The Phenomenon That is Twilight

There are a great number of Twilight-haters out there, and in many was I can be classified as one of them, but the honest truth is that many of us who now hate Twilight were once fans.

The Twilight series was recommended to me by my aunt who knew I liked vampire books (I liked vampires before they became insanely popular, thank you very much). This was way back when there were only two books out in the series and not everyone was quite so in love with them. I read the first book and the thing that really caught my attention was Bella Swan, she seemed like such a normal person and did some embarrassing things I can totally see myself doing. I don’t think I’ve read another book where the main character was quite like Bella. Most heroines are either beautiful or have a superpower. Bella on the other hand was a bit of a klutz and had an embarrassing habit of blushing at everything, I could really relate to her.

Ironically, before Twilight was written, people thought I was crazy for reading books about vampires and other frightening creatures of the night, but I kept reading them anyway. I loved the excitement and adventure, vampire books were way more fun to read than the boyfriend/girlfriend books all of my friends were into. Sadly, this was not to last as long as I thought. About two months before the fourth book came out was when I really started to notice everyone carrying around unusually thick books with apples on the cover. The books I read (again before Twilight) were also much thicker than the ones my friends read, and don’t think I didn’t get some comments on those too, “How can you read all of that?” and “I could never finish a book that size!” to name a few. It amazed me how all of my friends complained about the size of the book we were assigned to read in English class, then read Twilight in a week.

At first it wasn’t so bad that all of my friends wanted to borrow my books, in a way I was honored that they’d ask me for them. After everyone had finished the fourth book things started to get really bad. I’m a person that strives to be different than everyone else so people being obsessed with my genre may have annoyed me more than it would some other people, but come on, Edward Barbie dolls? I ask you.

When the movie came out was about the time Twilight started to turn into a marketing label. I think the movie could have been done better than it was. Considering what a Twilight craze there was, and still is, you’d think they’d have tried to make it as good as it could be. I think Kristin Stewart was a good Bella, and the more I hear abut her the better I like her. She isn’t a diva like Miley Cyrus, she’s just a regular person like her character Bella.

Rob Paterson is a different matter entirely. There was a point last year when at least fifty percent of the girls at my school had Rob Paterson’s face plastered all over their lockers. At the moment it’s about divided in half who thinks Rob Paterson is gorgeous, and who think a cat could have made a sexier Edward. I personally have to go with the cat but that’s just me.

Overall I think Twilight is a good series but it has become just another moneymaker to a lot of people. Stephanie Meyer is a great writer but Twilight has just become too commercialized, in my humble opinion.