Stephenie Meyer: The Unauthorized Biography of the Creator of the Twilight Saga | Marc Shapiro | Book Review

Stephenie Meyer the unauthorised biographySUBJECT: 4/5
RESEARCH: 3/5
WRITING STYLE: 3/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

Having been translated into 38 languages around the globe, her series has sold 120 million copies worldwide. Her fourth book “Breaking Dawn” had sold a record of 1.3 million copies on the first day alone. She is none other than Stephenie Meyer, the author of the much-acclaimed “Twilight” series.

Marc Shapiro, in Stephenie Meyer: The Unauthorized Biography, talks about the life of the famous cult author.

The book, in a nutshell, is an okay read for somebody who has not read or seen the author’s interviews with various media outlets. But apart from that, it doesn’t offer its readers much.

From a research point of view, the book does not come across as an impressive one. Given that for a biography research holds the key to its success, the book will hardly stand out as a good one.

The author has mostly referred to the TV, magazines and other online interviews that the author has done. He has also, in many instances, quoted Stephenie Meyer from the blog entries on her website.

What comes across as the biggest gap is that the author has hardly got in touch with anyone and thus haven’t quoted anyone he met personally.

Even the pictures which illustrate the book are mostly about the movie and can easily be located on the internet.

Apart from the minuscule mention of a college professor and a member of a band which she liked, there is a strong feeling of a lack of personal touch in the book.

For anybody can research the internet and find out about the lady in question but to know her through her close circle is a different thing altogether.

For me, a biography means you know all about the person written about and that means how she was in her childhood and in the subsequent phases of her life. How is she with her family? With her friends? Husband and children?

But surprisingly apart from stating the simple fact that Stephenie loves spending time with her family, there is not much to be learned about her personal life here.

I very strongly believe that a couple of interviews with her close family or acquaintances would have helped a great deal. But then that is what an unauthorised biography really is!

The plus point of the book, on the other hand, lies in the fact that if you are interested in reading and knowing about your favourite author then you don’t have to drool all over the net and pick something from here and something from there.

You get all of it in a condensed, summarised and nicely planned format. The other thing I liked about the book was the chapter on Forks and the description of her short stint with the music video direction.

Thus, all in all, Stephenie Meyer: The Unauthorized Biography is an okay read and I would recommend it to only those readers who are absolutely in love with Stephenie or her books.

The rest can give it a skip for it doesn’t really serve the true purpose of a biography.

Leave a Comment