About Twilight.

I read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight a couple of months ago. Twilight has a certain reputation, but so many of my friends had enjoyed it that I felt obligated to give it a try. I didn't like it.

Here's the thing. I like books where stuff happens. The first third of Twilight was moony high school melodrama and wistful thinking. Nothing happened. In the second act, the drama was interspersed with vampire exposition. In the third act, "bad" vampires were murdered, to protect the "good" vampire family unit.

There are also several messages in Twilight that I find quite uncomfortable. For instance, after saving the protagonist from a group of would-be rapist / murders, the love interest announces "You would have devastated their crime rate statistics for a decade." Yup, he blamed the would-be victim for the crime. Classy. Though Meyer uses subtle language in the novel, the vampire "hero" is a Spencer Pratt-class tool. The attraction between the protagonist and the love interest is based solely on physical properties - Edward's very handsome, and Bella smells nice. The protagonist's highest aspiration appears to be to get married, so she can go from taking care of her father to taking care of her husband.

For a similar view of the Twilight movie, check out this hilarious alternate script.

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