I've read Twilight. [review time]

Good cover design. Bad writing.

That's right. I went to a bookstore, stood in line, paid close to $13, and spent a couple precious hours of my life turning the pages of the first book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series. And I was not disappointed. It was exactly what I expected it to be. A page turner that creates an ideal soap-opera love interest, often described as perfect and god-like, who falls desperately in love with a normal, nothing special whiney teenage girl. And of course he’s so enraptured by this pathetic nobody that he can barely keep himself from eating her. She just smells so good.

As a Fantasy reader I really have to comment of the gimmicky-ness of the use of the Vampire in this story. Sure, Meyer is using the tradition of the sex predator consuming an innocent young woman, but she’s also destroying the legend for no reason other than to tell a sappy love story. He’s a vegetarian. Please give me one good reason why a soulless being that thrives off sucking human blood would just decide that it’s ‘wrong’.

Vampire Objection - Twilight by Stephenie Meyer [review time]

I have not read the Twilight series, but my objection is that Meyer has altered the Vampire fiction genre without contributing anything to the meaning. The idea of vampirism has long been a comment on humanity’s quest for immortality and the cost of such a quest. It is similar to the Faustian bargain of selling one’s soul, but in this case the soulless become a prey upon their former race. By altering this trope, Meyer destroys the idea of the cost of immortality in order to create a new class of bad boy for teens to swoon over. I much prefer Joss Whedon’s creation of a soulless, demonic race that cannot experience desire, love or empathy, to demonstrate the cost of immortality and the undesirable condition of vampirism. Anne Rice deviates from this with the character of Lestat, who regrets his disconnection with his humanity, giving a foil to the character of Louis, who revels in his condition.