The cover of the book.
The first installment of The Twilight Saga. High school student Bella Swan moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father. There she meets and almost instantly falls in love with Edward Cullen, a beautiful, mysterious boy in her science class. A conversation with the son of her father's friend reveals the true nature of the Cullen family, ultimately leading her to a new danger.This book contains examples of:
- Acoustic License: When Edward and Bella hold a conversation while he runs at superhuman speed and she clings to his back. In some cases, the dialogue even states that they are whispering, despite the fact that the wind whipping past their heads should make even yelling next to inaudible, at least for an ordinary human like Bella.
- Artistic License – History: The sewers in London that vampires were hiding in during the 1600s didn't exist around that time.
- Artistic License – Medicine: When Bella is in the hospital after almost being hit by Tyler's van, they take x-rays of her skull. While this would have been normal before the 1970s, a CT scan is what is used in modern times as it can show not just fractures, but any bleeds in the brain, which are invisible on normal x-rays. However that's assuming the local hospital in Forks owned a CT scanner. Seeing as how small a town it is, that's questionable even in the 21st century. It's worth noting that the real-life Forks Community Hospital does have the equipment for CT scans.
- Artistic License – Physics: Bella is about to be hit by a car. Edward gets between her and the car and then stops it with one arm, slightly denting the door in the process. Wrong. Car doors simply aren't built sturdily enough to allow that. While Edward may be strong enough to stop the car, all of his strength would be concentrated in a very small area; his arm would have punched through the door and the car would have hit him and Bella anyway.
- As the Good Book Says...: A Bible quote from Genesis describing God's command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, often held up as the Ur-example of temptation and the origin of the phrase "forbidden fruit" altogether. Temptation and the desire to resist it was one of the major themes of the novel.
- Baseball Episode: The famous baseball scene.
- Bathroom Break-Out: Bella knows that the bathroom in the Phoenix airport has two doors in and out and asks Jasper to be the one to accompany her, since he would have to wait outside. Bella quickly escapes through the bathroom's other door before her minders can realize what she intends to do.
- Battle Discretion Shot: In the first book, Bella passes out from her injuries before the Cullens arrive to rescue her from James. She drifts back into consciousness enough to hear, but not see, Edward's arrival and James' death.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Bella tells Charlie she hates Forks and living with him so he'll let her leave. She hates doing this to him and desperately wishes she could explain that three Serial Killer vampires are after her, and she has to get out of town to protect them both.
- Extremely Protective Child: Bella gets herself into a world of trouble to try and protect both of her parents.
- First-Episode Twist: The reveal of Edward's mysterious identity is a surprise only to those who have never heard anything about the series described in any way.
- Gory Discretion Shot: In the movie, when a security officer gets hunted down by evil vampires Laurent, Victoria and James, the camera cuts to a far-away blurry shot just as they begin devouring him. Later, when the three kill Waylon, the camera again cuts away to the outside of the boats.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Bella almost makes one in the first book to trade her own life for her mother's when James issues the ultimatum.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: When Carlisle first realized he was a vampire, he actually tried.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Almost definitely unintentional, but... when the Cullens play baseball, you could refer to their sports equipment as "vampire bats."
- Invisible to Normals: Edward's stopping of the van about to crush Bella with his bare hands with no one but Bella realizing could fall under this, and it is even mocked in Mark Reads Twilight
, where he says this is part of an overused idea he calls "The 'I Am Going To Do Something Spectacular And Clearly Attention-Grabbing In Front Of Plenty Of People, Yet No One Is Going To Notice Except (Conveniently) The Main Character' Phenomenon." - Navel-Deep Neckline: Rosalie's prom dress has a neckline down to her waist.Her vivid scarlet dress was backless, tight to her calves where it flared into a wide ruffled train, with a neckline that plunged to her waist.
- Never Heard That One Before: When Bella and Edward are on their way back to the car from Edward's first demonstration of his "sparkling", Edward offers to show Bella how he travels in the forest.Bella: [warily] Will you turn into a bat?
Edward: [laughing] Like I haven't heard that one before! - New Transfer Student: Bella, to open the series.
- Oh, Crap!:
- When Bella sees the truck swerving towards her. The Cullen siblings respond with one of their own when Edward saved Bella from an oncoming truck and exposing himself as a vampire to her.
- When Bella runs into the guys heckling her and her friends at the dress shop and they corner her near a dark alleyway.
- When Bella discovers her mom's voice calling to her for help is really an old videotape used to lure her into James's trap.
- When Bella reads further into her online research of "the cold one" and discovers Edward is a vampire.
- One-Word Title: The name of the book is "Twilight".
- Religious Vampire: Carlisle was raised the son of a pastor, and it is his continued faith that drives him to help people as a doctor.
- Rescue Romance: Edward and Bella were already secretly interested in each other, but it was Edward saving Bella from Tyler's out of control van that laid the groundwork for their relationship.
- Secret Chaser: Bella with Edward’s secret.
- Serial-Killer Killer: When Edward was younger, he rebelled against Carlisle's animal blood philosophy, so he used his mind-reading powers to only feed on rapists and murderers. But even that proved to be too much for his conscience.
- Skewed Priorities:
- When Bella finds out Edward has broken into her house, more than once, even before they were dating, to sit in her bedroom and watch her sleep, Bella is more concerned that he heard her talking in her sleep.
- Upon discovering that Edward is a vampire and can read minds, she freaks out... because he says he can't read hers, which makes her think that she's the freakish one. This is lampshaded.
- Small Role, Big Impact - within this book, Sam and Jake are both minor roles. When Bella hears Sam's only line in this book, she then has a conversation with Jake about it - one of three appearances (the second one being when he takes Billy to Bella's house and is absent for most of the conversation, and the third being in the epilogue where he passes a message from Billy). This discussion is what tells her that Edward is a vampire, and this moved the book's plot forward.
- Suck Out the Poison: Vampires have no body fluids except for venom, which is used to change people into vampires via biting. When James bites Bella at the climax of the first novel, Edward has to suck out the poison to prevent it from spreading. A very heroic thing, except that A) this technique rarely works in the real world (due to the circulation system almost instantly carrying the poison away from the wound) and B) Edward himself has venom in his mouth. By all rights, Bella should have been a vampire by the end of the first book. In Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, this is what ends up happening; Edythe attempts to suck out the venom, but it's gotten too far into Beau's system and his transformation has already begun.
- Surgeons Can Do Autopsies If They Want: In the movie, Carlisle examines the body of Waylon after he is found in his boat. Justified from the audience's perspective, since we know he is old enough to have studied many branches of medicine, but the locals shouldn't know that.
- Sympathetic Murder Backstory: Edward Cullen confesses to murdering a whole bunch of people shortly after he was turned, and Bella narrates that it is perfectly reasonable.
- Vehicular Sabotage: Charlie detached Bella's battery cables for fear Bella would sneak out of the house to see Edward.
- What a Piece of Junk: Charlie bought Billy Black's truck for Bella when she decided to move to Forks to live with him. It was a gift to show his appreciation for her moving in. Bella was hesitant to like it at first, worried that it would cost too much money to keep up and that it might be in bad condition, but as soon as she saw it, she knew it was perfect for her. It's a 1953 Chevy Pick-up truck.
- Wham Line:Jacob: Did you know Quiluetes are supposedly descended from wolves?
- You Killed My Father: James attempted this trope, video taping him torturing and killing Bella to make Edward seek revenge and start a "game" with him. Lucky for Bella, Edward was fast enough to avert it.
