Twilight

Can we talk about these Twilight books for a minute?

I just…I don’t understand.

Far too many of my sensible adult friends (and some of my not-so-sensible ones) have gone ga-ga over these books. How? Why?!?

I’ll admit that I haven’t read them, so I can’t say much about them. Except. THEY ARE FOR TEENAGERS. Oh, and I’ve read some excerpts. The writing is atrocious. They read like they were written by teenagers, not just for them.

Kudos to this Stephanie Meyer, who has so successfully written a series of novels that appeal to women from age 11 to age 65, it seems.



It’s a story about angsty teenage love between some pale girl and some vampire boy, for crying out loud. Go get an Anne Rice novel. At least she can write. And most of her characters are adults. Although I will admit that her excessive descriptive passages do cause me to skim…excessively.

Really, didn’t we have enough issues as teenagers without adding the extra pressure of death by vampire bite?

The flowery-romance-novel-style writing makes me gag like no tub of mayonnaise ever could. Wait. Scratch that. I gagged just thinking about mayo.

I keep hearing all these comparisons to Harry Potter, too. I haven’t read those either, because last I checked they were supposed to be FOR KIDS, but I have read excerpts. And I’ll say this: J.K. Rowling’s writing doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with a cattle prod. I even saw one of the movies. I didn’t understand even a minute of it, as it was movie number four or five and I hadn’t seen any of the previous movies. But I think it would have been entertaining, had my internal monologue not been going at top speed the whole time.

“Who is that guy? What’s with his hair? I thought these kids were supposed to be kids…they don’t look like kids. Ooooh, Alan Rickman. I LOVE Alan Rickman. I don’t love that someone told me I look like Alan Rickman. That was just insulting. I don’t look like Alan Rickman. Do I? No. He’s hideous. But super-entertaining. I mean, if I had been told that I act as well as Alan Rickman or that I’m as funny as Alan Rickman, I would have taken it as a compliment, but – Oh! What the fuck is that thing? What’s going on in this secret room? How did they do that? I wish I had magical powers. I always wanted to be a witch. That would explain my penchant for watching crap like Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Charmed. Speaking of Charmed, my my I love Holly Marie Combs (also known as Piper). And that stopping time and blowing things up thing is really cool…”

You see what I’m saying. It’s distracting. How could anyone enjoy a movie while all that is going on? Luckily, it all happens silently in my head. People who insist on sharing their inner monologues during the movie are evil. You know who you are. Please stay out of my theater.

Speaking of movies, did this Twilight movie not just come out in theaters in December?? How is it already on DVD? And doesn't that mean, by definition, that it sort of sucks? If a movie is out on DVD in three months, that usually means that it was terrible...just sayin'.

Back to the matter at hand. Someone please, please explain the draw of these books to me. Well, at least…no. I really don’t want to know. Maybe. I don't know. I don't want to have to think less of you for obsessing about them. But I truly don’t understand.