Stephenie MeyerYoung Adult · Romance·b. 1973
Midnight Sun
Synopsis
Midnight Sun retells the story of Twilight from Edward Cullen's point of view, giving readers access to the inner world of the vampire who fell in love with Bella Swan. Where the original novel followed Bella's wonder and confusion, this companion reveals Edward's restraint, torment, and the relentless pull of his hunger against his conscience.
Seeing familiar events through Edward's eyes reframes the entire romance: his century of loneliness, his family's watchful concern, and the constant danger his nature poses to the girl he cannot stay away from. The stakes that felt mysterious to Bella become, in Edward's telling, a matter of life and death he weighs with every breath.
Published in 2020 after years of anticipation, Midnight Sun is a full-length companion to Twilight rather than a sequel — a darker, more introspective retelling for readers who want to understand Edward's side of the story.
How it reads
Prose complexity 4/10
- i have MANY thoughts. there are some things that i liked that have made this reading worth it, but i don't know if they are enough to make me want to re-read this one in the future. i don't think so. i loved the nostalgia, that's for sure, and i missed some of the characters. i enjoyed knowing more about them, like for example, having edward as the main character gave us a better insight to his world. reading about the cullens was interesting, and understanding better how alice's and jasper's talents worked was a bonus that i appreciated. <br><br>it's curious to me that i cared more for other characters than for edward. i mean, i understand him, but at the same time his indecisiveness was so annoying. he would decide to do something and then straight out ignore himself and do the opposite. he was condemning himself for his thoughts, feelings and behaviour, yet he would do nothing to correct them and instead would just complain. again and again and again. and that aside from his creepiness and stalking mode. i can't believe we used to think this was romance back in 2005. <br><br>anyway, yes. i don't regret reading it, because i liked reading about some characters that were "left behind" in the original series. reading about jasper's "talent" was so much more impressive than in twilight or eclipse, for that matter. and reading about emmet's fraternal love and protectiveness towards bella was so much more endearing than how it was portrayed previously. even rosalie's motives for being so against bella made more sense (EVEN THOUGH I STILL THINK THAT SHE IS ONE OF THE MOST BADASS CHARACTERS OF THIS SERIES AND WAS SO UNFAIRLY IGNORED AND HATED, I SAID WHAT I SAID). so yes, 3/5 seems like a fitting review.
- <div>Let me be real... it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it would be. Once I got past the beginning and before the ending settled in, I found myself surprisingly engaged. That’s the weird trick of YA sometimes... the pacing is just relentless, making it hard not to get swept along. But this is where the book’s central problems hit hard. Looking at the story from Edward’s perspective makes his obsessive stalking of Bella feel profoundly unsettling, and I don’t understand how that wasn’t a bigger cultural conversation when this first released. On top of that, I absolutely detest the trope of a character deciding they know what’s best for someone else, effectively erasing that person’s choices. It's a narrative shortcut that always leaves a bad taste.<br><br>And yet... despite all that, I have to give credit where it’s due. The book has genuine strengths. Once the action kicked into gear with the introduction of the Hunter, I genuinely couldn't put it down. The extended car chase sequences across Arizona were, frankly, spectacular. It’s a classic case of a flawed but compelling read, where the sheer momentum of the story carries you through the parts that make you cringe.</div>
- Voltar pra Forks é sempre muito bom, mas se você achava a Bella confus, é porque nunca esteve na cabeça do Edward. Ele tem mesmo 17 anos, e cada vez que ele pensava como um adolescente ficava mais confuso que a Bella. Sabendo do Dom da Alice ele ainda assim queria lutar contra as visões dela, e isso só trazia dor e sofrimento para ele. Da pra comparar o sofrimento da Bella em Lua Nova com o dele até ele entender que não adiantava lutar contra o que ele estava sentindo e nem contra ao que a Alice falava. Mas não posso negar que é muito interessante ver as coisas pela perspectiva dele e da família dele ! Mas o livro podia ser um pouco mais curto, esse Vampiro pensa demais !!