Ranking The Twilight Saga

by Sophia Chen

I'm sure you've heard about it already, but if not, The Twilight Saga is a series of four books (plus a few bonus novels) by Stephenie Meyer about a shy, awkward damsel in distress and her dark and mysterious vampire boyfriend. (There are also movies, but I prefer to go by the motto 'the books are always better.') If you're looking to read The Twilight Saga, you should obviously read them in order. Doing otherwise would be... ineffective, to say the least.

However, I had no other ideas for a book blog. So in this post, I'm rating the books in the Twilight Saga (which I read in 5th grade) from worst to best. Starting with, drumroll please... Life and Death.

1. Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined

For anyone who doesn't know, Life and Death is basically Twilight (the first book), gender swapped. Now, while I can normally appreciate a good gender swap fanfiction, the key lies in the word good. This is not a good book. The new names are horrible, the ending doesn't make sense, and most importantly, it doesn't feature my personal favorite character in The Twilight Saga, Seth Clearwater. Therefore, I hate it. 0/10.

2. Twilight

Twilight is the first book of the series, and it's 100% Wattpad romance, which is why I hate it (I hate love stories, and I hate Wattpad, so...). There is some angst to it, but it's pretty dumb and could have been solved if even a single one of the characters had an ounce of common sense. Sadly, they don't. But at least the names are better than in Life and Death. 2/10.

3. New Moon

New Moon is the second book in the series, and the reason why I don't like it is because it's just weird and underdeveloped. The plot is basically, Bella (the main character) falls into a deep depression because Edward (the love interest) moves away, before being rescued by a Quileute kid by the name of Jacob. They become tight, and Bella starts to get to know the Quileute community. Suddenly, however, 2/3 in, the book takes a sharp turn and Bella has to go to Italy to rescue Edward from going shirtless out in the open and therefore getting himself killed by the vampire police. It makes no sense, and it makes me wish she had just left Edward to die. There's also some pretty racist and stereotypical representation of the Quileute community. You can read up on that here.

You may be wondering, Well, if you hate it so much, why isn't it at the bottom of the list? Well, reader, that's because the only saving grace of this novel is the debut appearance of Seth Clearwater, my personal favorite character. Also, the vampire police, I must say, are sick. (In a cool way, not in a diseased way.) 4/10.

4. Breaking Dawn

Breaking Dawn is the finale of The Twilight Saga, and it's a monster of a book. The paperback has 768 pages, and the audiobook is 20 hours long. That's almost an entire day and night.

That's not to say that Breaking Dawn is bad, necessarily. It's got some interesting dynamics playing out. There's also an entire third of the book dedicated to Jacob's POV, meaning -- you guessed it -- my personal favorite character, Seth Clearwater, shows up a lot. It's also just a really fun book with a lot of nonsense. But it's fun nonsense, unlike in Twilight.

However, there is also a childbirth scene, a honeymoon scene, and a scene where Seth almost gets killed by Bella (she was actually aiming for Jacob, but still). My top 3 biggest nightmares, honestly. So 5/10.

5. Eclipse

Right off the bat, the primary reason I love Eclipse is that Bedward (yes, that's their ship name, don't look at me like that) are, like... barely there. Instead we hear a lot about the background characters, such as Edward's quote-unquote "siblings" (the other vampires in town) and the other werewolves among the Quileutes. Oh, right -- there are werewolves in this book. Which, although I don't love the fact that Stephenie Meyer is using the name of the Quileute tribe for profit and fictionalizing them into a race of semi-animals (in fact, I hate it), at least that means we talk a lot about Seth Clearwater, my personal favorite character. 7/10.

6 (tie). Midnight Sun

Midnight Sun is Twilight from Edward's perspective. Now, although I don't actually like Edward, there is a certain charm to his utter idiocy and lack of control over his bodily functions around Bella. Also, I love to see his family making fun of him and being all weirded out by his budding romance with a 17-year-old human. Midnight Sun, generally, is the peak of "Twilight comedy" -- stuff that's supposed to be serious and dramatic, but instead becomes unintentionally hilarious to the uninvested reader. Sadly, this book contains not even the tiniest mention of my personal favorite character, Seth Clearwater. It's also even longer than Breaking Dawn -- the audiobook is 26 hours long. TWENTY-SIX. For me that's not that much of a problem, but I can see that really turning some readers off. 9.5/10.

6 (tie). The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is a shorter book (maybe half the size of Twilight?) about a background character from Eclipse. As you can probably infer, that character is Bree Tanner, a newborn vampire who's part of an army that attacks the Bella, Edward, and his entire found family of vegetarians. This one admittedly also does not feature Seth Clearwater, my personal favorite character, but that's its one and only flaw.

What I love about this book is that everything in it is depressing. It's a really dark look at the events in Eclipse, and everyone dies, and humans are prey, and they're in a cult, and they can trust no one, and it's just really really sad and tragic and best of all, there's maybe 3 sentences of romance (honestly it gives me Oresteia vibes for any of my ancient Greek play nerds out there).

I just wish Stephenie Meyer could've found a way to work in my favorite character. 9.5/10.

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In summary, Midnight Sun and Short Second Life of Bree Tanner are objectively the best books. If you like lighthearted longform stuff, Midnight Sun is your go-to. If you're into short stories about toxic people, murder, and organized crime, look no further than The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. (Looking back... huh. Those two things perfectly describe my fanfiction taste.)

Also, if you're mad about the tie, talk to Stephenie Meyer. It's her fault for not including my personal favorite character, Seth Clearwater, in either of those books.