I am trying something new. We have a guest blogger. What are we talking about? We are talking about Twilight. This is only part one. I am in black text with a white background, and our guest, Angela, is in white text with a black background. Enjoy!

When Twilight came out I was going through my vampire phase. I read like every vampire book I could find. Then suddenly there was this new book. Twilight and it was all the rage. Seriously, I couldn’t walk in my middle school without hearing about the damn thing. 

And I being a contrary shit refused to read it. Everyone kept telling me “Keely, you have to read this book! It’s so good!” (Imagine that being said in like, a Valley Girl voice.) But again, I’m a contrary shit. The more people tell me to do something, like watch a show or read a book, the more I refuse to do it. 

Like no, don’t tell me what to do. 

Eventually, I did read Twilight, because heeeellllllllllooooooo, peer pressure. Plus all my friends were talking about it, and I wanted to know what the big deal was. After I read it, I was like, what the fuck? Why was this book so popular?

When I first read Twilight, I remember thinking, man, this Bella chick is such a drag. She’s so angsty and blah. Sure, Edward sounded hot but he was also a dick, and like, no. So I really didn’t get the Twilight rage. (Of course I feel like everyone had a Twilight phase. You either loved it or you hated it.) 

I like books with action. Sure, I like the occasional romance (and by romance I meant like straight up smut, don’t you shame me). But I like action and fantasy. And there was none of that in Twilight. 

Girl moves to a new place. Boo hoo girl. But like she chose to do that? 

Since she’s the new girl and all shiny toy, the guys fall in love with her. Cause you know, that makes sense. Bella has about as much personality as a cardboard cut out. (She and Bill Compton should get together. Actually, ew. No. I think I just made myself gag.)

There’s this weird family who are like supermodel pretty and honestly can not pass as high schoolers. Did I mention that they are weird? 

Also, if you are trying to remain lowkey, why the hell would you come to a small town? How does that make sense? Small towns are notorious for gossip and noticing those who are weird. Come on, Cullens, be smart. (Also y’all are like a hundred years or so, more or less, shouldn’t you know better? *eyebrow raise*)

Back on track. 

Hot guy with weird bronze colored hair (so he’s a redhead, basically) is like a grr angry face and she’s like oh no what did I do. (Imagine Kevin from Home Alone smacking his face after he put on the aftershave.)

Like I said, Bella is a drag. 

You know what Twilight reminds me of? One of those like Hallmark movies. Take a girl, move her to a place, make her meet a mysterious hot guy and they fall in love. Except in Twilight, Edward wants to kill his great love and suck her blood. So like, a Lifetime movie instead. 

The point is. There’s nothing exciting in this book. Like the baseball scene half exciting like ooo. Then the whole chase thing with James. That was nice. Conflict. Yes. (I may have done a fist in the air, not gonna lie.) We were missing that. But then it was so rushed. I feel like what happened was that Meyer realized that she had no plot. That there was nothing to this book, but she wanted to publish the shitty thing. So she tossed in the drama with James at the last minute.

Twilight ends with Edward kissing Bella’s neck, and you think oh, hey, he’s turning her into a vampire. You think that’s it. 

Yeah. 

It wasn’t. 

Three more books came out, and sure, I didn’t have to read them. Seriously. Trying to get through New Moon was rough. But I also couldn’t leave it unfinished, you know?

I read Twilight after most everyone else already had. First it was because I was fully unaware that it was a trend. Then it was deliberately because I knew it was a trend. And I was doing that whole “I’m cooler by IGNORING the trend.” Ya know, like asshole middle/intermediate schoolers do.

I had planned on never ever reading this, but I was on a school trip to another state and after an hour or so, my CD player (remember those?) died. I borrowed someone’s iPod. It also died. I was out of things to do, so I asked friends if they had any books to read since I hadn’t brought any. My friend gave me two options: a dictionary or Twilight. As unenthused as I was, really didn’t want to read a dictionary for however many remaining hours were left on the bus.

On my first readthrough I was. So. Bored. (Sorry, actual fans.) The protag didn’t have a personality, the love interest didn’t have a personality. The friends didn’t have personalities. It was. Long. 

Then James showed up and I got excited. “Oh, shit, something’s actually gonna happen! Is she gonna die? Is something gonna happen?” And then I heard there were 3 books after this, so, no. Bella was gonna live. And I was a little bummed again but at least there was finally something going on.

So after that I finished the book and complained about it. And  my friends were not having it. “You didn’t even give it a chance! The only reason you hated it is because you wanted to hate it.” Which. I mean. They had a point. I had gone in expecting to be bored and guess what? I was.

So I read it again and I… like, Stockholm-Syndrome’d myself? I was like “Well it wasn’t fair to hate the book before you read it. So you HAVE to love it.” And then I loved it.

(I like, faked that I loved it? Again, peer pressure. So everyone thought I was a Twilight fan but really, peer pressure.)

Read the other 3 books. Went through all the love triangle stuff and the Bella’s depression stuff and the Reneesme wtf stuff. Classic, right?

After the… experience… that was Breaking Dawn, I settled firmly back into the “Wait. Wtf is this” camp. But a bit more fairly than my initial readthrough. Came to the same conclusion nonetheless, lol. But at least I was being fair. (Hooray?) 

Stay tuned for Part Two: Team Edward or Team Jacob, where we discuss (okay, rant) about Bella Swan’s two ‘love’ interests.

– A & K