GUESS WHAT Y’ALL!
Not only are we here at the hot pink palace celebrating our 20th anniversary (and yes, you can still get a sticker!) but guess who else is?
Yup, the original Twilight!
It is not an exaggeration to say that this book changed the trajectory of publishing. Seriously, think of all the trends and subgenres that grew out of Twilight. Off the top of my head, Twilight influenced so many aspects of the industry, such as:
- YA romance
- Vampire fiction
- Single item cover images – how many copycat covers were there? So many. We even hosted a Photoshop contest to make more of them!
- Fanfiction to published fic – just think of how many careers began within Twific. So many.
- Massive fandom events
- LEGO. (No, I am not ever getting over Lego Sparkle Magic Edward and Bella in a tree.)
I could keep going, but you probably see as many points of influence as I do.
Anyway, why am I bringing this up today?
I’m in the New York Times today, talking about the 20th anniversary, and recommending books that have come out in the two (2?!?!) decades since that should make anyone with Twi-stalgia very happy. (FYI: it’s a gift link. I hope you’ll take a peek because traffic means more coverage for books we love from folks like me.)
Here are the books I recommended. (I could have gone on and on but would you believe they gave me a word count?! The Audacity!)
Which would you pick? Do you have fond memories of Twilight?
Just over 20 years ago, my daughter, who was 14, was in a Teen Advisory Group at our library. The teens involved got to read ARCs that had been sent to the library and give their recommendations. Feedback was also sent to the publishers. It was a super cool experience.
One day she was showing me her new picks and I was reading the cover copy, when I picked up a book called Twilight. I told her the cover copy sounded like an adult romance novel and I was going to read it first. People who badmouth Twilight don’t understand how fresh and exciting it was 20 years ago. I told my daughter that I thought she would really enjoy it, which she did, and I added my own feedback for the publisher that I thought they should adjust the cover copy to make it more teen friendly.
And that’s how we ended up in Forks, WA on our vacation before there was any Twilight related tourist stuff there. Stephenie Meyer even came and talked to their little group because of the strong feedback they had given the publisher.
@Kristal: That is INCREDIBLE. You went to Forks before it was a destination because of a library advisory group? Truly incredible. Seriously, I hope you and your daughter can celebrate the 20th anniversary of knowing something very cool was about to be published.
Congratulations, @SB Sarah, and thanks for that great article!
@Kristal ~ what a neat story! My daughter also enjoyed her time on our library’s Teen Advisory Board.
I’ll be honest and admit that I never actually read any of the Twilight books. (Or watched the movies.) I’ve read some paranormal romance, but this particular series was so incredibly well-discussed that it sort of felt as if I already had read it. Here and now, I honestly know more about this series than I remember about books I actually read, decades ago.
That being said, I did read the first graphic novel eventually. Apart from the horrible typeface they used for the lettering, Times New Roman or something similar, I enjoyed it. (I’ve no idea why they only adapted the first two books. Were sales really that bad? The adaption isn’t even in print any longer!)
Despite the fact that I’ve grumbled and cringed about it since, I absolutely devoured the Twilight series when they came out. The biggest impact I remember is the rise of a true YA category of novels. I was 25 when these books came out, and had been reading literary fiction for years because there really wasn’t much to choose from once you graduated from The BSC and Sweet Valley High in middle school. Most of the other books written about high school students were aspirational for kids – you read them before you were a teen but wouldn’t be caught dead reading it as a teen. Twilight created a sweet spot of stories about teenagers but with young adult themes. I definitely know it led me to picking up The Hunger Games when it came out and sharing with my husband.
The other series it got me to read was Charlene Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books. I distinctly remember reading a review that said something along the lines of “did you like Twilight, but want sex and actual grown-ups? Try this!” Yes please!
I read Twilight because I was curious what my younger cousins were so excited about. I hated it, but I have hated 99.9% of all YA, so that’s hardly meaningful. I was very impressed by how cleverly it appealed to as broad a base as possible, and could absolutely tell it was going to be a game changer.
I suspect this is an excellent set of recs for people who love Twilight, since I have tried quite a few of them, and disliked the sexual politics in precisely the same way I disliked Twilight’s. Don’t get me wrong, I have very limited tolerance for people who hate Twilight as a means of policing female pleasure, I just personally have an equally low tolerance for heteronormativity, and possessiveness is a personal squick.
This is such a great article; was never a Twihard myself but I’m glad it made such a positive impact on young romance readers.
The wife and daughters of one of my co-workers loved Twilight, and he brought the books in for me when they were done. I found Meyer’s writing not great, often boring, but she is somehow at the same time a propulsive storyteller – you are compelled to keep reading to find out what happened. There were also set pieces within the books that I found touching, for example, the story of the founding of the werewolf community and some of the stories of how/why the Cullen family came to be. What I couldn’t understand was why Edward was attracted to Bella in the first place. The story is told mostly from her POV, but she had no depth and seemed to spend all her time moaning over the fact that she would age and Edward wouldn’t, so please, please pretty please turn her into a vampire too. I know there was more to the books than that and I did care about some of the characters (other than Bella), but I started BREAKING DAWN and Just.Could.Not.Do.It.
I read 2 chapters of the (badly written) first book, and saw pieces of the movies on TV. “Sex is (literally!) death” is really tiresome recurring theme in fiction. No quarrel with published fanfic, just bad, anti-women writing.
I’m too old to have been Twilight’s target audience, but I did read it at some point to understand what the hype was about. It was fine but I didn’t understand why this particular book was so popular.
But then again, a decade before Twilight, I’d loved Interview With A Vampire (book and movie), and followed that up with vampire romances by Linda Lael Miller, Maggie Shayne, and Amanda Ashley. (I cannot imagine that these aged well.) I’m sure that if Twilight had shown up a decade earlier, I would have loved it too.
Heads up, “I’m in The New York Times today…” text links to SBTB Twilight covers post.
Just gonna drop this here, the actual Quileute tribe has had all sorts of trouble raising funds to relocate out of tsunami-risk areas of the coast, not least because of the Twilight Mania tourism industry–the Quileute Move To Higher Ground fund website is mthg dot org.
@Nic. Thank you! Eep. I’m really good at this blogging thing, I promise.
@cat_blue: I’m a firm believer that if I buy “Twilight”-something (such as a copy of “Midnight Sun” for my roomie for her birthday at the time), donating the equivalent amount to mthg-dot-org is just the right thing to do. Smeyer has never bothered, by all accounts, to cut the tribe in on any of her millions, though she used their name and mythology as a not-small-part of the series. It gives colonizer vibes, for sure.
As a child in the 70s, my family did a road trip to Canada along the west coast of California, Oregon, and Washington into BC and Alberta. We drove through Forks. The name was memorable. Seeing it in the Twilight stuff reminded me of that trip. So although Twilight was not for me, I am grate for getting to reminisce about my childhood vacation.
I did check out the article and I did read 4 of the recs and enjoyed most of them. Looking at that nine-tailed fox story next.
Thanks.
I loved Twilight!! The whole series. However, I later found a wolf shifter series that far excelled it and that was it for me.
But you must admit, for all the naysayers complaining about it, the books and the movies made millions, so it deserves credit for that! (I still prefer my wolf shifter series)