On Twilight

A few days ago someone wrote an article (that, might I add, I haven't read yet) and that, according to my boyfriend sent the following message: "All right, granted, the Twilight series sucks, but in a world of male heroes, what else is out there for teenage girls? If not Twilight, then what?". And when I then provided a considerable list of strong female characters the reply I got was that nowadays teenagers are lazy, that unless something falls on their lap they won't pick it up. Well, that settles it then! If teenage girls are too lazy to look for books that suit them, if they're that dependant on the media telling them what to read or if they won't pick up a book unless there's loads of publicity about it and a movie being made out of it, then I think they do deserve to be stuck with Bella Swan! And even though the character is not as horrid as most people who never read the books think she is (people seem to be stuck with the "jumping off a cliff" bit even though that's about a dozen pages out of hundreds), personally I'm very happy that I got to grow up with female characters such as Hermione Granger, Elizabeth Bennet or Buffy instead. Actually I'm happy I got to grow up with ALL sorts of characters, good, bad and in between. And that's really what this is about (for me at least).

Mind you, I'm not even against Twilight per se. It's the reading only Twilight that gets to me. Like I usually say (and I say it as an example so please don't extrapolate) I'm not against reading trashy novels - heck I do it from time to time! - but I don't think people should stick to them and not explore further. Actually, there is nothing wrong with you if you only read Stephenie Meyers or Nicholas Sparks or whoever author you decide to read, I just think there's more to life. I would probably nag someone who only reads Tolkien (who is a literary God) almost as much as I would a Twilighter (or whatever they call themselves) to get out of their shell.

Bottom line here is: variety. Read, read a lot and read more than just Twilight. Heck, Stephenie Meyer has a degree in English literature, I'm sure she'd be pleased to see her followers pick up all sorts of books after Twilight. So go, people. Go and discover the world one book at a time.