Reviews - Edward - Auf den ersten Blick

Edward - Auf den ersten Blick by Stephenie Meyer

13.6k reviews for:

you know, i’d be mildly embarrassed at publicly admitting to having read this one in 2025, but we’re in the middle of a twilight renaissance and it was a welcome brain rot break from nonfiction and academic articles, so, i can’t bring myself to regret it. it also solidified my long held opinion (from age 13 to the present) that bella and edward are absolutely the lamest characters in this entire series, that bella should probably leave edward for alice or someone similarly more exciting, or that stephenie meyer should have focused on writing about literally anyone else.

makena_h's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

beccagreenwood's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous

bookbeetlebabe's review against another edition

4.0

funny informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

scrump's review against another edition

5.0

This is just what I needed after my Twilight reread. I’ve always been disinterested in Midnight Sun because why would I want to read the same story from the pov of the person I’m supposed to be yearning after. I want to be wooed by him, not Bella. But he wooed me even more through this book than Twilight (3 stars, not well written sawry. It just doesn’t make sense why or how fast they fall in love). I also found that I was missing Edward’s yearning in New Moon. The pain and tension and desire was missing and I desperately wanted his pov. Then I realized Midnight Sun might be able to fill that void, and fill that void it did. I love angst!! And I loved getting new sides of characters I didn’t know I wanted to learn more about. New info, relationship dynamics, and scenes added to the canon, I love it.

It did get redundant at a certain point which brought it down to a four for me, but Stephenie quickly recovered (I LOVED getting a 2020 version of her writing, especially after my reread; her writing has greatly improved), and ultimately I still adored(!) this book and think I will always cap off my series rereads with it. It’s a great bookend to the main saga.

So overall, 4.5/5 stars is more accurate.

rubythedreamer's review against another edition

4.25

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I really enjoyed revisiting the Twilight series. It was interesting hearing Edward's perspective on the events of the first book and the extra background of what happened when James caught up with Bella. It was very slow though and Edward does drone on a bit too much in some parts. Still loved it though.

shelfcaremom1's review against another edition

2.0

Okay, please know I LOVED Twilight when I was younger. I’ve read the main books several times and enjoyed them each time (probably 15 years ago). And I think the books are better than the movies—honestly the movies make it so much easier to make fun of this series.

I’m finally getting around to reading this retelling from Edward’s POV and giving it 2 stars for a few reasons…(1) it took me forever to slug through it. At no point did I experience the “can’t put this down” feeling that I’ve had with the other fantasy books I’ve read lately. (2) I did not feel like this book needed to be as long as it is. I didn’t learn anything more about Edward’s character than I already knew from Twilight. His self-loathing internal dialog was so repetitive and predictable, it drove me crazy. (3) I don’t remember if she does this in the other books, but Meyer’s writing style in this one breaks up dialog and conversations between characters with *pages* of internal thought. So much so that I would often times forget that she was in the middle of an actual conversation between two characters and I had to go backwards to remember how it started. Not a fan. (4) Having re-experienced this story as an adult, Bella is not a great representation of a strong female lead. She’s kind of pathetic actually. And Edward is way more of a controlling ass than I remembered him being.

That’s the part that was most interesting for me—the fact that I’ve grown as a human and reader in the last 17 years and can recognize his character flaws more than I did when I was 18-19 years old myself. But I can also recognize now how much Bella does not stand up for herself, which just kind of ruins it for me. I don’t have a lot of patience for female leads without any real spine.

Anyways, is the book fine for young adults? Yeah probably. Would I recommend it? Nah. Probably not for any age group, mostly just knowing what else is out there that is so much better.