I’m late to the Twilight saga party, and I know this subject has probably been talked about to death, but I find myself qualifying my reviews of the books with statements like this: “I enjoyed the Twilight saga (pause at the look of people’s disbelief) … I mean, despite (cough-sputter) issues with the prose.” I add that last bit because I’m a cowardly shit sometimes, worried about what people (who? I don’t even know anymore) will think of me. Because, well, we writers aren’t supposed to, you know, actually LIKE Twilight. We lose our writer-cards or something.
That’s a load of bull. So let me be clear: I enjoyed the Twilight saga. Period. So there.
Yeah, I found the dialogue tags annoying in the first book, but they went away (or I got used to them) in the next three. I skimmed some sections, but dog knows I did that during Great Expectations and some of Austen in high school. Pretty small quibbles for over 1500+ pages of prose. And I thought Meyer really hit her stride by the last book (as in, she grew as a writer. Which is kinda the point).
I know saying all this shows that I’m scrappy and not particularly refined in my literary tastes, at least according to some of the high-brow lit snobs out there. I’m fine with being scrappy. The books were fabulous escape reading (at a time when I really needed the escape), and the world Meyer built was vivid and three-dimensional. I read New Moon, which was over 500 pages, in one evening. One. And I loved every minute of it.
There, I feel better now. 🙂
Oh, by the way: I loved The DaVinci Code as well (I might get my MFA taken away for that blasphemy).
Do you ever feel you have to defend what you read? If yes, why (and if no, why not)? Share in the comments.