If you only read the first few pages, you need to continue. The first Chapters never do a book justice. They are always the hardest to get through for me. The 6th Harry Potter book was my favorite, but I hated the first chapter…it was so hard to get through The same with twilight…I wasn’t blown away after the first chapter, but once you continue into it, I was BLOWN away by how quickly I was sucked in.
sondra: A girl who loves a girl? And only witches fighting evil? I think you have your facts a little wrong. :p
The Twilight books are terrible. TERRIBLE. Or at least, the first one was. I couldn’t make myself read the rest. Really, that book was so stupid it made my teeth hurt.
And though I know the Twilighters will deny it until until they’re all blue in the face, Bella is a big flaming Mary Sue. And Edward… Edward’s just emo and annoying.
I won’t deny that Bella has some Mary Sueish qualities, Mags, but Edward is not emo or annoying. I haven’t seen any evidence of that.
I don’t know if Bella is a complete Mary Sue. She seemed just like a normal teenager, boring, clumsy and relatively pretty.
It’s true that the Twilight novels don’t have nearly the same level of depth and detail as the Harry Potter. That’s probably what makes it read like fan fiction. But their is something that is so addictive about the series. People can’t help but really love the characters. Now, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. There are some series out there that people love, which I don’t really understand. Like the Enders series. I just can’t get into those. I don’t like any of the characters. But that is a matter of personal taste.
As for this news being posted on Leaky, well the reason it was is probably because the Twilighters (including myself) have taken over Youtube and Myspace, and IMDB that past couple weeks. It really is crazy.
started readin twilight, some of its alright but its really a bit too schmaltzy for my liking. I really don’t care much about the characters
I am deeply amused by the comments that Potter fans are “just jealous” because Twilight is now as big as HP, and taking all the attention away from Potter. Huh?
With respect, Twilight fans, when the Twilight books have been on the NY Times Bestseller List for 10 years, as the HP books were, THEN you can come here and crow about how it’s surpassed Harry Potter.
When the title “Twilight” causes instant name recognition among almost any average person-on-the-street the way the title “Harry Potter” does, THEN you can come back here and crow. (Right now, 9 out of 10 people will give you a blank look if you say anything about Twilight, because they haven’t even heard of it.)
When terms and names from the Twilight books (i.e., “sparkly vampires”, “Forks, Washington”, or whatever) start making their way into pop culture references the way terms from the HP books have done (i.e., “bludgers”, “Voldemort”, “Dumbledore”), THEN you can start lording it over Potter fans.
When media and pop culture have become so saturated by the Twilight books that comedy programs like The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live start spoofing them they way they’ve spoofed HP, THEN you can become smug and say that Twilight is bigger than Potter.
Maybe Twilight wil reach that level of popularity some day, maybe it won’t. Only time will tell. But for now, it doesn’t even come close to being the literary giant that the HP books are. So it’s really rather ridiculous to say that people here just don’t like Twilight because they’re OMG JEALOUS AND THREATENED BY TWILIGHT’S SUCCESS!! Um, no. I think people here don’t like the Twilight books because they… don’t like the books. Full stop.
Okay, first of all, I am a big potter fan, but all this Twilight bashing has got to stop! I Love Love Love Twilight and if some of you people would just read it you would understand. Harry Potter really isn’t much of a love story, sorry, but no. It’s more of an epic coming of age story that helps to teach diversity and that growing up is hard no matter who or what you are. Twilight is truely a love story that happens to have vampires, but it is also so much deeper than that. It can be thought provoking in so many ways. You can’t compare every book you read to the harry potter books that you’ve probably only gotten so attached to because you had no friends to talk to before you got into harry potter. You have to get rid of the bias when reading, stop trying to compare things and just enjoy them.
Those are good points, Ashley, very good points. :)
I think that the Twilight books are becoming literary giants – they just haven’t come close to reaching the ‘Harry Potter’ level yet.
First, thank you to Leaky for posting this article. I absolutely think it is relevant; Edward Cullen is after all Robert Pattinson’s first big lead role, and it deserves to be mentioned.
Sherrie and Phie, I agree entirely with both of you. When I first heard about Twilight, I was reluctant to read it. It was hard to imagine that any book could grasp me like the Harry Potter books have, and people saying that Twilight was going to “replace” Harry Potter just made me upset and more determined not to read it. However, when I heard more and more people within the HP fandom recommending the series, I decided to give it a try.
I haven’t regretted the decision for one second. The Twilight books have given me an urge to read and reread in a way that only Harry Potter has done before. That doesn’t mean that I love Harry Potter any less. The two series are very different, both in themes and writing style, and I’m equally captivated by both.
Twilight will never replace Harry Potter, no matter how successful it gets. Twilight fans dislike the Harry Potter comparison as much as Harry Potter fans dislike the Twilight comparison, mainly because there are so many people who love both series. Both sides are against people making it look like a competition. That is really the most important comparison between the two.
It really is pointless to compare the two series, and I know both Twilight fans and HP fans who are getting tired. Well, it isn’t the fans that are comparing them, Clearly. It’s just the media trying to compare two very successful female authors, and it gets really old fast. I swear that none of the Twilight fans like being compared to HP. In fact they usually get really upset about it.
I think someone said previously that they don’t like the updates about the roles actors are doing that aren’t HP related. Well, I respectively disagree. Sometimes it’s nice to hear about things about the actors. You don’t know it might be something you like. I didn’t know what Twilight was before Rob was cast for the film, and it turned out I liked the book. I loved Sweeny Todd, and I will probably go see Equis (sp?) in NY. See, we are becoming well rounded people!
There are no possible comparison between Harry Potter and the Twilight Series. The only thing they have in common is the fact that they both are fantasy stories, though I guess Twilight can be more realistic (only the existance of vampires and werewolves is fictional, and the story happens in a place that really exists… not like Harry Potter in Hogwarts, with all the horcruxes stuff, and magic wounds and brooms… And please don’t get me wrong; I really like HP books).
I’m just trying to justify why you should read the Twilight Series. It doesn’t have a great story (it’s very predictable, actually) but it is such a simple story that, when you really get into it, you won’t be able to stop until you read all the three books.
So yeah! Read Twilight =)
Twilight Fans: “Our Books Have A Phallic Symbol On The Cover!”
Hee. Sorry, sorry. I just can’t help thinking that every time I see those Twilight books. I have a dirty mind.
Actually, Twilight sounds like it might be a good guilty pleasure sort of thing. Or a good “airplane book”, as I call them; they’re the sort of book you take with you on a plane trip because you don’t want to read anything deep and taxing, you just want something to occupy your mind for a couple of hours.
Of course, some of the lines people have quoted here in the comments have been pretty cringeworthy. But even that might add to its cheesetastic entertainment value, albeit in a way Stephenie Meyer didn’t intend.
I’ve recently gotten into Twilight and it’s actually pretty good. But I just don’t understand where the whole Harry Potter comparison came from. The two book series are nothing alike. They’re not even in the same genre. Stephenie Meyer and JKR have two completely different writing styles. Harry Potter is way more complex than Twilight. But they’re both good stories. But they can NOT be compared at all. I love Harry Potter and I really like Twilight, but they are NOTHING alike at all. I think MTV keeps bringing up Harry Potter because they’re the ones who are producing the Twilight movie and I think they’re trying to convert the HP fans so that they can make more money from the movie. But I plan on seeing them both, there’s no competition as far as I’m concerned.
“Sleep, my Bella. Dream happy dreams. You are the only one who has ever touched my heart. It will always be yours. Sleep, my only love.”
...Why do I remember it as having stopped at ‘heart’?
Twilight does, indeed, look a bit like fanfiction, but it’s great all the same :) I’m highly anticipating the fourth book.