My Thoughts on Twilight

So.

I just got home from seeing Eclipse with my sister, which I think I liked the best out of the three movies thus far. But me and Twilight have a long history.

When the first book came out, way back in 2005 before just about the whole had heard of them, I picked Twilight up at the library. And I fell in love. I read the book in about three hours and was so excited when the second book came out that I sat on the couch and read the first and second books in one sitting. I did this again with Eclipse.

However, right around the time that Eclipse came out - I got it early because Sam's Club messed up and put it out early - I started to get annoyed. I'd never liked Edward that much, but I fell in love with their love story, how deep and amazing their love could be. That was back before I'd ever been in a real relationship myself, so I thought this was how it should be. I had this whole fantasy that someone was going to sweep me away into my story sometime soon, and all I had to do was wait.

But I'm sorry, that's bullshit.

I'd fed on YA romance since I was about ten and stopped reading kiddie books. Not all of them were unicorns and rainbows - I remember reading this one gritty book in middle school where this girl gives her foster brother a blowjob and it was so not fantasyland. But most of the books I'd read, where some ordinary girl (just like me) was swept away into some love story or some magical adventure, hit me right in the heart. I wanted that so bad I would've nearly died for it. I think that's why I became a writer - it was the closest I could get.

Obviously, life isn't like that. And books like Twilight just encourage the view that life, here, as we are now, isn't enough. We need someone who cares about us so much that they want to control our lives and would die if we died.

Around the time I was sixteen, I started to get the whole BS vibe from Twilight. The books made me sob, especially New Moon, because how must it feel to have someone you love so much just disappear? I went through this kind of phase where I was just sad because this wasn't going to happen, this wasn't real. I wanted it to be, so bad, but it obviously wasn't.

And right when I gave up, I fell in love. And it wasn't a fairytale. We get into arguments a lot and I'm a control freak and he's so laid-back it's ridiculous, but it's nothing like what books told me. I was prepared for the feeling, but not all the other stuff that came with it. Love isn't just the feeling. It's so much more than that.

So, Twilight influenced me, of course. I don't detest the series, but I'm kind of ashamed that I ever loved it. I understand, yes, that that's what women want. They want someone who will be their everything.

The way I try to write, though? I don't want to do what was done to me. If someone at thirteen read what I write now, I want them to understand - it's not that simple. Life - and love - aren't that simple. We all wish it was, but it isn't. So maybe they don't get a happy ending or maybe they do, but I try to stay true to what would really happen. Love doesn't always conquer all. It doesn't need to. Sometimes, there are more important things.

But that's just my two cents.