Rebecca R.

This book was selected for my bookclub to read, so I gave it a go. I've never had much fascination with the royal family drama so it wasn't a particular interest of mine, but I do enjoy books of all types and the autobiography sounded interesting. This book was very difficult to finish. Again, I have not seen Harry's documentary or previous interviews so I did not know much about him going into this. While I feel for him for several reasons, the entire book comes across very whiney, poorly written, and tone deaf. A very, very hard book to finish, or even get into very far. If not for bookclub, I would not have read more than a few chapters.

Words can’t express how disappointed I am in this book, but here goes it. I read the Twilight Saga DOZENS of times as a teen. I was obsessed with the story, the romance, the world it brought me into. I didn’t understand all of the hatred it received about being poorly written and shallow; I LOVED it. Fast forward to 2020 (so, 9 years roughly?) and have to say that I not only understand those reviews but also wholeheartedly agree with them. My sisters and I decided to start a virtual book club to combat this pandemic and since we all equally loved Twilight we chose this as the first book we read and discussed. Our 16-year-old selves are so disappointed and, honestly, this one book has ruined our entire outlook on the saga that we adored. This book is so unbelievably shallow and uninteresting that it is so painful to have to read chapters before our next book club meeting. We are all avid readers, we constantly have a book in our hand. So, I’m not sure where our disillusionment stems from, if it’s (1) the fact that we grew up and have read 100s of books since “Twilight” and, thus, have more sophisticated tastes or (2) the fact that this is literally the same exact story with very little new information. Probably a bit of both, but I can’t imagine my teenage self would even enjoy this. It’s so unnecessarily longwinded. Meyers takes 30 pages to say something that could be said in one paragraph, and that is not an exaggeration. I am so angry about this! There was so much potential! Stephanie, this was not the story we needed nor wanted! We needed Edward’s backstory, his family’s backstory, the Voltaire’s backstory, Edward’s life with Bella/ Renesmee and Jacob…. there were SO many other stories but we were given the same thing again, except this time is was more painful because Edward should be evolved. Even though I think she could have given us a better story in general, I knew going into it that this was the same story told from Edward’s perspective. But, goodness, I expected him to have more thoughts than “Ugh, I’m a monster. She smells good. She’s pretty. I’m a monster. I want her. I can’t have her. Ah, confliction!” I have never been more disappointed in a storyline before. I have never read a book so difficult to read. This book is not imaginative, thought-provoking, or anything except a colossal disappointment that has left me stunned. If you are a Twilight fan and have not read this yet, I truly don’t recommend it because it will likely poison your original assessment of the saga. I will be selling my copy, it does not deserve real-estate on my bookshelf ☹