Like all great works of literature, Twilight snuck up on me. When I purchased my first copy (the same I own to this day, tattered and worn and annotated as it is), I cannot recall how old I actually was. It exists in a liminal space, both something that exploded into my life and changed it exponentially and something that has always been there, a hidden constant waiting to be unveiled. My mother purchased the text for me at our local Giant supermarket; not, as one might suspect, a parent passing on a love for literature to their child but instead more so out of necessity, as I was probably only thirteen and had little funds to purchase anything. 

I actually grew up going to a conservative church and while they weren’t the type to ban Harry Potter (publicly at least), the news of a new teenage fantasy featuring demonic monsters feasting on young women spread quickly, leaving it almost impossible for me not to search it out, eager to see what had made the adults in my world so upset. My mom agreed to let me read it, but only if she could read along with me, keep an ever-watchful eye on what my susceptible young mind was consuming. 

I think she got a chapter in. After that, she told me it was “fine” and that was that. At the time, I excitedly devoured the rest of it in no time at all. Now, however, I realized my mom saw the book for it was: utter, teenage trash. And I loved every second of it. 

New Moon left me writing my own stories about werewolves and vampires, the heroine surprisingly resembling myself and the twisted hero oddly appearing to take the form of the boy I had a crush on. 

Eclipse made me stay up late into the night, desperately eager to see to which of the two boys Bella decided to give her heart. I actually finished it the night before my family went to the beach for the summer, and my first few days in the Outer Banks of North Carolina were spent scouring every inch of every place that might possibly sell books in order to find the final installment.

My copy of Breaking Dawn still smells of sunscreen and sand, the pages permanently curved and water-logged from those long hours in the sun, unknowingly reading about sex and orgasms, two beach chairs down from my parents. 

Of course, like anything where the predominant audience is teenage girls, Twilight was treated with absolute disgust by anyone who claimed to have “taste” (whatever that is). I’ll admit I hid my copies away for a while, insisting it had just been a phase and pretending I read Anne Rice instead (yikes!). 

But then, miraculously, Twilight became, what’s the word? Cool? Relevant, at the very least. 

Because we went full circle and suddenly people were able to criticize a piece of work without fully condemning it. We were able to separate an author’s questionable actions and thoughts and motivations from the text itself. I’d like to thank J.K. Rowling for that last achievement of mankind. 

But either way, those who loved Twilight as teenagers  have now reclaimed it as the guilty pleasure it was always meant to be. My stained and doodled-ridden copies have returned to my bookshelf in all their glory and I even used them in my Masters Dissertation (I also quoted Fight Club in an AP English Essay so, don’t necessarily follow in my footsteps). There is fanfiction to be written, memes to be made, discourse to be… discussed. 

We can now acknowledge that the vampire's treatment of the werewolves was, well, pretty racist. That the whole middle of Breaking Dawn essentially plays out as Pro-Life argument with Edwards argument for vampire abortion comes off as absolutely heartless (priorities, Stephenie, priorities). And that having 17 Bella essentially taking on a mother/wife role when moving in with her father, Charlie, by cooking and cleaning for him (going so far as to WORRY about what he’ll eat when she plans on going away for the weekend) is… just gross. 

Long story short, Twilight is not a good book. But who wants to spend their teenage years reading “good” books anyway? Especially when what is deemed “good” for teenagers, especially teenage girls, are old white men who create school curriculums and entire Western Canon (I’m looking at you, Harold Bloom)? On that note, who wants to spend any part of their life reading books that someone else tells them is “good?” 

Twilight snuck up on me the first time I read it. And it continues to sneak up one me: how Meyer built the all-encompassing romance most teenage girls dream of, how Bella’s inner monologue reflects the similar waves of thoughts and feelings I had at that age, and how this simple book, inspired by a inauspicious dream, went on to spawn what can only be called a cultural revolution and, arguably, revitalized the teenage supernatural romance genre itself AND is still being published 10+ years on.

Midnight Sun, the long awaited addition to the Twilight series written from Edward’s perspective, came out earlier this week and I literally shed a tear when I saw it was finally being published. Will it be bad? Who knows. But will I devour every single one of it’s 600 pages in rapt attention? Do I even need to answer that… 

If you too want to join our debrief of what is clearly going to be one of the best books of 2020, we’re holding a Virtual Twilight Book Club meeting on September 2nd where there is sure to be laughter, tears, and pure enjoyment of something so many of us shunned away for much too long. Order your copy here and join the movement with us!