And that seemed to be the end of the saga until May of this year, when Meyer resuscitated her dormant fandom by announcing that after 12 long years, fans would finally be able to get their hands on Midnight Sun, which retells the events of the first Twilight book from the perspective of vampire paramour Edward Cullen, rather than the series’ usual narrator, Bella Swan.

Below, in an edited and condensed conversation, Slate staffers and recovering Twi-hards Rachelle Hampton and Rebecca Onion discuss reading Midnight Sun and what light it sheds on the rest of the series?

I don’t think I could have avoided reading the books even if I wanted to, which luckily, I didn’t.

I think if I wasn’t Team Jacob before, this book would have turned me.

But at the same time, he’s a stuffed shirt, and reading Midnight Sun is like being stuck inside a stuffed shirt’s brain for 10 hours?

Hampton: Wow that is exactly what repels me from him (and Bella).

You get to see the part where Edward decides to sneak into Bella’s room and watch her sleep, several nights in a row, before they even really KNOW each other … from his POV.

Hampton: Yes, Meyer seems to think that accountability means addressing how toxic your behavior is and then continuing to do it anyway, but it’s fine now because you know it’s wrong.

Hampton: I am not a person who thinks that fictional characters need to model how to behave in the world, but I will say that as someone who read this series as a teen, it sets a really, really bad example of what a relationship needs to look like.

But, like, Edward keeps being like “you’re 17, you don’t know what you really want” and I’m like … he’s correct honestly!

Speaking of, Midnight Sun really made me think her mother is absolutely terrible.

Bella always described her mom as sort of fancy-free and superfun, but Edward sees the way Renée reverses roles and makes Bella into the caregiver, and isn’t really on board with it.

Hampton: Honestly, it just made me think about Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women, which is a book I didn’t actually enjoy, but one of the characters is groomed by her high school teacher through Twilight?

It’s honestly stunning when you read it through that lens, the ways that Edward makes Bella feel like they’re equal enough for a relationship but not equal enough to make her own decisions!

Sometimes Edward is reading a mind with visions!—I still couldn’t stop reading, especially when I was first diving into it, in the first 300 pages or so.

Hampton: But I wasn’t exactly invested in how Edward saw or fell in love with Bella.

Hampton: This is directly in contradiction with the romance novels I’ve been reading where I was like, OK when do we see the main couple in a room together again?.

Hampton: Yes, exactly! But I think that’s also because Meyer largely chose to do a scene-for-scene remake of Twilight. Despite the extra 100-odd pages, there’s really not much that happens in Midnight Sun that we didn’t already know about.!

Hampton: And Meyer seemed almost bored during the part where Edward and co. are tracking James, the big bad of the book who’s got it in for Bella. That’s really the only part we never saw any glimpse of before, because Bella and Edward separated at that point..

Onion: I totally agree about the parts of this that are about his family, though. His family was the worst part of the movies. They were like barely meaningful; you just kind of skimmed over them with your eyes. And even in the Bella POV books, there wasn’t much there. I found the backstory parts for especially Emmett and also Jasper more interesting in this book than before. Love Emmett!!.

Onion: I guess it makes sense that obviously Edward would have more to say about them than Bella. I also felt like I “got” Carlisle, Edward’s father figure, a lot more from this book..

Hampton: Esme remains a cardboard cutout of a mom. I just want to know if the Cullen family has Black friends..

OK, question: Do you think this book will a) turn people on to Twilight who never knew about it/consumed it before, or b) remain interesting only to those who, like us, spent the 2000s mainlining this crap, or c) neither, be a flop.

Hampton: I don’t know if this book will turn anyone onto the series, though I also think it’s nearly impossible to have existed in the 2000s and 2010s without having consumed Twilight in some ways?

When I heard this book was coming out, despite how much I truly think Twilight is trash, I knew I was gonna spend real money on it?

Hampton: On a slightly serious note, despite how irrevocably Twilight changed me—including by teaching me the word irrevocably—Midnight Sun mostly made me very happy that the YA space no longer looks like it does in 2005.

Onion: Bella is so white, it’s part of what Edward loves about her.

That does bring me to a final point, which is that if people are going to spend money on this book, they should spend some time reading up on the Quileute Tribe which “has been forced to negotiate the rights to their own oral histories, ancient regalia and mask designs, and even the sanctity of their cemetery” in the aftermath of Twilight.