twilight craze

it's been almost four years since i was first introduced to twilight by my sister. i hated it then because i'd read new moon first. i stayed up until 2 in the morning reading about bella having hallucinations, all the while wondering why she just won't get over edward. i mean, he's just a teenage boy who breaks up with her because he's a vampire. it's teenage romance. her life's not going to end if some boy breaks her heart.

after reading four hundred pages, i put the book down and claimed that i would never pick it up again. bella was too clingy for me. two weeks later, i did pick up the book just to read about the author and noticed she has a website. my curiosity was piqued and i read the first chapter of midnight sun and enjoyed it quite a bit. edward's mind seemed to be much more interesting than bella's. so i decided to give twilight a chance because i couldn't imagine how a vampire who wants to kill his lab partner ended up falling in love with her. i realized that i might have judged new moon too harshly.

that night, my sister went to joseph beth and bought me the book. i started reading it and couldn't put it down. sure, stephenie meyer isn't the best author in the world and she can't write plot very well but she has great characters (even if some are 1D). i became extremely intrigued and reread new moon. it gave me more insight into bella's character and i realized that i hated jacob black, something that didn't happen during my first read of that book.

eclipse hadn't released then. that book would arrive august 7, 2007 and it was only february. i found myself counting down the days until its release and when i held it in my hands, i couldn't let go of it. i read aloud the passages that would make my sister blush. i threw the book at the wall during chapter 23 and i hated jacob black more than ever.

around april or may of 2007, i had the whole twilight lexicon information memorized. i'd read every outtakes and excerpts. i hunted stephenie meyer's posts on the forums. and during all this time, she was discussing making twilight into a movie with summit entertainment.

i remember in december 2007, i was trying to get to stephenie's website but couldn't because the traffic was so heavy. i realized it had something to do with the movie: either edward was cast or bella. so i decided to go to my second most visited website and found out robert pattinson was going to play edward cullen. at first, i didn't agree but i wasn't one of those people who signed a petition against him. i knew that the vision of edward i'd had in my head wasn't real and i was just happy that the book was going to be made into a movie.

now though, i feel somewhat regretful about the movies. they take away from the books. robert pattinson, kristen stewart, taylor lautner, edward cullen, bella swan and jacob black have all lost their identities. people seem to have forgotten what the actual books are like. they only care about the movies which have overshadowed the books. even fan fiction seems to take away from the characters. most people, when i read a few stories on fan fiction, can only remember that edward is handsome and that bella has brown hair and "chocolate orbs". i cringe at that.

i wish i could go back in time when i had the twilight book, dogearred and torn, stuck in my backpack and hardly anyone knew about it. the book's popularity seemed to skyrocket right before the first movie released. now on websites all i hear about is "robward cullenson" and how robert pattinson is great because he's so awkward and that edward wouldn't exist had it not been for him. also, i was shocked to hear people who watched the movie before reading the book that the movie was sooooooo much better than anything stephenie meyer's written. when i first heard people saying things like that, i wanted to punch the wall. now though, i realize that they'll never be able to experience my excitement.

i'm as much of a fan of the books now as i was four years ago. i just have the movies to make twilight that much better for me because i get that visual aid i'd wanted.