Book Review: Twilight: The Graphic Novel Volume 1

Every November, I feel the urge to read Twilight. I am not a Twilight fan, but since I was a teenager, I wanted to read Twilight in November. As I became an adult, and had several health problems along the way, reading Twilight in November was something I enjoyed doing to commemorate the month.

Last year, I decided to not read the novel of Twilight. Instead, I decided to read the graphic novel version of the book. I was very busy at that time, so reading the graphic novel would be faster than reading the actual novel. I never wrote a review post about Twilight The Graphic Novel, but after rereading it, I feel the urge to talk about it.

The Twilight The Graphic Novels are divided into two volumes. I will be reviewing volume one in this post.

Before I actually review the book, I wanted to talk about the book itself and how it look like. This is what the cover of the book looks like…

And here is the back…

Both volumes of the graphic novel have hard covers and dust jackets. Both volumes can also as one volume called “Collector’s Edition”.

If you get the volume edition of the books, the covers can be laid side by side to create this picture…

The blurb for the graphic novel on Amazon is….

When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice, and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable. Up until now, he has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Bella is determined to uncover his dark secret…

Beautifully rendered, this first installment of Twilight: The Graphic Novel is a must-have for any collector’s library.

The graphic novel was adapted and illustrated by South Korean artist Young Kim.

The book is well done and I really enjoy reading it. The illustrations are done in an Asian style of art. Back when it was published, it could’ve been called a manga due to its similarities to the Japanese comic magna art, but it isn’t. The illustrator is from South Korea, which makes it a manhwa, or South Korean comic. The illustrations are beautiful and well done. The art is done in black and white, but certain pages contain color illustrations. When I read the graphic novel for the first time, I really liked seeing the color illustrations. The color emphasizes certain parts of the story.

The story is the same as the book it is based off from. For me, I like the graphic novel’s interpretation of the story more than the novel. The reason is because it is my personal preference. The graphic novel skips over parts of conversations  or events in the novel I didn’t like. The condensing of these parts make the novel faster, yet more readable. There will be Twilight fans that may disagree with me about this, but this is just my personal preference.

The book is a very enjoyable read and is, in my opinion, a must read for Twilight fans. The story does end halfway through the novel’s plot, so in order to read the rest of the novel you must own Volume 2. Since these books are out of print, obtaining them will be very difficult and expensive. Mine are either purchased brand new while they were in print or are from second hand bookstores. This is why, even though I highly recommend this novel, I hesitate to praise it too much. I don’t want to make anyone spend an arm and a leg for these books unless they are very serious fans or found them for a great deal second hand!

If you can find the Twilight Graphic Novels, I highly recommend them. I really enjoyed reading them for the first time and I still enjoy reading them to this day. It is annoying that novel was divided into two different volumes (Which were released separately in different years) but I am happy to put up with it. The quality of the book, the illustrations, and the thought put into the telling of the novel is very high. Even the way the book actually looks when closed, with both volumes have a half of a two part illustration of Bella and Edward, is well thought out. I am still impressed by the amount of thought put into the graphic novel. I hope any Twilight fans that never got to enjoy the novels when there were published will find a copy of volume one and volume two to read!

Like I already mentioned, I will be reviewing volume two in a separate post.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!