Twilight and History Book

This book is very well done in many ways, has a lot of information and is well structured. It is easy to read for the most part and you notice that it doesn't have one but several authors.
How accurate the information is I cannot tell since I do not have the necessary background for it in most cases. So I would definitely never recommend this to anyone whom I think lacks the necessary critical mindset for it. Overall I would say the book is ok, but there are several problems in the different parts and chapters that make it a rather challenging book in my eyes, therefore I gave it all in all only 2 stars and not 3.

It starts early on, e.g. I would not call Twilight a world-building exercise that’s been thought out down to the last detail, including a body of imagined lore and myth. I think it's rather shallow and not thought through. And stating werewolves who can change form at a moment’s notice, liberated from the moon’s cycle as unlike any we’ve seen reveals the author's ignorance on the matter of werewolves. Sadly this shows later. While some authors of the different chapters seem very capable, others seem to have taken Meyer's world for really being a world-building exercise despite the fact that she (as the second last author pointed out) never even built a mythology for her vampires, unlike most other famous authors, and in many ways it's obvious that her invented character histories would be very unlikely for their alleged time.

I think the introduction already, with all its praise and the like, gives Meyer way more credit than she deserves. The historical backgrounds of her characters are incredibly flawed and rather informed by her own notions and desires than any actual history.

The first part the book has been very interesting (e.g. showing how Edward's alleged background doesn't fit the first two decades of the 20th century) and while in the second chapter the similarities between the werewolf-vampires treaty and the ones between the Quileute and the American Government are interesting I at once wonder what the author actually wants to say and I also think she gave Meyer way too much credit, sadly that is what many later authors did as well.
The last two chapters deal with the influence of fairy tales, especially Disney's sanitized versions, and the different courting practices at the time of Edward's human days. End while they are interesting, they are sadly not very memorable in my eyes.

Part 2 of the book was looking at all the Cullens and while the chapter about Jasper was interesting it seems the author does not write about the book Jasper but how he would have been in real life. The way she writes makes it look as though Meyer did tons of research for Jasper, when usually she sucks at stuff like this, as her books proved. The second chapter dealing with Emmet is at once very interesting and totally ridiculous. The third chapter on Alice tries to build a history of possible torture for Alice and confuses foretelling the future with symptoms of insanity. Also it states that her past enabled her to not feel the effects of the vampire venom when in truth her constructed past should have left her with brain damage and not higher pain tolerance. The fourth chapter about Carlisle itself provides evidence on how unlikely Carlisle background is for early to mid 17th century would have been, but treats it as likely and well thought through nonetheless.
All these chapters have a lot of historical information, no doubt, but they seem to assume that Meyer has thought everything through regarding the characters and seem to ignore how many things she got wrong and screwed up in her books. But if that amount of effort on her part were true she would have had such information in the books or in her official Twilight guide and of course she had none of them. Why? Just why? The info is interesting but it reads even more like a "look what would fit Meyer's book somehow" than an actual analysis
The fifth chapter of part 2 is also the second chapter on Jasper. But unlike the first four chapters this one doesn't have the underlying praise of Stephenie Meyer, neither the habit of constructing a fictional past. The chapter points out the similarities between the status of Jasper in the books and the status the American South has in peoples' minds these days. A very interesting and thought provoking chapter.
The last chapter of part 2 was a joke; it was so bad that I couldn't finish it. The author actually things the Cullens are a mix of different family types and things that they are not traditional and that among them there is male female equality. I think it is crap, the Cullens have a clear patriarchal structure and among the couples there is always one dominating the other. They are in line with older family structures where several families lived under the same roof. Kinda like fundamentalist mormons.

Things were a bit better again in the third part of the book. The chapter on similarities between the Volturi and Medici is interesting and very informative, but sadly, like so many chapters in this book gives Meyer too much credit. It is based on the premise that everything important in her books was thought through but as her Twilight Guide suggests, nothing could be further from the truth. And the author of this chapter does not seem to know that and it shows. The chapter shows in my mind what the Volturi could have been if Meyer had chosen to have them be more than comic book villains in her 4th book.
The third chapter on where the Cullens actually fit historical and folklore wise was my favorite of the book. Well written, doesn't claim that Twilight is thought through and shows the many errors it has and also how new the folkloric vampire actually is.
After the previous chapter the last one is pretty much a disappointment. The author has no idea how unrealistic many of the Cullen's backgrounds are and goes the way part 2 of the book did, by treating Meyer's world as though it was well structured and well researched.

The problem with this book overall is that it makes the Twilight series look much better written and thought through than it actually is. Had Stephenie Meyer been a capable writer all these things hinted in this book could have been true and the Twilight series actually been worthy of such deep historical and character analysis, but the fact is that Meyer did a very poor job and so all this attention to the Meyerverse remains unjustified. If future writers want to do it better, take a look at this book, it contains a lot of good things, but sadly most of its information and praise is wasted on a book series that simply isn't worth it.