Entertainment weekly did a promo for the movie as the cover story, see the cover.

Meyer has had a lot of well-deserved success–she’s written a book that has captivated millions of readers, so she’s doing many things right–but the fact that her book was intended to be escapist and fun doesn’t mean it should be immune from criticism. And just because some people found flaws in the book doesn’t make those people “snobby,” a term that obviously has some derogatory connotations. Most of the comments here addressed problems with character and story–elements that are very important when writing escapist genre fiction. It didn’t seem to me that the comments on this blog were written by people who “feel they have to beat the book down.” Many of them were written by people who agreed that Twilight is escapist fiction but felt that the book had flaws even when considering the rules and expectations of that genre.

I’m sure Stephenie Meyer herself understands that different readers will come away from her work with different opinions and experiences. In a way, I believe that the conversation here *validates* Meyer, because people are thinking about and talking about the work of art that she created. One of the many reasons we read–even “book candy” like Twilight–is to be able to have conversations like this one.

Ri–I have never been quite so creeped out in my own city–here in the heart of “happy valley”–as when I took my daughter late at night to purchase the third book at its debut. The word skanky is a tad weak for what I witnessed. It’s one thing to see a 10-year-old boy dressed up in some Harry Potter glasses and a lightening bolt “tatoo.” It’s another thing entirely to see a 10-year-old girl (dozens of them really) scantily clad, with fake blood dripping down her neck. Or all the 16-year-old wanna-be Bellas with wanna-be Edwards on their arms and fake blood dripping down everyone’s necks. Even worse was watching the 50-60-year-old men who so obviously were not anyone’s “uncle” cruising back and forth past the crowd in their beat-up 72′ Gremlins. My skin still crawls just remembering.

I think what really killed my enjoyment of the book was going to a book signing and seeing all the teenage fangirls who kept screaming. I think atleast one of them started hyperventalating when it was told that Jacob Black was single.

Still, I find them decent books, even if the third book did make my eyes pop open in one or two scenes.

First: what Meyers has accomplished as an LDS woman is terrific. What a terrific thing to write a bestselling, mainstream novel since very few LDS writers, nevermind LDS writers, have reached this level of success. Well done. May she be the first of many writers to be recognized.

That being said…

I wish I could like these books. Like Heather O., my teen daughters and I are Joss-Verse lovers and know the Buffy-Angel mythos well. We read these books anticipating that we would find them derivative so our expectations were low. However, we were in the mood for some good escapist fiction and we’d heard such raves about these books that we gave them a shot. All four of us hated them (age 12, twins at 16 and me at 40). Maybe we’re too picky. Maybe we were coming off our “Deathy Hallows” high and they suffered by comparison. Maybe the fact that we had just relocated thousands of miles away from our Oregon home to start an overseas expatriate assignment tainted our POV. I’d probably have to reread them to be sure that I’m being fair.

But what continues to trouble me, lo all these months later, is when I’ve heard friends and acquaintances promote this book as “wholesome, virtuous” reading, mostly because of the LDS author angle. These books, especially the latter ones, are every bit as titilating as a lot of romance fiction out there. Just because there isn’t explicitly physiological sexual content doesn’t mean that these books are “pure.” I’ve heard a lot of women–including several friends and my sisters–rationalize why “Twilight” is okay but other chick-lit isn’t.

I’m bugged by the double standard. They make excuses for the sensuality in the book while I hear these same people condemn books their children are assigned to read for school (hello Isabella Allende) or won’t let their kids watch TV/film that have the same kind of content that is in the “Twilight” books.

If some LDS readers would evaluate the “Twilight” books by the same standards they apply to other media, I would be less annoyed by them. So for me, the problem isn’t as much “Twilight” as a book but the Mormon cultural phenomenon that has sprung up around it. Call the book what it is: mainstream romance fantasy fiction. Don’t apply a different standard to the content because the author is LDS.

From a strictly literary perspective, the books are adequately written-totally a popcorn read. “Twilight” was, IMHO, the best of the three writing wise. The premise, the evocative location, the characters–all decently done. Unfortunately by the last book Meyers suffers from what my literature loving friends and I call the “exposition fairy” syndrome where she has loads of backstory she wants to get into her book but it isn’t smoothly integrated into the text. It becomes pretty plodding. In our house, the teenage daughters and I felt the single biggest problem was that Meyers set Bella and Edward up as the ideal dream couple, but that Jacob was actually a more interesting, more likeable character. I think both pairings (Bella/Edward, Bella/Jacob) are flawed, but at least Bella as a character is less annoying when she’s around Jacob.

Will we read the 4th book? When we were walking through the Rome airport night before last, we saw a copy of “Twilight” in the bookstore. One of my twin daughters said, “I can’t BELIEVE that book is HERE in Italy” and she made a gagging noise. In the next breath she said, “I wonder if I’ll hate myself enough to read the next one. As awful as they are, I might have to see the train wreck for myself.”

Maybe that’s what it will come down to for me too.