The Twilight Companion: The Unauthorized Guide to the Series, by Lois H. Gresh

I got this book after attending a kind of Twilight party held at my local library. Anyone from 12 to 18 years of age was free to attend. It wasn't much. There were refreshments (if you can call a cake that said "Bite Me" and punch refreshments), a raffle with small prizes (we got a Bella and Edward poster, which was neat, though we don't know where to hang it. We have two cool Harry Potter 4 posters crowding the wall ^_^) , a trivia game (the questions were ultra hard! I mean, I just read the Twilight Saga for the awesome story. These pieces of trivia were for people who studied the series backward and forward and are obsessed. For example, who remembers the name of the Biology teacher? Offhand, I do not remember), a couple of other activities (make your own bracelet, bookmark and playing chess. I didn't play chess), and a viewing of the Twilight film. It was my third time seeing it, so it wasn't that big a deal.

Needless to say, this party was pretty lame and wasn't exactly "hopping". Only about 15 kids showed up, and I'm sure my sister and I were the only 17 year olds there. I don't even have any idea why there was a Twilight party at this time, since nothing Twilight related has happened recently... not to my knowledge, anyway. Still, a couple good things came out of the event. First of all, I got to drive to the party and my sister drove us home. I think it'll be quite a while before the excitement of driving on our own wears off. ^,^ Second of all, after the raffle was done, the lady offered this book for someone to check out, anyone at all. Since no one else happened to jump immediately on this offer, I asked to borrow it. I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but I enjoyed this book. (Quite obviously, because of it's subject. ^,~)

This book was published just a little after Breaking Dawn was released, so I'd guess that lots of people wanted to get a few answers about the series before settling down with the grand finale to the Saga. It also seems that the guide was largely targeted at a female teenage audience (probably because the author is a woman) so I doubt many guys would find the guide a good read. The few vampire/ werewolf/ romance quizzes don't help this fact. ^_~

Personally though, I found it a quick, entertaining, quite informative read. I picked up a bit of extra vampire knowledge and history, in real life as well as fiction. The author seemed to have done some good research on the subject, for which I commend her. If anyone out there reading this blog post is like me (a teen girl who is a huge, though not obsessive, fan of Twilight), you too will enjoy this guide.

The only thing I caught that I thought was off was that the author seemed prejudiced against werewolves. I really didn't like that, since I personally prefer Jacob just that much better to Edward. But apparently, suave, hunky, golden-eyed "Mr. Perfect boyfriend" vampire is a much hotter attraction when opposed to a sweet guy who occasionally turns into a wild, furry, blood-thirsty, beastly Hulk wolf when he gets angry. But hey, come on! Jacob is not your run of the mill werewolf! At least he's human half the time, whereas vampires are never human. And the pack mind-reading thing is pretty cool. Besides, the only thing to do with blood with Stephanie Meyer werewolves is that it's genetic. It runs in the family. Still, I'm not Bella, so I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. ~,~ I can probably argue this subject a lot more passionately if I only had someone to debate it with.

A cool thing is that this isn't the only series guide she's written. Miss Lois Gresh has also written about the Artemis Fowl series, the Spiderwick Chronicles, His Dark Materials (Golden Compass, etc.), the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, etc.), and ASOUE (A Series of Unfortunate Events). Her works also include the subjects if superheroes, supervillains, anime, Stephen King, Star Trek, and the Indiana Jones films. This lady seems to have gotten around! I think I'd much enjoy reading some of her other books.