information about Edward's years as a traditional vampire: specific dates and one tidbit I'd always wondered about.
4. Other Vampire Biographies: While I was largely disappointed with the new information, or lack thereof, in the Cullen's stories, I was beyond impressed with the biographies of the Volturi, the Denalis, the Romanians, the Egyptians, the Amazons, and the Nomads. There was tons of information here, all new. We get detailed biographies of each major character's human and vampire life. The Guide was worth buying for these stories alone. They were the highlight of the entire book.
-The Volturi: From the books and the Twilight Lexicon, we already knew a little background about the Volturi, but the Guide tells us so much more. Detailed histories of Aro, Marcus, and Caius which give us insight not only to specific events of their lives, but also to their personalities and motivations. I was so happy to learn about Alec and Jane's histories. Chelsea's biography was much more interesting than I expected it to be. The way the Volturi's motivations for ruling and claiming themselves as keeper of the law was skewed; I think Stephenie would root for a vampire coux.
-The Romanians and Egyptians: I'm combining these categories, because they are both ancient covens. I loved learning about how millennia of ambition and warfare built these covens and tore them apart. Amun's story was particularly interesting, especially how he has interacted or hidden from the Volturi over the years.
-The Denali's: There wasn't a huge amount of new information here, but the sisters' stories were fleshed out. I was very happy to get a better idea of when the Cullens' first met the Denali's.
-James and Victoria: Fabulous. Especially Victoria's stories. I don't like either character any better after knowing their backgrounds (if anything, I like James even less), but I definitely understand them better. Victoria's human life and then how her talent for escape worked as a vampire was really interesting.
-Alistair: Perhaps the most fascinating story of all. I really wanted to know more about Alistair and Stephenie did not disappoint. It would be hard to top the betrayal and horror of Alistair's transformation into a vampire. I was also happy to learn how Carlisle and Alistair became acquainted. It could have been fleshed out a little better, but I was still happy.
-Peter and Charlotte: We learn more details about Peter and Charlotte's escape from Jasper and Maria and Peter's return for Jasper. We also get excellent insight into Charlotte's character and feelings for Jasper and Alice. Through Peter and Charlotte's stories, we learn a lot of new information about Jasper. I would have liked a better explanation of why Peter and Jasper got along so well as well as information about Peter and Charlotte's human lives, but the amount of new information made up for what was lacking.
-Joham: Tons of information about Joham. His motivations, his relationship with his children, his selfishness and cruelty. I also enjoyed getting to know a little about his children.
5. The Wolves: I've made it pretty clear that I'm not nearly as interested in the Wolfpack as I am in vampires. Still, I found a lot of the information about the wolves fascinating.
-General Mythology: I loved learning more about "real" werewolves versus the Quileute shape-shifters. There was also good information about the physical attributes of the Wolfpack. I got a better understanding of their appearance and supernatural capabilities both in wolf and human form.
-Billy's Story: I loved learning more about Billy. We learn about his knowledge of vampires and werewolf legends, his thoughts on being a missed wolf generation, and his feelings toward the Cullens.
-Sam, Leah, and Emily: Now this is drama. From the books, we know the basics of how Sam dropped Leah when he imprinted on Emily. Here we learn exactly what happened - Leah's bitterness, Sam's regret, Emily's surprise. We learn just how Emily received her scars. Leah's story definitely makes me sympathize with her more. On a side note, we learn what triggered Harry's heart attack. Very interesting, although I think I like how the New Moon movie portrayed it better.
The Bad
1. The Cullens' Stories: The lack of new information about the Cullens' in their bios was the biggest disappointment for me in the Guide. There were little tidbits I didn't know, but on the whole, their bios were just paraphrased from the books. I already know the biographical information in the books. What I want to know is what wasn't in the books. If the information didn't come from the books, it likely came from Stephenie's website or from the Lexicon interviews. I keep reading the same pages over and over in the hope that the letters on the page will magically rearrange themselves into new sentences. A huge, huge disappointment.
2. Alice's Vampire Life: As I said, I loved the story about Alice's human life. But there was virtually nothing about her life as a vampire prior to joining the Cullens. It's not like she found Jasper and the Cullens within the first couple of weeks of her new life. It took thirty years! A lot of things surely happened during that time period. What were they?
3. Esme's Story: What did she name her baby? Why, oh why wasn't this included? Such a simple piece of information that so many people want to know (or at least I do). Otherwise her story was fine. Nothing I didn't know from the Lexicon interviews, but interesting nonetheless.
4. Jasper's Story: I wanted to learn more about his human life. What was his family like? Was he in school prior to joining the army? Absolutely nothing about his vampire life that we don't know from Eclipse. His relationship with Maria was not adequately fleshed out. Nor do we learn much about his early years with Alice and the Cullens. Also, there is nothing about the scope of his power to manipulate emotions. Three of the things I most wanted to know.
5. Carlisle's Story: Not enough information. It was a rehash of what we already know from the books - practically word for word of what Edward and Carlisle told Bella in Twilight and New Moon. There were some interesting tidbits spread throughout the Guide, but not nearly enough. I wanted to know more about his human life and more about his early relationships with Edward (both before and after he turned him), Esme, and Rosalie. We didn't get a firm idea of when he started practicing medicine or just how hard it was training to handle blood. No idea where Carlisle learned to fight so well.
6. Edward's Story: I was largely satisfied with Edward's story. There was enough new information to make up for what was lacking. Or almost enough. I really wanted more information about how Edward, his mother, and Carlisle became close in the hospital. I wanted more information about Edward's first few years with Carlisle and Esme and whether he was initially resentful that Carlisle turned him. Also, I would have loved an outtake of Edward's prodigal son moment.
7. Rosalie and Emmett's Stories: There was virtually nothing new about Rosalie. I might as well have just re-read Eclipse. I wanted to know more details about how and when she kills Royce and his cronies. I was especially disappointed that I didn't get...
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78 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Written by the Twilight Lexicon, not Stephenie Meyer, April 13, 2011
This review is from: The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (Hardcover)
If you look very carefully on the back jacket, you will see the cover image of the original announced book. It reads, "#1 New York Times Bestselling Author Stephenie Meyer" as the byline. The byline on the cover that was printed reads "A companion to the #1 Bestselling Series by Stephenie Meyer." That should tell you everything you need to know about this book. The title page doesn't credit the author, it credits Alphie and Pel from the Twilight Lexicon website and it's evident from the number of things that are marked 'unkown' or 'sometime between time x and time y' that very little new information was given to them in this writing. The book is a hodge-podge of information of varying newness and quality, and while it's an interesting addition for those who'd like a pretty book, it doesn't provide much meat for fans who've paid close attention to information about the series all along.
Wonderful and interesting backstories have been included for some characters, such as James, Victoria, Laurent, and Alice. As became usual for SM starting in Eclipse, far more attention has been paid to the wolves and their history than to the vampires and theirs. There is some new information about the Volturi, but what she imagines for their past is generally out of line with ancient European history. The backstories vary immensely, however, in quality and new information, with some lifting word-for-word the tiny backstory given for that character in the books. (This is unfortunately especially true of the Cullen bios, which are arguably the ones fans were most interested in.) Some bios give pages of information about characters we didn't know, others are a few lines long and reveal that very little new info has been added. If you were expecting maybe a portrait of each character and a right-facing page of information, you'll be disappointed--at times with the minor characters, the bios are so short that three sets of info are included on facing pages. Even Edward's bio is only three full pages, mostly detailing what happens to him in the books.
There's an interview with SM for the first 60 pages, and I'm convinced this was more or less the extent of her involvement with the assembly of this book. In it, she provides a little more information that explains how she writes, and maybe gives some of us who were annoyed with the way she ended her series a glimpse into the erratic style that made that happen--most importantly her burning desire to have us hear Jacob's voice the way she did which resulted in the jarring and unprofessional inclusion of a first-person POV shift in books 3 and 4.
The rest of the book is filled with mostly meaningless information--Young Kim did excellent illustrations for the Cullens, but illustrations are missing for even many of the other major vampire characters, like the Volturi. Despite lots of info on the wolves, how the gene works, their geneology, and their backstories, the only wolf drawn is Jacob. (There's an interesting watercolor of Rialto Beach, La Push, however). There is a section with an illustration of each CAR featured in the book, but really, since there were photos of all the vehicles on SM's website, I think I would've preferred an illustration of Aro to Jasper's motorcycle.
The timeline printed in the book is the one available for free on TwilightLexicon.com, as are the provided chapter summaries (incidentally, this fan-created timeline is inconsistent with some of the new backstories provided for this volume). Other information such as the Frequently Asked Questions and outtakes are things that have been available for internet fans for years. Big fans will have even likely seen most of the gallery of the fanart and foreign covers which take up the last 25 pages or so. There is precious little new information that could not be obviously inferred from the books and interviews SM has given in the past.
Meyer has shown herself repeatedly to not be interested in the true world-building, consistency, historical and geographic accuracy that was necessary to take her series from just a light read to something as rich as a HARRY POTTER or PERCY JACKSON. This book underscores her lack of attention to detail and reveals the shallow depth to which secondary characters were thought through in the books. To top that, THE GUIDE, because it was written by others than the author herself, introduces more historical and story-internal inaccuracies than existed in the original books, while basic questions that fans have always had about some of the series' mysteries go unanswered.
The 4-color pages and illustrations make this a beautiful book, and the authors who did put time into it, Lori Joffs and Laura Byrne-Cristiano, should be congratulated. The artwork from Bradley, Carey, Kim, McMenemy, and Palmer Preiss should be commended as well. For the price, if you're a Twihard, you'll want this one in your library. If nothing else, it's nice to have all the info at hand in one volume instead of having to scour the 'net.
But don't expect to read this and feel any less like the series author abandoned this story a long time ago.
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