Another Geek Magnet.

I have read all three of these books as has my "anti-barbie, hates pink, thinks girlie-girls lack soul" 12 year old daughter. We think they are fun-mostly because they are about an ordinary girl with a supercool dad and--whoa!--check out those bad guys. Neither I nor my daughter think for a minute that Bella holds a candle to Buffy (although there are alarming similarities between Edward and Angel). These books strike me as the modern equivalent to Harlequin romances or Barbara Cartland, both of whom I read while working dead end jobs in high school. Face it, romance sells.

And, despite what a wimp I think Bella is--and I hope against hope that Edward will turn her (don't you just love Rosalie?)--I do appreciate her tale of stupid teen love. If we are lucky, we've all been there. If all my daughter read were Ms. Meyer's books, I'd be alarmed. But, ultimately, I'm thrilled there's yet another series about a girl that my daughter reads. The real issue is why aren't there more Buffys in YA literature.

...particularly Laurell Hamilton's multiple, execrable, series of Mary Sues, and also "Atlas Shrugged". I can't help but think that the series' proves that both sexes are still fucked up about sex (not to mention torn up by violence).

Note that, as Kim Newman pointed out first, "Dracula" imbibes not only of the Gothic novel, but also of the "invasion novel" popular in Britain in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods ("The Battle of Dorking", "War of the Worlds", and later "When William Came").

If I were a century-old vampire with Harvard degrees... why the hell would I ever go back to high school in Nowhere, Washington?!

I have not read the Twilight series, but it doesn't take more than a cursory glance at the series' premise and its fanbase to realize that this is literary tripe. To put it in the same category as Harry Potter is laughable... what Rowling lacks in writing talent, she makes up for in her ability to weave a simultaneously terrifying and amusing world populated with both exceptionally unexceptional Nevilles, Rons, Harrys, Hermiones, and Lunas, as well as incredibly well-done archetypes like Dumbledore and Snape.

In the Harry Potter world, the handsome, talented Edward Cullens turn into megalomaniacal fascist dictators and get their butts handed to them on a plate by 17-year-old oddballs.

Sounds absolutely dreadful, not a hint of a hook there. Perfect for Forks: bad acid slipped into bad beer. Stay put, J.K.

This author is clearly plagiarizing my junior-high girlfriend's algebra notebook.

Basically, they live in Forks because it's really rainy, and in Meyer's world vampires can go out in sunlight - they just don't because they sparkle like prisms. Her vampires are like "living stones". And they get tired (over hundreds of years) of going out only at night. They go to high school sometimes, because most of them were teenagers when they were turned (I think Edward is supposed to be able to pass for anything from 16/17 to 23/24). Edward explains to Bella that the younger they pretend to be, the longer they can stay in any one place.

So I just read on another website that at signings the author is often presented with babies named after her characters and told that their conception was due to her books serving as foreplay. Seeing as how these books are about the romance between a teenage girl and century old vampire stuck in the body of a teenage guy, I think the Twilight hype has officially crossed over from irritating and puzzling into flat out icky and creepy.

With that said, this was a fantastic, insightful article that offered some very convincing and logical reasons for the series' popularity.

I work in a bookstore, so I'm surrounded by the hype on an almost daily basis and I absolutely loathe these books. I mean I love vampires--Buffy is my favorite show ever--but I cannot stand these books on several levels. On one hand, I can see that the writing is just plain bad: cheesy, dull, stilted, with cardboard characters and no storyline to speak of. Also, they seem way too anti-feminist and conservative to fit my sociopolitical tastes.

Even moreso, however, I have an almost visceral emotional reaction against them. Edward is arrogant and condescending to Bella. He belittles her constantly and speaks to her as though she were a two year old child that he has to take care of. (Even worse, she freaking lets him.) He in fact often picks her up, throws her over his shoulders, and carries her around--all the while ignoring the fact that she doesn't always want him to do that. He carries her down the stairs in her own home--and yes she protests--and sets her in her kitchen chair as though she were a baby he has to feed. I guess that's supposed to be hot--Edward as the ultimate alpha male--but it makes my skin crawl. And all these grown women think this is the ideal romantic fantasy?

But I guess, as Laura Miller points out, we cannot always escape our darker, obsessive impulses. The Twilight hysteria is proof of that.

I’m always one for jumping on bandwagons but I just couldn’t do it. I really tried I have to say. I read the first book in the series and it was awful. I’ve read garbage and I will probably read something worse down the line but you know I won’t ever get that afternoon back. I can’t understand why anyone would want to be boring ol’ Bella. I guess the point is that your suppose to fantasize and stuff but nah. I guess it was just the way I was raised but when I fantasize I’m like lady freakin’ fantastic and my mystery man is awesome but never awesomer than me. I have to say if I wanted to read a whole book about a girl mooning over some super guy for like a million pages I would have dug up and read my junior high diary, a tomb of unrequited love to one Heath Ledger .

Besides, I was always iffy with vampires. Sometimes you just don’t know what team their playing for. Ambiguous is an understatement when it comes to most vampires. I just don’t want to come home one day and find my hard and cold man cake snuggling up with the night mailman. Eternity isn’t forever I guess.