“(This is the review I posted on my blog. It references the Twilight Shelfari page a lot so I thought I should post it on "my copy" as well.)
I’d like to say I read “Twilight” with an open mind, but I didn’t. Everything I’d heard about it made me think I wouldn’t like it. I did try to read the book as just another book and not a bunch of words there to confirm everything I already thought…but they did.
The most depressing aspect of reading “Twilight” was visiting the Shelfari page for the book. It’s pretty much women over 25 vs. teenagers there. If a woman calls the books badly written, fluff, or glorified romance, there’s a mob of teenagers (I believe they’re called Twilighters) ready to pounce. They go for the jugular: saying the woman clearly knows nothing about love and that Edward and Bella are perfect for each other and she probably can’t understand that because no one loves her, etc.
I started to wonder if I’m a shriveled up old hag for not being able to get through “Twilight” (I did get to the end, but I sort of skimmed the last 40 pages). I don’t think I am, though. Some of the Twilighters will say “it’s a book written for teens - you’re not a teen, why did you read it??!!!” (Yes, with that punctuation.) Well, I enjoy other books written for teenagers. I’d re-read the Weetzie Bat series in a heartbeat. My standards go even lower, age-wise. Obviously I love Harry Potter. Last year I re-read one of my favorite books from my childhood, “Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself” by Judy Blume.
Just because something is for kids or teens doesn’t mean it has to be written badly (see: Roald Dahl). It can be written simply, yes, but it doesn’t have to be oozing with cliches.
And I don’t think it makes me a shriveled up hag to say that love isn’t at first sight and that it’s far more complicated than Meyer gives it credit for (reading some summaries of the next books in the series, it seems like she gets at that, but the Shelfari Twilighters seem to say in general that this is their favorite of all the books).
I like the love stories in Harry Potter because they’re based on something other than sheer hotness and yet young girls can understand them and empathize.
It does make me feel a little sad, though, that I started to think “girls will read this and then think this is how the world works!” That argument is ridiculous and I spent many of my pre-teen/teenage years combating that view. Girls aren’t stupid (uh, most). They understand the word “fiction.”
So I guess, in the end, “Twilight” is fun, if you secretly want to read Harlequin romances but your parents are just too uptight. If they don’t get the message of the book just by looking at the front cover, you win.”
