This summer I worked at Hachette Book Group, the publishing house that publishes Twilight. I can’t tell you how much Twilight marketing material I’ve sent to Egypt and South Korea - it’s HUGE.

I, too, was curious about what the big deal was, so I read all four of them. And indeed, I enjoyed reading them, but kind of in the way I enjoy picking scabs. It was kind of a fun storyline to follow, but the characters kind of sucked, so there wasn’t any serious emotional attachment or anything. Stephenie Meyer isn’t a great writer by any means, but she can tell a story.

Anyway, my theory about why it’s appealing to girls is because Bella is so normal and uninteresting, while Edward is soooo hot and perfect and powerful etc etc, but still, Edward loves her for no real reason. And girls like to fantasize, because hey! They’re not that pretty or interesting, but maybe some awesome/hot vampire would love them too! There’s also that thing where Edward is incredibly strong and could destroy her in any moment, but because of his love for her, he won’t. All of that is really sexy to girls, especially young ones that have funny lusty feelings inside them that they don’t really know what to do with.

And…that’s what I think. This was too long.

It’s also hilarious how Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism shines through with all the extremely repressed sexuality until they get married, when they have hot sex for like weeks.

I’m sure that my sister reads them, since I’m home for the weekend I intend on getting through as much of the first one as possible. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Her writing is terrible. Awful. I read a page of that drivel and was just transported back to middle school when kids were just learning how to write fancy language, and we would just compose the worst sentences EVER. “He caressed her silky dark auburn hair and she sighed in ecstasy. In that very moment,, she felt like she had just experienced a slice of heaven.” Jesus Christ on a crutch! I mean, we grew out of that writing once we got to high school, but this PERSON decides that not only should she write an entire series on it, she also decides to publish this awfulness, AND in interviews she talks about her writing like it’s a gift and it’s the first book she everrrr wrote and so it’s like she’s sooooo talented- god give me a break!

sorry, I got carried away.

I kind of feel like attacking Stephenie Meyers writing is kind of like complaining that the Jonas Brothers aren’t “real musicians.” It may be true, but that’s not why millions of girls love it (them), and I’m not really sure she (they) care.

He caressed the point at the top of her head where her hair came together in the middle, and she let out a sigh like a man urinating after being stuck in a car wearing a tight seatbelt for several hours. She was in love, and every moment that went by felt like an eternity of ecstasy. He moved his arm from around her shoulders and placed his hand into the fold of his lap. “What are you doing?” she asked, the streams of bliss flowing through her head becoming tainted by a moment of slight panic. “My penis just moved.” Her mother’s face appeared inside her head, and the night when she was twelve and her grandmother had complained about being too cold. She had instinctively gone to the living room and brought back a blanket. One day her grandmother was going to die. Her mother had looked at her, “you’re such a good girl.” Her grandmother agreed. She looked at him, and he shifted his gaze into the crotch of his pants, adjusting his lips into positions of greater discomfort. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.” “No,” she said, “I want to see it.” Her arm flinched against the ground, and he brought her closer towards her, until their shadows melded together and spread out past the window into the night sky.

Is that really from the book?

In high school, a friend of mine once found a piece of paper lying on the floor near his desk in English class. He brought it to lunch, and it turned out to be the scrapped first page of a short story some gothy 15 year old had been trying to write. The first paragraph was something like:

“Don’t you understand? I’m half-demon! That means I can never love!” he said as he decapitated her.

Whenever I think of Twilight, I think of that kid as being all grown up and a devout Mormon.