Dear Stephenie Meyer...

Are you f*cking kidding me?! Ok, now I had my reservations about your series at the beginning, but I was willing to put that aside for the sake of frivolity and mindless entertainment. I picked up the series to see what all of the hype was about, and because if I'm going to teach high school I should at least have some clue about what high schoolers are reading. So, I started the first book with trepidation and continued because I wanted to know where it was going. From the beginning, I was willing to overlook the fact that you set feminism back by about 100 years, I as willing to overlook (though, not forgive) the fact that you gave teenage girls a doormat as their role model. I looked past this because I spend my year reading super heady literature for class and I wanted something that didn't tax my brain. I was even willing to ignore the fact that you created an entirely unrealistic vision of love for teenage girls to aspire to, where there are no real arguments and no real problems between the couple, and the man is willing to give his true love whatever she wants simply because he loves her. I was willing to look past all of that because I was having so much fun ridiculing the writing and the utter lack of plot. But now, my dear, the gloves are coming off. I was with you when you had a wedding for an 18 year old, because I know you're a Mormon and that's not so uncommon in your faith, but when you brought a fucking half vampire demon baby into the picture, I was officially done. Sure, I kept trudging through your epic length novel full of awkwardness and umm....COMPLETELY inappropriate love relationships between adults and infants (I don't care if it's "protective" or "brotherly" at that point, it's still creepy as shit) but it was just that. Trudging. I've been sitting here looking at the last 100 pages I have to go before I'm finished with this crap, and I'm still trying to force myself to finish it. Now, I get that all of this was a means to the plotless end you had set up in your head, but seriously, EPIC FAIL my friend. Sure, you want to progress your series, though I'm not sure what you were trying to progress it to, but once you got to forcibly eating a baby out of a uterus I was so far from being on the bandwagon that I couldn't even see it anymore. That was just unnecessary, and disturbing. If you make that shit into a movie, the R rating is really going to put a dent in your fan base. I was seriously grossed out, simply because it takes one twisted friggin' mind to come up with that kind of stuff. I sort of wonder what the heck was going on in your repressed little mind. Honestly though, I forgave a LOT of flaws, and allowed myself to be more selfish in my desire to tax my brain with nothing more than ridiculous teenage angst and unrealistic relationships that in no way resemble true love, but I don't think I have any forgiveness left. Now I'm just even more irritated by all of the things I overlooked in the earlier books. Now I just find it absolutely infuriating that you set up such an awful role model and an awful representation of love and relationships. Now, you just sort of piss me off.

I will not say that I didn't get something out of these books, because that was untrue. I got an amazing example of what is not good writing, and I really got a laugh out of everything. I have had more fun ridiculing the lack of plot, and the bizzarre twists you've taken on your twisted road to a "happy ending" than I've had in a very long time. I will never stop finding it depressing that this is what pre-teens and teenagers now aspire to, and that there are now t-shirts that say "Looking for an Edward" or something like that. I find those sad, and very wrong. I don't think anyone should look for a man who says they love them, then hurts them, then abandons them, then returns to reclaim them as if they're property, then insists on a marriage the woman doesn't necessarily want, then spends all of his time consumed by emo anguish that is both unwarranted and unnecessary. That is not the perfect man, no matter what anyone else may say. So, I am sad that even adult women (who I will have to assume are really unhappy in their marriages) are falling in love with this ficticious man who is....well....kind of a tool. So, as much joy as it has given me to examine how sad and funny these books really are ("I'll sing all night if it will keep the nightmares away", are you kidding me right now?!) I still find them poor approximations of real writing that has a plot and characters that are actually believeable and realistic to identify with.

So, I think I'll stick to my Harry Potter and let Twilight fade into the dark. And, no matter how arrogant you may be that you believe you are now the next JK Rowling, I'd like to just say, you're not. Not even close. Keep trying.

Oh, and learn to spell your name properly. I'm just sayin'...