Over the last few years, I couldn’t stop hearing about the Twilight Saga. I listened enough to get the gist of the story: a teen vampire falls in love with a teen human. I was not impressed and just could NOT understand how this plot was creating such a phenomenon!?!? Vampire romance was simply not appealing to me.
When the Twilight movie came out, I applied the same rule I used for Harry Potter: watch the movie and make the official decision on how I feel about reading the books. After seeing the second Harry Potter movie, I decided I would read the books when the series was complete and wound up reading (and loving) all of them the month book 7 was released. In similar fashion, this past spring I rented the Twilight movie. I thought it was okay, but I was still baffled as to what the big deal was… No plans were in the works for me to read the series.
Read Twilight--You Know You Want To
In an unlikely turn of events, National Public Radio (NPR) changed my view of the saga. NPR’s guilty pleasures series where writers reveal their secret favorite books featured this story: Real Men Read (And Love) ‘Twilight’ — Really.
In the story, Brad Meltzer, a heterosexual male, opens up about his love of the Twilight saga. He describes the appeal to him and challenges women to share the saga with their men:
“I love this story of the gawky, awkward girl who falls in love with the brooding vampire. And I love that she can’t get sexual with said vampire because when her blood gets pumping, it’ll send him into a frenzy and he’ll kill her. (How’s that for a prophylactic?)
I love hearing the dark secret histories of how the other vampires were turned into vampires. And I love when Edward gets all huffy with Jacob the werewolf — oh my God, I’m on the verge of writing fan-fic here — but again, in case you missed it, I love this story.”
After hearing the passion in Brad’s words, I decided to watch the movie again. The second time around I was looking for the heat between Bella and Edward rather than focusing on the vampire story line, and to my great surprise, I enjoyed it…a lot even. Thanks to Brad Meltzer, I took a 4-book trip into Bella and Edward’s star-crossed romance courtesy of Ms. Stephenie Meyer. I was truly surprised at how entertaining and passionate the series was; Edward and Bella have an odd Romeo and Juliet thing going for them. Believe me, it’s a guilty pleasure that truly delivers!!!
If I have swayed your anti-Twilight thoughts at all, please go and read the series. The first chapter of the book is available for you to read on NPR’s site here. Thanks NPR and Brad Meltzer for turning me around!
Random Fact: at the end of her books, Stephenie Meyer always thanks the band Muse for their inspiration. If you know Muse’s music, you will definitely feel them in the books….