Twilight fans everywhere were distraught last week when Stephenie Meyer announced that as a result of an accidental internet leaking of the first 12 chapters “Midnight Sun” was to be put on hold indefinitely. I'm afraid that after reading the first 12 chapters I can only be thankful that the rest of Midnight Sun is unlikely to ever surface.
Midnight Sun is the story of Twilight told from Edward's perspective. When I heard there was a possiblity of this being the next in the twilight series I was excited. I rank Twilight as one of the best romances I've ever read but I did find Bella quite limited, of course she was she was a 17 year old girl who knew nothing of the world. So I always wanted the story from Edward; older, wiser, deeper, more intelligent, everything pointed to it being a good story.
Only it wasn't a good story. The Edward of Midnight Sun is 100% mentally unhinged. Please don't think I expected him to be perfect, perfect is boring. I always expected him to have issues; raging wars between his guilt at having killed in the past, his inability to fit in to human social situations, the restlessness of repeating the same few years of school and college over and over, and the constant question of why he is denying the very nature of what he is. But NO Stephenie Meyer decides to turn Edward into a psycho; he becomes scarily obsessed with Bella almost as soon as he meets her, bye bye there goes my jaded world-hardened hero, to make things worse he sits in her bedroom whilst she is sleeping!! OK so we knew he used to listen to her talking in her sleep before they were together I figured well he's curious about her, he has super hearing and he doesn't have to sleep he could stroll past her house and stand outside for a while to see what he hears. But No, Edward climbs in through the window (which he later OILS so it doesn't make as much noise) and at one point even covers her in a blanket cos she looks a bit cold. If this isn't bad enough he spend a whole bloody week lurking in the shadows following her around. You may as well stick a neon sign over his head saying stalker, HELLO THESE BOOKS ARE FOR YOUNG GIRLS WHO ALL ADORE EDWARD YOU WANT THEM TO FALL FOR GUYS LIKE THAT?!
Also Edward's thoughts consist only of; Wow Bella is so perfect and OMG I'm just so not good enough for perfect Bella. This makes me sick. Edward is cultured, mature, struggling with faith issues, hiding his identity and privileged/cursed with the ability to see everyone's uncensored thoughts, even the bad things that we think but would never dream of saying. Please tell me this guy has more to him than love-sick puppy issues.
I'll make you a deal Stephenie, you step away from the manuscript, lock it in a drawer, throw away the key, and I'll pretend like this whole thing never happened and I can still admire your storytelling abilities.