Something for the Twihards

Twilight is a cultural phenomenon that has taken America by storm over the past few years. The books are best sellers and the movies are in high demand. However, how many people have actually read all the books as well as seen the movies? The craze over the movies has become more of a teenage love fest over Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. The books are great as supplementary work to the movies, but there is a reason why some people roll their eyes when they hear about Twilight. Stephanie Meyer did a good job with the movies and adding plenty of detail to the stories, but when reading the books, one can only be reminded of a cheesy high school romance novel...without the sex. This can be viewed as a positive or negative thing depending on what you look for in a book. It makes the books quick reads and challenging to put down at times. Some feel that the abundance of sexual tension was nostalgic of high school, while others feel that it's not necessarily worth all the hype they're receiving. The original concept of the story is interesting, although it seems that several vampire enthusiasts were upset by some of the original spins on the vampires (such as sparkling in the sunlight). This could have been remedied by a more elaborate look into the history of the vampire legends and arriving at a less controversial excuse for the Cullens' ability to live amongst average people. The ends of the books leave the reader wanting, but not in the way other sequential books do. They're a bit open ended and seem to provide a conclusion, but don't develop or follow this conclusion up very well. As previously stated, Meyer does a good job with details, but there were points when this attention to detail could have functioned in the conclusions more.

In terms of the movies, they should really be watched after reading the books. There's a lot that you don't get from the movies that is laid out in the books and there is a lot about the characters and editing in the films that makes sense after reading the books. Of course the movies are cheesy and there are far too many dramatic closeups of eyes, but these things make sense to the viewer if they've read the books and understand the characters and what they're thinking. The movies and books are still very much a high schooler's PG romance novel, but they come across as much more legitimate and worthwhile when taken as supplementary works.