For everyone saying that Twilight is a work of Fiction, therefore does not have to abide by researched facts. That’s completely wrong. For a good fantasy book to be written, it has structure. It has to have some type of facts for it to go somewhere. Harry Potter? Okay, we all know Wizards and Witches and such were never real, however, they were myths in the old times, along with people being burned at the stake for supposedly being witches. The Harry Potter saga does have facts. They have geographical facts, they do have social cliches. The spells used are in the language of Latin (mostly, from what I read/could tell from my own Latin classes at school), which correlates to what they do in the book (Wingardium Leviosa which anyone could figure out the Leviosa has the root word of Levi- which can also be found in the word Levitate).

The boring plot line throughout the series, and of course their “I love you so much, I need you” mentality was sickening. One of the only real ‘romantic’ things done in the whole story by Edward was probably him writing a Lullaby. The only time I became thoroughly interested in some of the book was when you find out the back stories (which were not developed all too well even when mentioned) of Edwards family.

To address more points that Twilight fans try to bash critics on saying.

1) Twilight is a work of fiction, you do not need facts:
Read above, already explained it.

2) People are not influenced by stories:
Do you have any scientific proof to back that up? From what I’ve read up on in studies, scientists as well as psychologists found that people are impacted (especially adolescent, pre-teens, and teenagers) by many things. Everyone is different, maybe you weren’t one of the Twilight fans saying “I wish my boyfriend was like Edward!”, but I can guarantee you that there is someone who does want their boyfriend to be exactly like him. The controlling, possessive, stalker that get arrested by the police.

3) You can’t critique an author until you’ve sold as many copies as that author:
That is the lamest argument I’ve heard from a Twilight fan. Do you know all of the hate Stephen King got because he said Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn? Everyone began to insult him, and used the same argument that I’m discussing right now. Stephen King has sold over 350 million copies of his books, along with many of those becoming award winning movies, not to mention the number of short stories and screenplays he has written. Despite all of that, Twilight fans still say he has no right to critique Stephenie Meyer’s “amazing” and “brilliant” work and that he is jealous that he is not getting the spotlight.

“Who cares if sperm dies in 3 days? If that’s your own scientific issue with these books, you’re obviously delusional.”
If you actually educated yourself instead of trying to act smart and not use any type of reasoning behind it, you’d know that they did mention in the book that Vampires are sterile, or so Edward believed. Also, sperm dies 3 days AFTER it exits the male body. So there, now you have been educated by a Junior in high school.

All Meyer did was make her fantasy idea of what she wanted in a man, except for a book, ordinary men can’t be that in real life. So what does she do? She decides to make him a Vampire, which in many novels, movies, and even myths they already mention some of the traits that Edward has in this book. Wait, what’s this? She decides to take out one of the biggest flaws of a Vampire and instead of him bursting out in flames like he should have done, he just sparkles. The “vegetarian” quality, as she likes to call it, has been done in a few Vampire stories. Interview With The Vampire, with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise already did that. Brad’s character tried to live off chickens and rats, and found out that he couldn’t live like that.

“Bella did not try to kill herself by jumping off cliffs, she was cliff diving.”
Okay, so let’s completely ignore how it mentioned in the book about the raging storm and the sharp rocks with a huge underwater current.

I agree with everything Kellen Rice said in this article and the previous. People do need to realize that this is a bad attempt at a fantasy novel. I wouldn’t even call it a series, as it doesn’t go anywhere.

You must be thinking that I am not much of a Twilight fan, that I did not read all of the books within five days straight, I never have dreamed of the imaginary Edward with the atrocious character development, and that I most certainly did not obsess about the opening of the latest Twilight film. Wrong again. But how is it that I can love the books so much even though it is inherently sexist, contains no significant plot or character development (or even clear descriptions), and is completely unrealistic?? IT’S FICTION, simple as that.

It’s not as though every single female that is obsessed with the series (whatever age) truly believes that all this is possible or even ideal in the real world. They can’t all really expect a vegetarian vampire of all things to just come into their lives and make them fall in love. (Although I do think some deluded ones might actually believe that… no comment there.) Take the Harry Potter series for example. There are thousands of Harry Potter fans out there, but it’s not as if EVERY single one of them truly believes that there is a magical world out there somewhere with Quidditch games and invisibility cloaks. Yet people still love the Harry Potter series. See the connection?

Also, book does not have to be perfectly written to get the point across. Which should be obvious from how well the Twilight series has done. These books are a literary disaster. I too have graduated from the Harry Potter series, and I have read REAL literary works of art in my day (and no, I’m not just talking about the Babysitters Club or Goosebumps). Twilight does not hold a candle to any of these by any means. Yet, I still love it. I don’t love it for its literary genius, or its gorgeous prose, or because it follows the strict guidelines for novel writing and plot development. I love it because it actually lets me, the reader, imagine exactly what the characters LOOK like and ARE like. I know that this is not how it is ’supposed’ to be in novels… but I like the fact that my imagination gets a workout every once in a while and that I can actually make Edward into MY ideal guy, not Stephanie Meyers’. It’s actually kind of a refreshing change… although it is still pretty painful to read.

As for all this about how the series portrays abusive and unhealthy relationships… if teenagers read these novels and take their cues for life from it then there is a much BIGGER problem than atrocious writing. By this point in life, teenagers should have already been taught about unhealthy relationships and how to make correct choices regarding relationships. Parents should also be there to help their children along to eventually make the correct choices for themselves. If teenagers today are turning to the Twilight series to make all their relationship and life decisions instead of turning to their parents and adults then there is a serious issue here. If you believe that violent video games inherently causes a child to grow up and become violent then I guess you would agree with the Twilight guide to teenage love theory. But in my opinion it’s just a cop-out. It’s placing the blame on society instead of yourselves to take the initiative and actually DO some teaching, instead of complaining when others do it wrong. If you’re worried about how your kids will turn out then maybe YOU should put in the effort to actually educate them so they will not rely on a fictional book to guide them instead. Just my opinion though.

All in all, I really do wish Stephanie Meyer could ACTUALLY write so the books would not be so painful to read. But sadly I will most certainly read them again (just not the second because there’s just too little Edward in that one for my taste).

Keep up the articles!! I’m excited to see what you come up with next!

I see your points. I smiled at some of them, even at your humorously severe honesty of some aspects of Twilight. I got a different perspective, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
I don’t like Meyer’s writing, but I like her story very much. Which, eh, if it makes money, who gives?

This was an interesting read, so thank you.

I’M OFF TO WRITE MY PURRFECT DAZZLING GLORIOUS UHMAYZING BOOK, IT’LL BE JUST LIKE TWATLIGHT <3

Why people keep assuming that they get to decide that writing an article that expresses a negative opinion is a waste of time and that the person doing it should get a life is beyond me. Care to explain where you get the arrogance to dictate what Ms. Rice should do with her time?

No, Stephenie Meyer probably isn’t trying to do anything negative to young girls. That doesn’t change the fact that she is. Every time a reader of the Twilight series claims that they want someone just like Edward and that his relationship with Bella has set a new, higher standard for all relationships ever, that’s another sign of what a damaging message these books are sending, because Edward is not romantic; he’s the archetypal abusive partner.

“This is work of FICTION. So what if not all of the science is correct? Who cares if sperm dies in 3 days? If that’s your own scientific issue with these books, you’re obviously delusional.”
What on earth are you talking about? Sperm *does* only survive three days. How is pointing out a glaring scientific error in any way “delusional”? It *is* fiction, and writers are welcome to play with scientific (/historical/geographical/sociological/etc.) fact so long as the rules still make sense in the context of their fictional world. Meyer’s fictional world does not make scientific sense, or any other sort of sense. She is a bad writer who didn’t do her research or satisfactorily close plot holes. That’s a perfectly legitimate complaint.

“Edward does not save Bella.”
Um, yes, he does. Multiple times.

“She saves him repeatedly throughout the series,”
Let’s allow for the end of New Moon where Bella’s stupidity leads to a contrived almost-suicide attempt on Edward’s part. Other than that, can you point out a single time where Edward would be killed or at least seriously harmed if Bella were not there?

“if you got down off of your high horse long enough yo actually read them, then you would have realized that.”
It is very, very obvious that Kellen Rice *has* read the series, and apparently read them more closely than you, since she hasn’t resorted to talking about things that didn’t happen.

Skim-reading helps too – just skip over all the unneeded lines/words