A Matter of My Opinion

Stephenie Myers is overrated.

And though I'm sure this is not a particularly popular opinion to have, at least not with females in the twelve to eighteen age group, I can't help but feel a little shortchanged with her Twilight series as a whole.

To me it was almost like reading a well thought out instruction manual. Tab A fits into Tab B which slides into Tab C resulting in the finished piece D.

Or in layman's terms, completely and utterly, and exponentially predictable.

Now I know I really don't have any business critiquing a published author but I couldn't help my wanting of more. More background, more character depth, more something that would make something seem different from one story to the next. But it was not to be. The author, having found the magic of what worked in the first go round, kept up the same laid out routine in book two, three and finally book four.

And I know the whole if it's not broken, don't fix it rules apply to writing just as much as it does to anything else, but honestly by the fourth book I was so ready for something to surprise and shock me, that when it was over, I was just relieved to know that I was done.

Mostly I felt a sharp keening of disappointment for what I wanted out of these books when compared to what I actually got. And I kept thinking to myself, that the story - and yes, it really was a good one, would have been so much better had she strayed every now and then outside her own self imposed boundaries and freed herself to write without worrying so much to sticking to her premeditated outline.

Still she did what I haven't been able to do for thirteen years... She got my daughter reading.