To begin, I am a fan of the books and movies and have watched and read them many times. I have never seen a book shared with such intensity, and the first novel came out in 2005. The fervor with which it was read has been unparalleled except for the Harry Potter books. I gave my copy of the Twilight books to some of my friends, and before I knew it every girl was asking if she could borrow them too. Every teenage girl at school was either Team Edward or Team Jacob.

Overall the movies do a good job of bringing the story to life, with a lot of engaging action and dialogue. The cinematography of the films is beautiful with that blue and green filter, and the use of camera angles really pulls you into the action sequences. The supporting characters were fleshed out and I enjoyed their presence even more in the films than I did in the books.

However, in the movie I found Bella’s character to be more of a husk of a character. In the books, she is a fan of classic literature such as Jane Austen and Wuthering Heights, knows how to cook and keeps to herself because she is introverted. She's clumsy to a fault and loathes gym class as she is always dropping things and tripping over herself. She doesn’t pay much attention to her appearance and thinks she isn’t that pretty because she has brown eyes and hair and is pale as porcelain. She doesn’t see how stunning she looks, nor does she understand all of the new attention that is paid to her at her new school. She’s very feminine and curious about other people. Most of her conversations involve her asking questions of others because she likes to steer the conversation away from herself.

She’s a smart student as she was in several AP classes at her old school in Phoenix. She also seems to suffer from mild depression in her mood and thoughts. Once she moves to Forks to live with her dad, she frequently cooks for her him and herself and helps out around the house.

In the movie, she is just kind of there. No interests, no life, nada, with kind of an edgier vibe. Most of the conversations between her and Edward are silenced by a track of alternative rock, and you don’t get to hear their personalities or how they get attached to one another. Instead of Bella’s home cooking, she and her dad go to the local diner. Her intricate and fantastical dreams make up a significant part of the books, however, her dreams only made it into the movies near the end of the series.

Another important change was the glossing over of the sequence in "Twilight" where she gets lost in the city of Port Angeles. It is intensely altered and it shifts the whole tone of the story. In the movie, Bella is harassed by a group of belligerent intoxicated frat boys. In the book, she is stalked by a straight up serial killer, and it’s terrifying. I and many other women have had similar experiences and the book played out an all too familiar scene.

The danger that women live under is trivialized in the movie where the threat level is downgraded from a 10 to a 3. Realistically, in the situation in the movie, she could have just kept walking quickly back to the busy street and would have been fine. In the book, she’s cornered by a serial killer and probably rapist in a back alley far away from anyone who could find her. Edward is only able to find her because, as he is telepathic, can hear the thoughts of the men following her. She would have died and worse if Edward hadn’t found her.

This sequence makes his following her a lot less creepy because he actually saved her life. He can hear the thoughts of people concerning her, and he could tell that she would be in danger because she is attractive and a daydreamer. The sequence in the movie was not a life-threatening situation. The books would have ended near the beginning if Edward had not found her.

Her character is often criticized for just giving up and sitting there doing nothing after Edward leaves in the second book, "New Moon." However, her behavior speaks strongly to her having PTSD after being attacked by the rogue vampires at the end of the first book. Nightmares, social withdrawal, depression and seeking out dangerous situations. Edward's leaving was the final domino. Not only does her boyfriend leave but he removes any evidence of himself or his supernatural family by taking all of the photos away. This was meant to make it easier to forget him, but what it does is it messes with her mind. She starts to doubt her own memory and what she knows to be true. She continues to go to school but avoids everyone except for her friend Jacob.

Her condition deepens when she actively hallucinates that Edward is there. In the book, it is just his voice but in the movies, it includes actually seeing him in front of her. Bella is hardly just "sitting there" after the attack on her life and the Cullen's disappearing. Being heartbroken is a real condition that shouldn't be made light of. At that point in the story, she needed a serious intervention from a professional and even an antidepressant. Her family and friends don't do much to help her, in fact, most avoid her. This is, unfortunately, an all too realistic reaction.

Part of a reason for the popularity of the Twilight Saga is that she is a feminine female character. The only other equivalent character in popular culture in terms of being a shy, smart and sweet girl is Rory Gilmore of "Gilmore Girls." The insane popularity of the books speaks to the demand for female characters that are more realistic and relatable.

Bella's rich interior life was not translated onto fruition on the big screen, which focuses on the exterior elements of the plot. She is smart, feminine and resourceful, while having realistic insecurities and fears, and that is a big part of why the books went viral. However, her introverted personality is silenced in the movie by a lack of details about her interior life, interests or feelings.