Twilight: I read it so that you don’t have to

I was contemplating whether or not I should post this review at all. I wrote it a while ago and kept it in queue, wondering whether or not I should actually publish it. But alas, I have nothing else to fill out the Friday spot so I figured I might as well post it, and deal with the consequences later.

You see, there is this series of books out there that is making all the teenage girls pee in their pants, makes all the 20-30 year old females squeal with joy, and all makes the middle aged housewives write slash fanfics like there is no tomorrow. This thing is called Twilight, and if you happen to be of female persuasion it will pull you in like a drug. Essentially it is a series of books about teenagers, vampires and high school shit. Yeah, kinda like Buffy, but without Joss Whedon’s witt, humor and penchant for brutally killing important characters.

I did something shameful – I read one of these books. I probably should not admit to it, but, it happened. Somehow my penis did not fall off, and I did not grow a vagina. Or at least not yet.

Here is how it went down: my cousin pretty much inhaled the whole series in one sitting. She was liquifying these novels, heating them on a spoon, and injecting them directly into her bloodstream. Once she was done with them and she handed me the first book saying it was the best thing she read since forever. Better than Hardy Plotter, she said! I protested, saying that since I have this thing called the Y chromosome I may be physically unable to get through it. She rolled her eyes at me, and threw the book on my desk saying I should give it a chance when I grow up.

After she left, I swiftly removed the book from my desk, and concealed it under a stack of papers. I squeezed it between my copies of Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion and dumped some other stuff on top of it. I mean, I didn’t want to have to explain why I have this contraband book in my room. It would be embarrassing.

Then something happened – I ran out of stuff to read. I ordered like 5 books on Amazon the day before, so there was no point for me to go to the book store. I just had to wait for the shipment to arrive via snail mail. After a day or two of this, I figured that I might as well dig out that copy Twilight and check it out as I wait. My cousin loved it, all the ladies at work can’t stop talking about it, and someone in Hollywood decided to turn it into a movie. It couldn’t be totally horrible, could it? Oh wait, no! What the hell am I saying. My cousin, coworkers and Hollywood have very, very different tastes in literature than me. I like smart, thought provoking and difficult prose that will profoundly fuck up your brain – in a good way. They, on the other hand like… Light reading.

So I knew Twilight would be the type of literature that allows you to put your brain in standby mode and just cruise through it. But hey, they say that you should read a shitty book every once in a while. If all you read are masterpieces, then you sort of lose the reference frame. Sampling some trash will give you a new appreciation the good stuff you have read in the past.

Besides, I figured I will be able to trash it in a review. Bad books usually let you write funny reviews, and I don’t think I had one of those in a while. So I did it out of boredom, and out of my love for you my readers. I did it for you! When your wife or girlfriend demands that you read it, or demands that you see the movie with her (oh, yeah – there is a movie for each book apparently) you know what you are getting into. You will be prepared. See what sacrifices I am making for you?

I have to stress that it’s a very girly book. Not that I have read many girly books, but I imagine that this is how these things go. You can figure out who is the target demographic for this novel, by counting how many pages are devoted to shit like high school drama, shopping, cooking and of course love. But not the real love, but it’s immature 3 letter version that is spelled with a U and a V at the end.

There is a short introduction which familiarizes you with the main character – Bella, who is a bright and incredibly attractive, new girl in town. And when I’m saying “incredibly attractive” I mean it. Apparently she is an embodiment of female perfection – Venus personified. As soon as she shows up all the boys in her new high school immediately fall hopelessly in love with her. But since she is supposed to be likable, she is also portrayed as shy, a bit clumsy, absent minded and introverted. She is completely uninterested in all the attention she is getting and she is happy to hook all of her admirers with her friends.

In other words she is a perfect woman. Beautiful without being stuck up. Incredibly smart, friendly and benevolent and non-threatening to lesser females in the pack. She is the most popular girl in school – object of male desire, and female envy by the sheer virtue of her existence. She did not earn this distinction, she does not desire it – and yet it is heaped on her from above as if by some benevolent deity. She is the quintessential Marry Sue character.

Few pages into the story she meets the only guy in school who is not completely smitten by her. Quite opposite – he doesn’t even seem to like her. He gives her a cold shoulder, and generally makes it very clear he wants nothing to do with her. Her usual strategy of not having to do anything to attract hopeless devotion fails miserably. So, she immediately becomes irrevocably obsessed with this mysterious guy who is somehow able to resist her.

The poor girl spends the next two chapters loosing sleep over this guy. She wants him, she hates him, she doesn’t want anything to do with him, she can’t wait to see him again. You know, the normal irrational, illogical bullshit that is the staple of every teenage romance. In the meantime, all the other boys in the school form a queue and take turns asking her out.

Fast forward few more chapter swooning, longing, hating, stalking and obsessing and BOOM! He turns out he is a 100 years old vampire who for some reason can read minds. And here we all thought he was just some emo dude but no – he is a vampire with striking good looks, mysterious demeanor and bad boy personality who also has telepathic superpowers.

It also turns out that he is not immune to Bella’s charms. In fact, it was quite the opposite – he was more attracted to her than anyone else, but he was afraid to get close because of the vampire thing. Also, Bella’s aura of female awesomeness somehow interferes with his mind reading powers which makes her mysterious and doubly attractive to him.

If you happened to catch the True Blood series on HBO, it’s actually exactly like that. Just the mind reader thing is reversed. But the whole “OMG I want to sex you because I can’t read your mind and one of us is a vampire” angle plays out exactly the same. This is interesting, because True Blood was based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries book series by Charlaine Harris which was published in 2001. Stephanie Meyer released her first book in 2005. Coincidence? I don’t think so. All I’m saying is that I think I know where she got the idea.

Anyways, plagiarism accusations wouldn’t stick because Meyer’s vampires sparkle in the sun. Yeah, they don’t actually burn like are supposed to. If you see one of them in daylight, they will just look… gay-ish. Or rather they look as if they spent the whole night rolling around in a pile of strippers – they seem to be shit covered with glitter that can’t be washed off. That’s apparently why they don’t go out during the day much. Cause you know – glitter ain’t a joke. I shit you not! Fortunately the glitter thing can’t be seen when it’s cloudy so they can go to school on rainy days as normal. Conveniently, most days in the book are rainy days.

It never really ceases to rain in that town, unless it is appropriate to the plot. It is a plot controlled weather system! I just could not figure out what happens to all that water which is constantly pouring off the sky. Normally, a persistent downpour like that would slowly turn the place into a soggy swap, wash out all the good soil and cause major mud slides all over the place. Not to mention flooding. If it rains for 3 days straight here, our local stream floods, the pond in the park becomes a lake which takes over the whole high school football field, the sewage system starts to back up, and I get water seeping in through the walls in my basement. In the magical town of Forks, WA where the book takes place it rains every day, and none of that shit happens. Maybe it has something to do with the vampires – I don’t know.

So yeah, there are bunch of Vampires in town and they all go to the local high school. I mean, what could be a better way to spend an eternity than to re-experience the bullshit that was high school all over again. Once she is done with the big reveal, Stephanie Meyer gets tired of teenage angst she switches gears and goes into what I can only describe as “George Lucas Love Story”. Let me explain. Do you remember the Star Wars prequels? Think back to those movies, and reflect upon how it depicted the romance between Anakin and Padme.

You see, George Lucas doesn’t really know subtlety. He actually wouldn’t recognize subtlety if it jumped out of the bushes and pissed on his head. So his way of depicting romance is to continuously draw attention to it, point at it, then have characters spell out exactly what they feel straight into the camera. “Anakin! My love to you is like a lovely river of loving love!” explains Padme. “I love you more than all the stars in the sky” responds Anakin, and they go frolic in a meadow while holding hands. Then they talk about their love some more. It comes of forced, ostentatious and fake.

Stephanie Meyer does exactly the same thing – up to and including the meadow frolicking scene. I shit you not – they do go into a meadow, and talk about love. Then they go home and talk about their love some more. And they use phrases such as “I love you so much”, “You are my life”, “If something happened to you I could not go on” and so on, ad nauseum. It was actually difficult to read these parts, because I was rolling my eyes so hard that I thought they will fall out of my head.

The sparkling-lover-boy turns out to be one of the good vampires. He and his buddies don’t actually feed on men, because they are total pussies and have no self control. Instead they go into the forest and suck on mountain goats, squirrels and other woodland creatures. Which I believe is supposed to make us like them.

As I mentioned Stephanie Meyer is a stranger to subtlety, so she can’t do foreshadowing for shit. From the get-go you know that there are also other, less friendly vampires out there, and that they are going to show up sooner or later fuck shit up. That’s exactly what happens.

Remember how I said that Bella is pretty much a irresistible embodiment of female perfection that no male in a 5 mile radius can’t resist? Well, one of the new vampires in town turns out to be a dude and when he finds himself within that 5 mile radius he decides that he must have her in a worst way. And we are talking about vampires “the worst way” involves blood drinking, disembowelment and corpsification. Hilarity ensues.

I mean, drama. Drama ensues, but it is pretty hilarious. It includes that time tested plot twist when the bad guy goes “You must come alone” and then the hero is actually dumb enough to follow that instruction and has to be rescued via shitty Deus Ex Machina device.

So that’s Twilight for you. The plot is simple, schematic and predictable. There are really no plot twists to speak of and it ends with a unexpected, but predicable deus ex machina rescue. Characters are paper thin, and tend to semaphore their feelings and intentions ostentatiously. In fact, only the two of them get any kind of attention. The humans are pretty much defined by how much they pine for, or envy Bella and they don’t really matter in the story. The vampires do play small supporting roles, but they have pretty standard personality templates: a big strong jock, offbeat hipster girl, evil bitch who hates Bella for no reason (just like every other girl in school btw – but they don’t all show it outwardly) and etc. Their distinguishing features are their vampire superpowers that are used as a crutch every time Meyer writes herself into a corner. One is a precog, one is an empath and so on. Whatever is useful at the moment, one of them will probably have it. They are essentially mobile plot devices.

The writing is… Competent, but simplistic. Meyer is a stranger to metaphor and she only seems to use the most literal and simplistic similes. If you like verbal pyrotechnics, or a clever turn of phrase you will be disappointed. Stephanie Meyer simply isn’t that keen of a wordsmith.

But I’m not alone in noticing this. Let me quote someone with much more credibility than me – Mr. Stephen King. In an interview with USA Weekend he compared her to Rowling (of Harry Potter fame) and pretty bluntly said:

Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.

He is right. She is a pretty lousy writer. That doesn’t stop her from being successful. Most people who read these books remark on how easy and accessible it was. Meyer writes in a language that the gossip magazine reading masses can understand. Simple, blunt, unsophisticated, sterile and literal. It ain’t pretty, but it sells books apparently.

The book sucked. I was silly and childish and immature. But then again I’m not the target reader. Teenage girls will probably get a kick of the overblown sensuality and over dramatization. Maybe…

Here is the thing – people compare these books to Harry Potter. I read one of the Rowling books, and I didn’t find them enthralling or original. But they were far more imaginative, and smarter than Twilight. Rowling did succeed in creating a quirky world of her own, coined several neologisms that entered common parlance and did somehow manage to sneak a commentary on a human condition into her novels. She wrote about friendship, rivalry, growing up and etc. Well, for the most part – there wasn’t much of it there, but she did try. Meyer is more interested in holding hands, and kissing dudes covered in sparkly glitter. The relationship of the main characters dwarfs and overshadows everything else. Supporting characters fade in and out without leaving a lasting impression on the reader. There seems to be no underlying message, or commentary. The book is one dimensional

Surprisingly, hen I read it I did not totally hate it. It does have some limited appeal and may provide you with some degree of entertainment. It’s not satisfying though. It’s not enthralling, and the story is entirely forgettable. It’s a “light reading” high school romance novel with some vampires thrown in for good measure. The book’s success I believe stems from it’s mediocrity. It appeals to the lowest common denominator, and it scratches a particular itch. It delivers a love story that tries really hard to deliver almost tactile sensual experience. It is almost erotic in the way it describes the physical interaction between the two young lovers, but it never crosses the line. It steers clear of explicit sexuality remaining non-threatening, non-explicit and clean enough to be appropriate for readers of all ages. That, I believe is the hook. People don’t read it for the story, for the characters or for the commentary on human condition – they read it for the clean, but very touchy-feely romance.

That’s it – I read it so that you don’t have to. Someone will doubtlessly find this via Google, disagree with me, will tell me that I suck, and then point out my spelling and grammar mistakes. That is to be expected since the books have an established fan base.

Also, I didn’t read any other books in this series. Stephanie Mayer might have gotten better over time – I wouldn’t know. Angry fangirls should keep in mind that this review was based solely on Twilight.

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31 Responses to Twilight: I read it so that you don’t have to

  1. Gunni FRANCE Mozilla Firefox Linux says:

    Hahahahaha! Mate, that’s a great review. Quite a coincidence as well, I watched Twilight earlier today, the only goal being to rip it to pieces as a promotion for a horror movie blog I do (in icelandic, thus incomprehensible to almost all, which is also why I’m not shamelessly plugging it).

    I agree with many of your points, though your description of Belle as mrs. Venus was something I missed. What got me the most was the Groundhog Day like existance of Edward and the rest of the vampires. I mean, he’s a hundred years old and has probably been doing this for a long time. How f***ing nihilistic would be after 84 years in high school?

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  2. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux Terminalist says:

    @Gunni: Maybe the movie didn’t emphasize it so much, but in the book, pretty much every male mentioned by name is so into her, it’s not even funny. The only exception to this rule are the two other male vampires (Edward’s “siblings”).

    She is never described as such, and Stephanie Meyer purposefully makes her behave as if she didn’t know what all of this attention is about. But the fact remains – for some reason she is irresistible to most characters.

    I found the HS thing pointless. I mean why bother – they all could have easily pretended to be 20-somethings – in fact at multiple points people mention how “mature” some of them look. I don’t know – maybe they all needed a set of fresh legit HS diplomas cause the ones they had were from like mid-20’s or something.

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  3. Ian Clifton UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux says:

    Next time you get an opportunity to read a book like this, you have my permission, as a reader, to decline and say, “My penis is too valuable! F’ my readers!” But I will admit, this is the second Twilight review I’ve read, and both were hilarious.

    Just to give you a little info about Forks, the town is not the kind of place you would want to live. It’s very green, but it does rain a hell of a lot, and there is nothing to do there. It is important to note, though, that rain in Washington State is much lighter than most other places. In the South, if it rains, twenty minutes later there will be standing water on the roads. I went to high school in Ocean Shores, where it often rained so lightly that I played basketball in it. Forks gets a bit heavier of rain, but the numbers really come from it being continuous. I haven’t read the Twilight book(s), but I heard the author wrote about Forks before ever having actually been there.

    The high school has about 350 students (maybe a bit less), and almost half are on free/reduced lunch. I would bet the town’s economy revolves more around Twilight now than anything else…. because there isn’t much else there. It was a big logging town decades back, but that has since changed.

    The reason they couldn’t be 20-somethings is because those don’t exist in Forks ;) Haha, okay, so some do, but most people move on very quickly. The town’s population is a bit above 3k.

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  4. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux Terminalist says:

    [quote post=”2848″]The reason they couldn’t be 20-somethings is because those don’t exist in Forks [/quote]

    LOL!

    Actually, I assumed the town was fictional. Didn’t care enough to look it up. I bet they are have a blooming Twilight based micro-economy now. Do they actually shoot the movies there, or do they do in California using a “gloomy” filter on the camera and some sprinkler system to simulate rain – you know, standard Hollywood stuff. :P

    Btw, if you don’t mind me asking how come you know so much about Forks? Did you live near by / visit that neck of the woods? Or did you just use Wikipedia?

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  5. Ian Clifton UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux says:

    I do mind! Never, ever ask me questions on teh internets!!

    The nearest I lived was roughly 100 miles south of there. A classmate in high school was also from Forks (though I really can’t remember if our teams ever played against theirs). I’ve been up around the area a few times, usually to check out the rain forest, mountains, etc. There’s also a place called Ruby Beach that is probably about half an hour south of Forks that I have been to a few times (not sure if it’s in Google Maps or not, but it’s a little north of Kalaloch, WA), which is a nice location for a date day trip due to the uniquely colored starfish. Girls like pretty starfish almost as much as they like vampires ;)

    The school info I know more from doing research for one of my ed. courses a while back. Washington has the OSPI website, which is pretty transparent about all the school info, so it’s great for researching schools in the state.

    No idea where they did the movies, but, judging based on typical Hollywood, I would guess not anywhere near the real setting. California sounds likely, haha.

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  6. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux Terminalist says:

    Heh, the book actually does talk about a beach with funky tidal pools filled with colorful starfish. That’s where they have the Indian reservation full of Warevolves. Or they will be Warevolvesin the next book.

    Anyway, I you sort of know, cause all these dudes want to talk about is wolves and only take breaks to pine for Bella and worry that she hangs out with the vampire.

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  7. Gunni FRANCE Mozilla Firefox Linux says:

    @Luke: No, now that you mention it, every single male character in the movie that wasn’t Belle’s dad or one of the vampires tried to ask her out at some point. At the time I racked it up to her being new in town and therefore somewhat exciting, but it sounds like there’s more to it than that in the book.

    @Ian: Seriously? That town exists? Have glimmer sales there gone up astronomically since the publication/release of Twilight?

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  8. astine UNITED STATES Google Chrome Windows says:

    Everyone I know who’s read that book thinks that it is a vapid piece of trash. This includes women. Personally I hate the whole motif of vampires as ‘sexy.’ There used to be a time when they were the disembodies spirits of evil men which preyed on their former families and were essentially evil. Now they symbolize forbidden sex and other ‘wonders.’

    On another note, I’n noticing your new ads.

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  9. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    @astine: The ads are still the same – it’s adsense. This is one of these examples where Google’s context aware ads kick in. The post is about Twilight, so all the adds are about Twilight.

    It’s sort of missing the point though, since I doubt most people reading this review would be interested in Twilight merchandise, or the casting call for the new movie. Google is not smart enough to be to tell a negative review from a positive one. :)

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  10. Anetta UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    Ok so I’m the cousin who read the series.. and yes I’m a 20 something female who really liked the books.. yes it’s true they were more for the high school teenager but I still enjoyed them.. I’m not ashamed.. I’m more of a Phillipa Gregory reader, but I’ll still read other books by Stephenie Meyer.. :)

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  11. Elysa UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Mac OS says:

    A lurker here… Thank you for writing this. I read the first book because my sister simply wouldn’t stop talking about the series, and since I’m a fast reader, I thought reading a trite book in a couple hours as a way to bargain for my peace of mind for the rest of the week would be an OK trade off. Well, it turned out to be a truly terrifying experience for someone who loves literature, for all the reasons you mentioned above.

    Incidentally, Forks, WA is really that gloomy (take it from a native Washingtonian). It rains often, and when it doesn’t rain, the sky is usually dark and cloudy. It’s an accurate and appropriate setting…

    The movie was filmed primarily in Portland, Oregon. But Forks, WA has enjoyed much tourism and attention as a result of the book series. (Hey, anything to save an old town in this hard economic time, right?) Apparently, the town makes a lot of money by hosting Twilight tours, which guide visitors to all the places supposedly mentioned in the books.

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  12. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    @Anetta: Nothing wrong with liking it! :) Anyways, thanks for giving it to me – it was a fun review. Also, I found out that Matthew Baldwin (of Defective Yeti fame) is the only other straight male in the universe who also blogged his twilight experience which puts me in excellent company. Btw, his review is better. :)

    @Elysa: You are welcome!

    I really can’t imagine how incredibly boring these “Twilight Tours” would be. I mean, what do they show the tourists? The high school? A house in the woods? The only place worth seeing would probably be that beach with the starfish – which incidentally is not in Forks. :P

    But good on them. If I lived there, I’d totally try to get onto the Twilight tourism racket before the interest fades away.

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  13. astine UNITED STATES Google Chrome Windows says:

    @Luke Maciak: Oh, I understand how internet ads work, I just always think that it’s funny when this sort of thing happens.

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  14. Steve CANADA Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    My girlfriend’s daughter has read the series, and even went to the movie…twice. Sigh. My son had to take his girlfriend to it, so I went to see Benjamin Button with my girlfriend and her son instead. Okay, that movie dragged, but whatever. Twilight started later and thus finished after BB, so I snuck/walked into the last 25-30 minutes of the film. The whole time I sat in the dark watching this drivel, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could possibly find anything positive to say about it. It was utter crap…tired, stilted dialog, dumb plot twist, and then it was, thankfully, over.

    If this is, as intended, marketed to teenaged girls, this doesn’t say much about the mental state of said teenaged girls. The inability to distinguish between quality and crap is probably reason #1 why so many teenaged girls end up dating “assholes” :)

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  15. Rishabh INDIA Mozilla Firefox Linux says:

    Oh my.
    I couldn’t even stand your review. It was so boring.
    And hey, I’d never even heard of this series till now.

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  16. Victoria UKRAINE Mozilla Firefox Mac OS says:

    Gee, nice review. I haven’t read the series myself but I watched the movie and posted about it on my blog. The darn post gets all the attention, I don’t know how those T. fans find it. One even registered to tell me how wrong I am about the books :)

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  17. Luke Maciak UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows Terminalist says:

    @Victoria: Heh! They probably purposefully search for negative Twilight reviews they could get upset about or something.

    I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m sort of intrigued. Traditionally, movie adaptations tend worse than their original literary sources. With Twilight being so bad, I sort of want to see how much worse could they make it on film. :P

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  20. Jess UNITED STATES Internet Explorer Windows says:

    I would hug you if I could. Really.

    Also, I want to add to that bit about Meyer getting her ideas off another series: I’d always supected that the story on how the werewolves came into existence [New Moon] was not her own story. It was the only part of the entire series that I liked, but I still knew that she’d ripped it off. It simply didn’t compute that the woman had written a plot so pitiful only to come us with a tale that is quite brilliant. Fast forward to about a month ago, I’m on her blog [because some days I like making myself angry. **shrug**] and see she’s done a Q&A, in which she addresses the fact that she used actual Native American myths/beliefs for that particular section.

    I can give a link to the Q&A, though I’m sure you could find it quite easily. If not, just send me and email at jesslynne93@aol.com

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  21. Lamis CANADA Internet Explorer Windows says:

    hahaha i loved this review! at some points i actually laughed out loud. despited being a girl and all, i couldnt not find a single thing that i disagreed with u upon. my sister made me read the books and id just started the summer holidays and really needed something (legal) to help put my brain in “standby mode” it was a bit annoying at times but other than that it was kind of entertaining. i hate how everybodys going all gaga over it :( thats the most disapointing thing for me. thanks for the witty review
    p.s. they do NOT get any better-only sortof weirder :S

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  22. Ashley UNITED STATES Safari Mac OS says:

    Oh, no, not all of us of the female persuasion are addicted to Twilight. I will admit to loving Harry Potter, but that’s more of an ‘I grew up with it’ thing.

    No, my Dad apparently saw the first movie and for some deluded reason decided it was actiony and cool, and wanted to see the second movie. I, his twenty year old daughter, begrudgingly agreed to go with him, then enjoyed rubbing it in his face when it was as pitiful as I expected. Although, it was a pretty movie— the CGI, particularly for the wolves, is very good, but, uh… I like some plot to go along with the imagery.

    Nah, I think you hit it all right on the head. Give me Wells or Heinlein or Rowling or anybody.

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  23. Ivy AUSTRALIA Safari Mac OS says:

    Actually I haven’t read the Twilight series but I’ve read some of the Southern Vampire series, and its trashy, irritating but strangely engrossing at the same time. but overall after reading it I had to read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series for therapy. So thanks for the review I might not subject myself to twilight…I might have to pick up War and Peace to recover if I do. Incidentally, the heroine Sookie Stackhouse is also irresistible, but to vampires. Apparently its in her blood which isn’t explained till book 6 or something in the series. So while we’re reading book 3, trying to figure out what the hell makes her so bloody irresistible(no pun intended) to 100-1000 year old greek/viking god vampires. Since all she does is go to vampire clubs, puts herself in mortal danger, gets her dress ripped/ ruined and basically has the living daylights punched out of her only to be rescued by her vampire suitors at the last minute …sound familiar???? Strangely, like bad reality TV, so bad you can’t look away, I am reading the 4th book in the series, albeit a library copy because I refuse to spend good money on trash.

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  24. Desert UNITED STATES Netscape Navigator Mac OS says:

    Nice. I totally agree with this. Although I just have to say, it does rain a lot in western Washington. I live more inland than Forks, but there’s still tons of rain. It was raining a few minutes ago, actually. It stopped, but I expect it to start again within the next hour.

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  25. drea UNITED STATES Internet Explorer Windows says:

    I got 5 chapters into the first book and stopped because I couldn’t take the repetativness and bad writing any more.
    Twilight is one of the few annoying fads that has managed to make me passionate in my hatred; usually when I dislike something I just ignore it until it goes away, but it’s not possible to do that with Twilight. It’s ruined the image of the vampire in pop culture and made me lose what little faith I had in the girls of my generation and those beneath it. Bella is the most anti-femministic character ever concieved, she goes back and forth between being a stuck up, pretentious bitch and being totally spineless, almost never thinks for herself, (on the rare occasion she does it always ends in disaster which ofcoarse leads to her having to be rescued by the nearest hot guy) and has an irrational, immediate dislike of all other females, unless their vampires, and millions of young girls want desprately to be like her… *sigh*

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  26. Amy UNITED KINGDOM Internet Explorer Windows says:

    @ Rishabh:
    You’ve never heard of the series? maybe you should go outside or something coz its pretty fucking famous. And i’m not standing up for it, it’s shit. But you dont have to be a cunt about it, why dont you try and write something better?

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  27. Jaz UNITED STATES Internet Explorer Windows says:

    God, I hate the books. The best part of the movies, was when the werewolves were ripping the vampires apart. These books make me embarresed to be a chick. I think Bella needs counciling, I really do. If you ditch your friends and gain suicidal tendencies because your bf left you, you need help. The other thing I hated, is the fact was that she was totally dependent on Edward, and thought that him sneeking into her room to stand in the corner of said room to watch her sleep was romantic and not creepy and/or stalkerish.
    All in all, cheap plot, see-through charcters

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  28. Maddie UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    OMFG I love you. Thank you so much. Just so you know…I’m a sixteen year old girl who regretted reading the series. I read Les Miserables in sixth grade and went onto bigger and better books. So not ALL teenage girls are sucked in by the sparklepires.

    P.S. I read all of them because my friend made me when I lost a bet. Meyer gets worse.

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  29. Maddie UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    @ Amy:
    She’s obviously a pissed twilight fangirl, don’t waste your time on her.

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  30. I-Just-Died-Laughing. Google Chrome Windows says:

    You,Sir, are epic.
    You deserve an award for bravery.

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  31. Ashlynne Laynne UNITED STATES Google Chrome Windows says:

    Wow! That was pretty darn hilarious. Hope you don’t read my book and slash my throat!

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