I'm sure you've all heard of a vampire book series sweeping teen girls off their feet. Many call it the new Harry Potter, while others just say it's the best vampire series since "ever". It's been #1 on the New York Times Children Series Best Seller and while many critics agree that it is "plot driven" and "will keep readers flipping the pages", I highly disagree with them. I may not be an "official" book critic, but I know when a book is just awful. And don't worry, I've read this series, so I'm not just "hating" because it's popular. This series my friends is: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

Just to give you a little bit of background on the "saga", it's about a girl--named Isabella Swan--that moves to a small town (Forks, WA) to live with her dad. She attends the local high school and meets this guy and his family. At first, she listens to her friends and finds them rather weird, but incredibly intriguing. And so after doing a bit of Googling, Bella finds information saying that Edward Cullen--the guy--is a vampire, along with his whole family. It's a typical girl meets guy, guy claims he's too dangerous for girl, but girl still wants him. What's really bad is you know the secret of Edward and his family being vampires because the publisher put the information on the back cover hook/synopsis. Thank you Little Brown Books for ruining the mystery...

Every teen girl I know worships the ground Stephanie Meyer walks on. It has about the same hype if not more then Harry Potter. A lot of the HP fans have even migrated to the Twilight bandwagon. Whole websites have been set up and dedicated to Meyer and Twilight. The fan sponsored Twilight Lexicon is one such place that has more information on the characters and various things from the series than the books themselves. Similar to what Rowling did with HP, she did divulge some information to the fans for the rest of the obsessed populace in order to get them parts of her "plot" she couldn't fit in her "love story". I've read through all of the characters and their history. Sadly it's more interesting to me than the books and all the dull "sexual tension" she's pumped the books with because "teens understand it."

Now, I've given you a very bare bones version of the plot, or whatever you want to call it. Truth be told, the series is unbelievably dry. In a flatline of story, there is only one blip of action or climactic moment that gives you barely a heartbeat. And even then, it's a pathetic attempt at a torture scene that could have been much better, when in fact it was rather anticlimactic. Since storylines generally have a rise and fall, you would expect there to be a lot of rising action to match the fall. This whole bump is smaller than a mole hill in my yard. Throughout much of the books you get very little action and reaction from any "event" that happens. An example would be when Bella figures out that Edward is a vampire. She merely accepts it so simply, no questions asked. I'm sure most people wouldn't be able to accept that a guy in their class or at their work is quite possibly hundreds of years older than you and still looks like he's 17. I'd probably freak out, or at the very least ask a million questions just to make sure I wasn't going crazy.

All characters should be relatable in some fashion. Whether you can compare Gandalf to your grandpa, or Hermione to your intelligent coworker, you should be able to make some connection with the characters. Meyer's book is full of flat protagonists. The only specks of hope of anyone remotely spherical are in her supporting cast. Some fellow "critics"--who dub themselves haters of the series--have called Bella a "Mary-Sue." Urban Dictionary defines "Mary-Sue" as "A female fanfiction character who is so perfect as to be annoying." That's Bella to a T. Edward is her counterpart, as in he's called a "Gary-Stu". I'm sure you can figure out the definition of that.

When writing characters, authors always give them a weakness that is normally exploited in order to bring about their downfall. Unfortunately neither is really given any sort of realistic character flaw. Bella is incredibly klutzy that you just wonder how she hasn't managed to trip off a curb and get struck by an oncoming bus. Edward on the other hand is just too superhuman that he doesn't have his kryptonite to make him weak although, you could say his only weakness is Bella. If she were to die, he plans to kill himself off. So you'd have two people tripping in front of a passing train, or electrocuting themselves in a bathtub with a toaster. Meyer just makes Edward too powerful. Not to mention he's creepy. One thing he does in Twilight, is he watches Bella at night when she's sleeping. He'll sit outside her window and just observe her. All. Night. That's not boyfriend material. That's just plain creepy.

It disappoints me to know that a lot of these fans haven't read Dracula or any other sort of vampire fiction that is even remotely realistic. She doesn't follow the traditional rules of vampirism. When I first read about that, I thought this would be a nice refresher, providing me with something new and original. Unfortunately I was highly disgusted with what she did. Vampires are supposed to become weak when they go into the sunlight. Not liking the classic way a vampire could die, Meyer created her own rules for her fictional vampires. Instead, when her "Meyerpyers" enter the sunlight, they don't dissolve into ashes, they sparkle. Yes, sparkle. Like diamonds or a gross amount of sequins. So whenever it's sunny on the Olympic Peninsula, all the vampires must hide away in their homes. Quite a disappointing turn of events. What's even better is what they eat. Rather than have the Cullens--Edward's "family" of vampires--feast on humans, they instead feast on local wildlife that has an overrun population. These are called "Vegetarian" vampires. Not all "Meyerpyers" drink the blood of wildlife though. There are a select few that do feed on humans and live throughout the rest of the world.

On August 2nd, Meyer's fourth book, Breaking Dawn was released in the US. Sometime before that, she had asked all her fansites to shut down in order to make sure spoilers didn't get out before everyone got a chance to finish the book. In an online interview a week or so before it's release date, Meyer spoiled her own book by telling the interviewer what was going to happen very early on in Breaking Dawn. What a way to crush your own fans. What's even better, is a grocery store in Texas accidentally sold the book five days before it's release. Less than 24 hours later and suddenly the first 14 chapters were leaked onto the internet via a .pdf file. In a few short hours I knew every spoiler of the book before even the fans knew. Meyer broke one of her biggest rules for her "Meyerpyers." "They cannot reproduce." And yet, strangely somehow Edward and Bella managed to spawn a half-human half-vampire, superhuman growth child (their daughter grows six times as a fast as a regular human apprently). If I ever meet Meyer, that is the first question I'm asking her.

Now that it's been about five days since it debuted, a grassroots movement via Amazon.com forums has started up about returning Breaking Dawn. According to many of the fans they claimed it "wasn't up to Twilight standards." Which leads me to the question, did it even set standards? From the beginning of the series, other Anti-Twihards and myself (we mostly debate on Gaia) have been trying to explain to the fans our problems with Meyer and her horrid piece of fiction. Rather than burn the book like so many of us Antis have wanted, the fans are resorting to returning it. It'd be great to get back the money you spent on one book, but why do that? I'm going to buy two copies of all the books in paperback and write in them. Throughout all four books I'm going to make comments and maybe a few edits and additions. Once I finish, I plan to sell one set to a local bookstore and keep the other for myself to laugh about. As an aspiring writer, I hope someone would take the time to do that to one of my books, if I ever get published. I would be even more honored, if they sent them to me. Let's hope that when I get published, someone will. I'd gladly accept the criticism. It's what I thrive on as a writer.

All these girls worship Meyer and her series, when I feel that she doesn't deserve it. Her books have horrible values sewn throughout the series that one shouldn't teach these tweens and teen girls. She makes romance seem so easy when in fact there is very little relationship strain between them. High school relationships aren't supposed to me simple, but Meyer makes them seem like a walk in the park. They claim her descriptions are beautiful and thought provoking when in fact many of us Antis think she's just--pardon my language--humping a thesaurus. Meyer's descriptions are too wordy, which is what 95% of the book is full of. All the action is just bogged down with words, making it hard to follow exactly what's going on.

But, I've ranted enough for now, since this is getting really long. I need other opinions on this matter. What do you think of the series, if you've read it? What do you think if you haven't? Anyone going to read it just to laugh at how ridiculous it is?