The romantic leads are almost always boring. Generally, their only job is to be consumed with one another. It's the side-kicks that have the interesting stories.

One thing I find interesting (and maybe even a tiny bit revolutionary) is that Edward's beauty is so amazing and discussed constantly -- generally that's territory of the female lead.

Tomreedtoon, to think or suggest that MOST women want abusers. Most men are not abusers and the women who fall for abusive men usually have the psychological background of an abusive or absent parents so they are drawn into that cycle of violence and jealousy as love because it's all they know. Just because a man plays a sport, is good looking or a doctor does not mean he is an abusive jerk or a douchebag.

Liking vampires has more to do with sex, with being consumed and one with someone else. Not wanting to be beaten, hurt or literally eaten.

You don't have to tell me about jerk men. I see them and hear from them all the time.

And I don't see woman as being interchangeable, identical units. I DO see them falling into certain trends in whom they identify. Would it make you feel statistically safer for me to say that MOST women like men who will abuse them, and ignore decent guys?

The obvious counterpart of the "high maintenance hot babe" is the handsome, slick male like Dr. McDouchebag on Grey's Anatomy. A guy who can coordinate his shirt and tie, who can grease the skids under any woman who is on skids, but who is basically a self-centered (insert penis reference here). So what? We weren't talking women falling for good-looking but shallow jerks. We were talking about women seeking death by boyfriend. Which is what vampire stories are all about.

The main problem is, love is a lie. Trying to find someone to "complete" you is the most fatal of fatal errors. And yet people keep pushing this pretense of an emotion as if it made the world go around, was all you need, and would keep you together. You people are living popular songs, and popular songs ranks alongside "my country right or wrong" as the worst delusions humans can assume.

You say that "not all novels are meant to be painful to read due to mindnumbingly long passages describing how the rain fell against the window."

Mindnumbingly repetitive passages about Edward's liquid topaz eyes and marble incandescent chest are just as bad. So are mindnumbing passages of stupid details nobody needs to know about, like what Bella ate for breakfast and how she got in her car and turned the ignition to start it and then drove God only knows how many blocks to school.

"This isn't Gossip Girl here. Stephenie has a degree in English literature and is influenced by some of our societies most beloved classics... her writing style is detailed, unique and rich and her creativity is endless. That is why we "Twilighters" worship the pages she writes on :D"

It's about as literary as Gossip Girl, and I wish people would quit pretending otherwise. At least nobody holds Gossip Girl up as great literature. Meyer's constant repetition. The overuse of her thesaurus. The ridiculous dialogue. Bella's inability to be on her own, without a boy at her side (Edward leaves, she falls apart. Jacob leaves, she falls apart).

But -- at least the series gave us the unintentional hilarity of suicide by sparkle. For that I'll thank Meyer.

Tomreedtoon:

The reason why some women are "attracted" (if that is even the right word) to bad boys is because they mistakenly think someone that badass can protect them. These women don't realize such men will actually turn around and hurt them. It is a psychological affliction and normal women do not share an interest in or a desire for a rapist.

I'm quite the vampire lover; Anne Rice, Buffy, The Vampire Diaries, Poppy Z. Brites vampire series (can't recall the name) Forever Knight, From Dusk till Dawn, Moonlight if it has a vampire in it, I probably read it or watched it.

Due to the oh so sexy glossy cover art, I did pick up these books for a minute at the bookstore, then read a page or two and decided nope, Harry Potter will be the last good story, crappy writing I'll read, so I'm glad to know I made a good choice passing on this series.

I can see why people get consumed by these books, the way they swoon over Romeo and Juliet, The Notebook, Danielle Steele and other romance stories be they high literature or low grade crap. The fact is love at that level of intensity and longing fades over time, it simply cannot be sustained outside the mind. I do also think that who you want to be in a relationship can be sussed out in literature, you can decide do you like Angel or Spike, do you like Pride & Prejudice or Wuthering Heights? Do you think David Copperfield makes a good choice picking Daisy or did you see disaster waiting to happen? Plus is a Bella really that bad? Aren't their submissives? I mean "The Secretary" was quite the twisted love story.

I don't think that reading is so passive that what you read is what you believe in or want your life to be. I think you can read a story and like it but think the characters, politics or whatever are so alien to you, you'd never want to associate with real life versions of these people. I enjoy Heinlein and Rand for different reasons, but I'm never going to agree with either's philosophy. I think it's just important to be a well rounded reader to get a sense of the other ways of thinking.

I think if you are a mom reading these books with your daughter, it's a great way to talk about real life relationships and fantasy and explain that this stuff in a book is okay, but if your boyfriend starts acting like this in real life, he's probably a stalker or a domestic violence nightmare waiting to happen. That it's not healthy to wrap your identity and self worth around someone else, but it's fun to fantasize about it. Isn't that why writers write and painters paint and dancers dance? To live high intensity emotions for brief periods of time, share them with others but they like you always have to basically go about the mundane tasks of living?

Oh and I just wanted to say hey that's pretty funny about the Outlander series, I picked it up thinking it was going to be a science fiction time traveller/jumper series too! It's not bad, but the constant need of rescue from rape or hanging is getting pretty dull to me, even if the both man and woman play the rescuer and rescuee pretty evenly.