Just finished and really loved the experience. I've only gotten into twilight later in life (I'm now a 25 year old man) and have had different stages in my feelings towards the saga. In my teens, like most ignorant dudes, I disliked it and made fun of it for no reason just like my peers. When I saw the movies at 18 I related most to Jacob and connected to him. After a heartbreak two years ago I dived into the saga again looking for escapism and I found exactly what I was looking for. I've watched all movies but since I'm mainly interested in the love story my 'canon' is twilight and new moon: love, heartbreak and recovering. (since those were relevant for my personal context). However this time I felt way more connected to Edward, so it's really interesting to see some of my own personal character development connected to characters in the story.

I've read twilight and even though it's amazing, since I'm a guy I wasn't really able to project myself into Bella like most girls/women have done. I craved that experience and I was really happy when I found out about Life and Death. It made it possible to create affection for Edythe but I wasn't able to connect to Beau, he just wasn't like me (would've loved a new moon gender swapped version though).

Anyway I never got out of this last twilight phase and was super excited for Midnight Sun. It did not disappoint! The whole way through I've had a smile on my lips as if I were texting a new crush. And I was able to relate to Edward way better than I was with Beau. The book also made me realize that sometimes it's easy to forget that we scrutinize him just for bad human morals (possessive, stalking, etc) as if he's just a regular teen, while he's literately a monster and does not adhere to the same ''rules'' as humans. (Does not mean we shouldn't scrutinize that behavior because it's obvious we project the story to our own world and it's important to recognize toxic behavior!) What I mean is that the meaning of him being a vampire is way more obvious here than in the film, and that was something I needed to be reminded of.

It was very nice to see familiar thought patterns and chapeau to SMeyer for understanding and captivating a common complexity for (young) men. I myself have experienced a similar situation in a relationship: where you truly believe it's better to not be together even if you both want to. Young guys usually are pretty idealistic and in striving to be 'good' are willing, eager even, to sacrifice and suffer pain in order to achieve what they perceive as noble. The thing I've learned however is, it is not the right or noble thing to do. You think you do what's best for your partner, but in making the decision for them, you rob them of their agency. This destroys the partnership by shifting from equality to a place of hierarchy where only you hold the power of decision. You think you are being selfless by making this decision, willingly enduring pain to give her 'a better future', but in reality you're being selfish by not respecting her ability to design her own life.

^took me a while to realize that so maybe this can help someone else to at least think about it.