Stephanie Meyer's Twilight is a teenage cult phenomenon to say the least. To this point, it has sold over $6,600,000 in books since Twilight's initial publication. I find this number disturbing to say the least. According to Meyer's website, she states that the story came to her in a dream. Further reading on her website gives a detailed account of the discovery of her characters to the woes of getting her story published. Getting over any personal bias, I lit up a smoke and began the arduous task of stomaching a novel that was clearly written for teenage girls who feel estranged from their peers.
Upon first hearing of this novel and the movie that followed, I found myself dumbfounded. Haven't we seen this before? The answer is yes...sort of. Meyer simply wrote the right story to the right audience at the right time. It can be hearkened to a garage band writing a hit song and riding it all the way to the bank. Based on the style of writing we may soon find the once the waters have receded, Meyer will be a one trick pony. The story begins with the protagonist, Bella, and her woes about moving to the small town of Forks. Reading the book, I found that Meyer has no grasp on either Phoenix or the Pacific North West. It was almost as if Meyer simply Googled "the sunniest place in America" and "the rainiest place in America." (After reading her website I learned I was half right!)
The romance between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan is as forced and awkward as the relationships I experienced in my younger days, but taken so seriously that the author does not give the reader even an inch of comfort. The writing style is horribly forced, and I felt sorrow for the thesaurus which was abused during the writing of this story. With such shallow characters, it is difficult to extend beyond simple terms to describe characters. It was hard to stomach my guilt throughout my reading of the novel, for I felt as if I had been slyly reading my 14 year old sister's journal, not a published work of fiction.
To keep this short and sweet, Twilight while successful to the very niche audience it was aimed at has no chance of transcending the genre. Twilight fails to draw new readers to the genre and simply reignites followers of bubble gum writing all over again. In Meyer's defense, she has bolstered the economy of one of the loneliest and deprived towns in the Evergreen State.
