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TL;DR VERSION AT THE BOTTOM

To be quite honest, I don't understand the appeal of the Twilight series. I read the first two books, and, in all honesty, they weren't that great.

Apparently I'm being held responsible for one of my friends not reading the books. To quote a phone conversation I had earlier:
"Are you responsible for Anna not reading them? Because our whole table at lunch the other day got into a huge discussion about them, and she hadn't read them because she said she had a friend who wrote better vampire stories than Stephanie Meyer, but we all told her that they weren't really vampire stories, they were romance stories that happened to have vampires thrown in." I thought that was an interesting -- perhaps more accurate -- perspective. Romance with vampires thrown in.

But where's the romance? There's hardly any chemistry between Edward and Bella, when you really look at it, and they're so head-over-heels for each other so quickly that there's hardly a love story. Love stories should be more drawn out -- maybe with a little bickering thrown in.
(See: Ron and Hermione; Harry and Luna; Han and Leia; Scarlett and Rhett)

Really, it's not the books themselves that bother me so much, it's the self-named 'fanpires,' or, as the rest of us would have it, 'Twitards.'
NOTE - 'Twitard' does not refer to the average Twilight fan. It refers to the obsessive "OH MY GOD I AM SO IN LOVE WITH EDWARD CULLEN GTFO b***h HE'S MINE" fan.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not talking about the average, run-of-the-mill, "I enjoyed reading Twilight" fans. I'm talking about the kind of fan that physically assaults people who dislike the series.

Seriously, though, it's the fans that have given the series such a bad rap. I mean, you don't see us Potheads running around throwing books at people or challenging them to duels.

But more than just the fans, I quote best-selling author Stephen King:
"Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."
He did go on to say that he understands that the appeal of the series to young girls is that it deals with feelings they aren't ready for yet -- and I can understand that.

What I don't understand is the "story" the fans are enjoying so much. The first half of Twilight is about Edward's cold, hard, marble-esque skin, and how much Bella loves him, but how dangerous he is. There's hardly any plot until the end.
A lot of my friends decided not to go to our school's first (and only, apparently) play-off football game last year because they were going to see the movie. Despite the fact some of them acknowledged the football game would probably have more plot.

Another thing that bothers me is how the series is referred to as a saga.


Twilight fits none of those requirements. It is not Icelandic, nor is it Norse, so that rules out the first definition. The "exploits" of the characters can hardly be called heroic or legendary. While Twilight is a "long narrative," it doesn't track generations of a family.
So what would be considered a saga? Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. Redwall. Hell, maybe even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if looked at the right way.


TL;DR VERSION
+ Instant!Love=NO.
+ "SMeyer can't write worth a darn."
+ Fanpires/Twitards = violent
+ Twilight =/= saga



NOW I'M ASKING YOU
What makes Twilight such a good book? Why is it a good love story?

I have no argument in really either direcetion. I don't like Stephanie Meyer's style of writing very much, but I like the theme of forever love. The storyline was... well... sorta pointless, but, again, I liked the undercurrants of the mood. The theme and mood was what I liked.
The movie was just retched. As a movie and in comparison to the book. Edward's acting sucked and Bella's personality was all wrong. She's supposed to be stronger in spirit and self-confidance but shy. All I saw was shy and jittery. And the movie was like "will it ever end?!" cuz there never seemed to really be any build or climax.
All in all, the book was OK and the movie was terrible.

Liked
The story IDEA
Trying to go outside norms
Thinking outside the box

Disliked
The Story
Failing at getting outside the norms
Her style of writing
Her editor
Her publisher
Stephanie Meyer in general

I neither love, nor do I hate, the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I found her writing style and the story itself to be too predictable, I knew what was going to happen in the final book before I'd finished reading the first book. Yes, including the fake out brawl.

I read somewhere that the Twilight books are the literary equivalent of potato chips, they have little substance, are a good snack and once the bag's empty you say, "I can't believe I finished all those." xd

That's actually exactly how I felt after reading them.

Lunar Kissed

I tried to read the first book a few years ago. I did not get past chapter one. The more I heard about the story from others, either online and offline, it made me cringe. I am just wondering what damage this obsessive love and admiration of Edward Cullen is going to do for these teenage girls when tahey look for someone to have a tangible relationship with.

And I was utterly shocked when I found accounts of Twilight fans physically assaulting non-fans just for having an opinion that differed from theirs.

Prosecution is very common, especially the violent kind, in the world of today.

Oh, and I wouldn't worry too much about the damage the teen girls will undertake, if they honestly believe this horse manure that much, they would have ended up with the damage in some other way.

I work at Walmart. There isn't a day going by that I get some teeny-bopper telling me how many times she's read the series. I ask her if she's read anything else, ANYTHING, and she shakes her head no. And then I tell her she needs to expand her horizons and read something other than one book for the rest of her life.

What pisses me off are the adults who haven't spent ANY time in a bookstore or library, pick this one book up as their first honest read, and claim it's the best thing since sliced pie and that they read it fifteen million times. I ask them what they've read lately and they said, "Well, I read THIS book five times so far." I tell them that's not an accomplishment and to pick something else for a while.

People who don't read love the series. I feel bad for all those guy whose girlfriends make them wear body glitter to appease their girlfriend, and I feel worse for Meyer, who has written such a horrible series that her fans have to be violent AND opposed by literary types.

One good thing: It's the most efficient form of birth control since World of Warcraft.