I enjoyed reading the Twilight books by Stephenie (this is the correct spelling of her first name. Yes, it is! If you don’t believe me, check your book jacket) Meyers. They are fun escapist fiction and I love vampires, especially the kind who work hard to overcome their true ghoulish nature. Having said that, if I were to be banished to a desert island with the works of only one author who lived in the past 1,000 years to keep me company, Stephenie would not be the author I chose. (Don’t ask me who it would be—I check in with myself on this subject at least once a month and I still don’t have a definitive answer. Let’s just say that Georgette Heyer is definitely in the running.)

However, why I like or do not like these books is not really of interest to anyone, even me. Especially me. Since I came late to the party, reading all three books between February and May 2008, and was perfectly aware just how popular these books are long before I cracked the binding on Twilight, what fascinated me most about these books was (were?) their phenomenal appeal. As a writer of romantic fiction, I was very interested in what this author did “right” in order to create such a manic response to her creation. For those who are still with me, these were the conclusions I came to:

First, she gave us a larger than life hero. In fact, she gave us two, Edward and Jacob. With the advent of TV, movies and special effects, we are no longer interested in the typical good guy cowboy/gunslinger who is a really great shot. It’s just not enough anymore. We need a guy who was bit (bitten? And I call myself a professional writer?) by a radioactive spider or who blew in from an alien planet and can do things no ordinary human being can do. Even our vampires have to be super-heroic; take Angel and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer—neither “eat” humans anymore, the ultimate badge of super hero status amongst blood suckers everywhere. In addition, we like our heroes flawed and vulnerable, such as the difference between the 1960’s TV Superman who smiled indulgently through thick and thin and today’s Clark Kent of Smallville who is filled with all the angst of any red-blooded teenager of our day. And then there is the Phantom of the Opera, the typical anti-hero but romantic in the extreme. He is a human with supernatural properties. When his story was written, he was an evil villain, but in his latest incarnation, his audience is rooting for him all the way. My daughter would have vastly preferred Christine ended up with the phantom rather than the merely rich and handsome Raoul in spite of the phantom’s murderous petulance. I imagine a majority of people who saw the Andrew Lloyd Webber play and movie entertained similar feelings as did my daughter. In other words, the term “perfect hero” has become about as archaic as the typewriter.


Second, she jacked up the whole “sex is a no-no” concept by dramatically increasing the stakes. Not only is it dangerous, even potentially fatal for Bella and Edward to be together (their love could literally die, and who but a black widow looks forward to that?) but the author has supercharged the desire, at least on Edward’s part, by making Bella someone he finds the perfect stave to hunger, both in a romantic/physical love way as well as an “all you can eat banquet” kind of way. I have to say, that was pure genius. Why? When you consider her books are so wildly popular amongst young teens who are still invested in preserving their virginity yet dream of being irresistible to the opposite sex (and who is a more irresistible heroine than Bella?--at least to Edward) as well as LDS women who grew up in a culture that so highly regards sexual purity, you have your answer. For people who resist pre-marital or extra-marital sex, the conflict between Bella and Edward is truly relatable and as old as Adam and Eve. Hence the apple on the cover of Twilight.

Third, the “Bella—Edward—Bella--Jake” mess is a tangle with which most of us are familiar. Who hasn’t spent at least a few months out of his/her life feeling utterly confused as to which gal/guy you truly loved? This indecisiveness about lifelong partners is one that has intensified in recent years with the decline of marriage, the upswing in divorce and a lack of confidence in a rosy future. The agonizing feelings that go along with all of that are classic and, let’s face it, it gave Meyers' a reason to write three books instead of one. Jackpot!


Fourth, she wrote the books in a format that is most familiar to us as avid TV watchers. As a writer, I could not help but notice the mechanisms she used and noted how similar they are to the way a story on film is composed. The action is fast-paced and self-contained with few long sections of uninterrupted introspection or narration. This is a far cry from Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, a novel that sports a single paragraph of narration that is a full page and a half long. Readers of popular fiction today won’t sit still for that after having their brains short-circuited by TV. This is why my favorite book as a young person was Little Women which I had read 7 times by age 15 while my 13 year old daughter can’t get through the first few chapters. “Nothing happens!” she wails. Amazingly, very little actually happens in Meyers' books, either, they’re just written in such a way that we feel a lot is happening all of the time, a must for a book to reach superstar status (the Harry Potter books are similar in this way). Lastly, the books are written in first person which many readers claim to dislike but which reaches out and grabs us by the throat, anyway. That’s why we take the ride even if, by the end, we find it wasn’t quite the ride we were expecting.

Fifth, I have heard from a number of people who truly dislike Bella and find her boring, dumb and uninteresting. In my mind, and perhaps for the same reasons, I find that Bella acts as a simple place-marker. In other words, she almost disappears in her own story which means we can easily replace her with ourselves. We are Bella in this story, it is our story, and we are the ones living through these experiences. (This is generally true for male readers of romantic fiction, as well, for reasons that are too technical and little-understood by this author to address in this post.) Whether this was intentional on the author’s part or not, it certainly seems to have worked for the majority of her readers.

Again, even though these aren’t my above-all be-all books, I did enjoy reading the stories while I was actually “there”. I intend to read Breaking Dawn, as well, so please don’t come to my house and egg it or leave rude comments on my blog, though it could be better than no comments at all. Hmmm, okay, go ahead and leave rude comments but please watch your language—comments with foul words will be deleted. (Psssttt! Will somebody please comment telling me how to delete comments?) Lastly, if you really want to read a great vampire book, check out Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Now, that’s a vampire that makes me swoon! Perhaps I find the hero/vampire in Sunshine more irresistible than Edward because the heroine doesn’t. Resist him, that is. In other words, you will probably have to skip a couple of pages here and there but still, a really great read!