Offensive to Almost Every Girl in the Country

I regretted earlier my lack of outlet for book discussion.  I still believe that if I review a book my audience of sporadic personages will not take as much of an interest than if I were to recap a movie, and perhaps their visits to this page will become even more infrequent.  But I'd like to take only a few moments to establish my stance on the Twilight book series by Stephanie Meyer.  Why I feel I must take a stance on some trendy product available for under twenty dollars to all who are willing, I don't know.  I guess I am tired of perfectly innocent human beings presenting this book to me to read as if I am dying to find one good book in this sorry world.  Well, I know I offend many people when I say that Twilight is a bad book.  It is just bad.  And innocent people are entitled to their naiveté.  There is nothing wrong with a bad book being out there for the ignorant to purchase.  But please do not recommend this book to me one more time, or I just might, I don't know, throw garlic on you or something.  

For several months my sister and other friends were dying for me to read it.  A common argument is that they never read, but they couldn't put this book down.  They told me how good it was and how they thought a book about vampires was weird at first, too, but once they got started they were sucked in.  I was never convinced of even the possibility that Meyer's series was "good", per say.  I have no doubt of its popularity or of its perfect execution of a formula to sell novels.  But that's just what it is.  It is a formulaic book with nothing to say except, "Look.  I achieved the American dream.  I figured out what sells, and wrote a vampire version of the OC, now a major motion picture."  Well, thank you Stephanie Meyer for your glimmer of hope in this economy.  I commend you for your achievements and do not criticize you at all for your profit.  But I will not call your book a good book.  (I think if I weren't such a capitalist my argument might be stronger.  I could criticize Meyer for selling for pure profit.)  I want to clarify that I do not mind trends or pop culture manias or even fantasy fiction.  I'm a Harry Potter fan.  I enjoyed Lord of the Rings.  But there is a difference between a good book and a bad book, and Twilight is without a doubt the latter.  

I know that I cannot prove to you the objectivity of art or fiction.  That has been debated for centuries and is not an easy feat.  But I can claim the poor quality of this particular fiction.  Of course, if you believe everything is relative, or even if only art is subjective to the beholder, then I cannot prove Meyer's inadequacies.  I want you to know, though, that I am not speaking from a blind perspective.  Yes, I am a literature snob, dismissing authors like Danielle Steele, Sophie Kinsella and Dean Koontz as far too prolific in regards to their meaningless best-sellers that are anything but substantial.  But I exercised my right as an American and actual started reading Twilight.  I read about fifty pages when I had to close the book I will never open again.  Not only was the writing poor and the scenes cheesy and the characters just what you want to see in a perfect little frame of what this world is not like at all, but I was terribly bored as well!  I did not care one bit about Bella Swan and whether she'd fit into her new high school in Forks.  I did not care if Edward had a thing for the new girl.  I did not care about Bella's relationship with her quiet father.  I simply did not care.  I knew going into this experiment that the book will have nothing original to say.  But several people almost convinced me that I might enjoy the story, just as I enjoy a bad romantic comedy once in a while.  But I did not.  I am sorry.  I know that this is not just a preference of genre of literature, but simply a bad novel.  There are plenty of bad novels out there.  I don't care.  Read all the Shopaholic and Twilight series you want.  But please don't tell me they are good and that I "have to read them".  Don't try to argue with me about its captivating story because Edward is so in love with his prey.  Just don't talk to me about vampires any more, please.  It is rather annoying.