Why I'm no longer a Twihard

I used to be one of those people caught up in the mania that was Twilight. I read the books not long before the first movie came out. And, honestly, when I read it as a novel for pure entertainment, I liked it. I even read it half a dozen times and became one of those people who would role-play characters from the books (I was always Alice, by the way). But when my friends and I decided to do a book club and do a discussion of the book, I realized that it wasn't that great of a book.

I'm not saying that Stephenie Meyer doesn't know how to tell a great story. I absolutely love The Host. It's one of my favorite books, and I continue to read it over and over. But the one thing I had an issue about with Twilight was that Bella was a flat character. It seemed like the characters that were supposed to be "secondary" had more of a backstory and more relatability than Bella, who was supposed to be the narrator and carry the story. And, maybe more than anything else, Bella seemed to lack agency. Everyone else seemed to act on her behalf.

There was always this big mess about whether Bella was a good role model for girls because she was so in love with Edward. I think the love story was a gorgeous facet of the story, but I don't think that it made Bella a bad role model. Just because some girls want to get married and have a family, that doesn't set feminism back. I will forever stand by that defense of Bella Swan. That was never a reason why I didn't like her. My reasons were always because she whined. And she never did anything for herself.

So, while I still have the books and I have all the movies, I'm not really a Twihard anymore. I'm not crazy over it. I don't go nuts over the actors or the story. I'm not even that into it anymore. I've stopped defending the story and just ignore people who say they hate it because everyone has a right to their opinion. And, in truth, there are things about it that I absolutely hate, too.

Just remember, you don't have to love everything about a book to like it.

For further discussion about female characters, take a look at my post about strong female characters from yesterday.