Big news in the world of books. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Stephenie Meyer’s Eclipse, the third book in her YA series about sexy young vampire named Edward and the human girl named Bella who loves him, sold 150,000 copies on Tuesday, its first day in stores. Even for a hit series like Meyer’s (her first two novels have sold 1.3 million copies combined), that’s a lot of books. Apparently it’s enough books to make the Journal wonder if Harry Potter comparisons might be in order.
So now’s a good time to ask: who in the world is Stephenie Meyer? Not being 12 myself — or a girl, for that matter — I didn’t have a bead on her or her books till a couple of weeks ago, when I interviewed her for EW. Turns out she’s an absolutely delightful lady who, since literally dreaming up the plot of the vampire love story at the heart of her trilogy in 2003, now writes books at breakneck pace, loves indie rock (especially Muse), skips R-rated movies, is humble about her success, and is grateful to all her fans. She hasn’t gotten a huge amount of media attention — at least prior to this third book— so what I’d like to know now is: Who of you out there is reading her, and what do you think of her novels? By the look of things, she’s really hitting it big at the moment; her website appears to be having trouble dealing with all the legions currently flocking to it. So I know you Meyer mavens are here online, somewhere.
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YES! I LOVE her books! I am in my mid-20s, yet my calendar was marked for quite some time alerting me to the release of Eclipse! The story is classic and Meyer knows how to create people the reader cares about.
Also, I work with teens, and they adore Meyer as well. One girl even had temporary tattoos with Edward’s name on them…
I’m in high school and Meyer’s one of those authors that every teenage girl who claims she likes to read reads. I read the first two books and didn’t enjoy them very much. I kept expecting they would grow on me but they never did. The books follow the same format: nothing happens for hundreds of pages and then BANG everything happens and there’s no foreshadowing or anything… She also created a new breed of vampire. Apparently, they can’t go out in the sun becaue they’re very shiny.
I love these books and I’m 24. I just heard about them a couple months ago. She is a great writer. You can tell she cares about these characters (like J.K. Rowling does about hers).
I’m 20 and basically the books are my guilty pleasure. My friend started reading them and I was looking around for something light to read and the books were perfect for that. You can’t help but love the characters and want the best for all of them! She’s written some enticing characters!
I’m 29, and I just picked up my copy of “Eclipse” this afternoon. It’s definitely been on my to-read list this summer. Are they The Best Thing Ever? Well, no. I tend to think that Bella loses all semblance of a personality when anywhere near Edward (although I could probably have said that about a lot of my peers and their respective boyfriends in high school,) and there are some moments in the books that put an awful lot of weight on one’s suspension of disbelief, but if you can get past that they are pretty darn entertaining in the best ‘check your brain at the door’ tradition, and I’d gladly recommend them to teens and vampire fanatics.
(I’m also really looking forward to Libba Bray’s new novel “The Sweet far Thing” in December which is another big trilogy in the current YA supernatural/paranormal movement. Where were these when I was in High school? All I had were the Annes Rice and McCaffrey!)
Im 27 and my sister is 21 and we can not stop reading her books. I read New Moon and Twilight so mnay times that I can’t remember. Do yourself a favor and pick these books up, you won’t regret it. Im starting Eclipse tmorrow so i might not see daylight for a few days. Have a great weekend all!
hahaha i just read the comments and my sister posted something thought maybe I should too. Love the books, it seems like the books were made for teen girls but everyone who posted here was in there 20s except one. Meyer really makes you fall for the characters she’s an amazing writter and you just can’t put the books down… my favorite characters are Alice who I just love, Bella and Jacob. Trust me pick up the books they’re good! I’m also going to get to see her this month she’s doing a signing at a borders near my house!!! i can’t wait!!!! (also i’m almost sure just like my sister i’m going to read the books again…) i got sooo many people hooked on them they must hate me by now!
I’m in my 20s, and I’ve taught high school English. I love the books and so did every girl I know who read them. Meyers obviously loves her characters, and even if the books are not very difficult to read, you fall in love w/ her characters, too. She’s written one of the few romances I’ve ever read where I love both love interests for the girl. I read all three books in less than 24 hours each, because I just couldn’t stop. My boyfriend teased me, because I would start grinning or crying out of the blue. You just feel so much for these characters. I can’t wait for the fourth book!
I have never gotten the allure of these novels. Her writing is rather bland and filled with cliches and steroetypes. Bella spends most of the first novel complaining about being human. I couldn’t relate. I like vampire fiction but prefer the old fashion rules (no sunlight, stake through the heart, no remorse!!!) When an author makes a loop hole in the no sun rule, it’s just laziness and lack of orginality. Don’t get me started on “we hate killing humans, so we drink animal blood.”
Ms. Meyer in the interview said that all her characters are basically good and if not that, their intentions are always good. This makes for boring characters and villians I am not worried about.
Buffy mixed classic and modern myth the best, along with vampric cliches. Angel was always feeling down on himself while Spike enjoyed every moment of his undeadness (until the fifth season that is.)
But hey, she’s making more money than I am complaining about her books.That makes her the smart one.
On livejournal, the fanart world has taken a firm hold on Meyer’s books. Some are completely captivated, some push the book to friends as ’so bad its good’. There is a whole ‘not so under-world’ making fanart and manipulations casting their own characters which I think should be acknowledged
Why, oh WHY do people love these utterly RIDICULOUS books?! They are not only cliche-ridden drivel, they are also terminally sexist. “New Moon” is particularly aggravating, with Meyer lazily including BLANK PAGES to represent the “OMG, woe!” angst Bella faces when Edward has the nerve to leave her. Meyer has said that Bella is a strong female heroine, but she spends pages literally curled up in a ball, almost comatose because she cannot survive without her precious Edward. Good GRIEF!
Don’t even get me started on how utterly 2D all the characters in this series are. Jacob is the only one with a semblance of an actual personality, but Meyer has to ruin that by making him a) a half-werewolf and b) in love with Bella, because of course, EVERYONE has to be in love with Bella. And then Bella turns out to be in love with both Jacob AND Edward? COP OUT! Unbelievable. As a young English teacher, I would never, never let teenaged girls read this in my classroom.
I don’t think these books will be very popular outside of the set that usually reads YA because the writing is so insipid, it sounds as if it were written by a tween and not just for tweens.
I haven’t read the most recent book, but Meyer’s first two are decent. Not great, but decent. The main character, Bella, leaves something to be desired. Many events that happen in the book seem cliched, especially to the reader who’s ever seen an episode of “Buffy” or really read anything involving vampires before.
But I’ll say this: anything that can get my 16-year-old younger sister to enjoy reading is all right by me.
I’m a fan from Brazil. Ever since reading a summary for her first book Twilight I’ve been interested in the series. Once I gave it a try, New Moon was already out and I read both in the space of a week. I love her books a lot! She’s incredible writing her characters, she knows them well and they’re very realistic (even when she’s dealing with a 100 year old vampire). The plot is also really good and interesting. The writing is beautiful, in my opinion. I’m glad her books and her are recieving the attetion they deserve.
I love these books, though I wouldn’t compare them with Anne Rice (so much better) and I’m getting tired of all the comments about 12-year-old readers. I’m in my mid-20s as well, and I stumbled across Twilight by accident last year, and since have absolutely devoured New Moon and Eclipse. They’re wonderful, engrossing books, completely captivating and unique, and I, for one, cannot wait until the next volume comes out a year from now (please oh please let it be only a year!). The writing is absolutely beautiful, and I can’t wait to read more. And it’s great to see EW support other YA writers!
I’ve actually read a great deal of vampire fiction, and I really enjoy Meyer’s books. I became interested in the genre by reading the granddaddy of them all, Dracula, in college and writing a seminar paper on the book. Meyer may change many aspects of the vampire myth and her characters may not all be as developed as they could be, but the characters are growing up and many of her young readers are getting to grow up with them. Twilight was a novel that my students could select as independent reading for the summer, and I was happy to have them read it, because they actually did, even though they did not have a test or paper due to force them to read it. Maybe some of them will even read Dracula one day. Meyers is helping the vampire genre to continue to grow and change, and she has a lot of kids and adults reading in the process. I applaud her, and I’m eagerly waiting for her next novel, The Host.
I adore the books. I feel they are really well written. And if there are many cliches, as someone above has claimed, I certainly aren’t aware of them.
The characters all have a lot of inner struggle which I find makes an interesting path to follow.
I love Stephenie Meyers’ series. I’m not a fan of the 12-year-old comment, I would definately guess tweens are not the demographic intended, whether they happen to enjoy the books or not. I’d have to agree on the female demographic, although tough and admirable characters like Edward and Jacob could certainly inspire some guys out there.
Perhaps because I’m a teenager, I don’t realize that the books are as light as other people have said. I am in my late teens however, and don’t find anything in the writing that would insinuate it was “written for tweens by a tween” as mentioned below. If someone could give proper examples to back that up..?
On another note, I love the series. Twilight is one of my favorite novels. New Moon was a bit disappointing to me in comparison, and so far, Eclipse is very good. I haven’t finished it yet, so excuse me while I return to my ‘light and unoriginal’ reading!
About the critiscm about the loophole of the vampire’s inability to be in the sun as ‘unoriginal’, I would have to say I disagree.
If Stephenie Meyer were to keep the same vampire rules as Anne Rice would, or as the vampires exist on Buffy, or as any others, she would still be ridiculed by some as being unoriginal. At least she is trying to come up with some fresh and new ideas of her own to add to her books to separate it slightly from others. Unoriginal, I think, would not be quite the adjective to describe that.
As for the “not killing humans”, I find that aspect of the story really intriguing, and makes the characters noble. The struggles that go along with it also make the story more interesting than just bloodthirsty creatures. It humanizes them, by giving them enough emotional turmoil, while still making them distinct from the humans at the same time, which if you ask me is a pretty good recipe for a well-selling story, and a character 1.3 million can fall in love with!
Thanks but no thanks. I’ll stick to Christopher Moore and his two great Vampire novels “Bloodsucking Fiends” and it’s follow up, “You Suck” and yes, they are as side splittenly funny as their titles suggest.
The “no sun” rule has been done too death already by every other tween vampire author. She didn’t want to explain how Bella could fall for a guy she only say at night. That is laziness.
As for the “we hate killing humans”, once again it has been done by much better writers. The vampires are pompous and pretentious about not eating humans while other novels deal with the guilt of remorseful vampires in a much more realistic way.
I would be able to consider these acceptable flaws but Ms. Meyers goes on to create 2D stock characters that could all have died and I wouldn’t have cared about. Bella sits around and whines the whole novels. Some reason Edward wants to stay with her. I don’t get it.
The books are nothing compared to Harry Potter. Despite their flaws, Ms. Rowling made me care about Harry, Ron and Hermoine and not wish for their untimely desmise.
The “no sun” rule has been done too death already by every other tween vampire author. She didn’t want to explain how Bella could fall for a guy she only say at night. That is laziness.
As for the “we hate killing humans”, once again it has been done by much better writers. The vampires are pompous and pretentious about not eating humans while other novels deal with the guilt of remorseful vampires in a much more realistic way.
I would be able to consider these acceptable flaws but Ms. Meyers goes on to create 2D stock characters that could all have died and I wouldn’t have cared about. Bella sits around and whines the whole novels. Some reason Edward wants to stay with her. I don’t get it.
The books are nothing compared to Harry Potter. Despite their flaws, Ms. Rowling made me care about Harry, Ron and Hermoine and not wish for their untimely desmise.
I saw Twilight at my local library one day and checked it out on a whim. I proceded to read the entire book in one setting and waited impatiently to get my hands on New Dawn. Can’t wait to read Twilight! I am a high school teacher, and saw those books being passed around and read by both girls AND boys. BTW, I am 33 years old, and enjoy them as much as the teenagers reading them. We’ve actually talked a little bit about them outside of class.
I haven’t read these books, so I know I shouldn’t be commenting on them, but . . . they feature vampires who don’t drink human blood?!? Doesn’t that go against everything vampires are about? And where’s the suspense if the vampires aren’t dangerous?
Just the fact that this author avoids R-rated movies makes me suspicious . . . most movies that are worthwhile for adults to see are rated R (I’m talking independent and arthouse films here, not Wedding Crashers). Does she refuse to read books meant for adults, too? If so, no wonder people below are saying her writing is callow.
I’ll have to check these books out in the store and see what I think.
28 year old married dad. Love the books. Great for non-genre fans. I couldn’t carte less about vampire books until now.
I love the books. I started reading the first one a week ago and finished the most resent one very early this morning. They nicely fill the void that the Harry Potter series end left in my life.
If I can get my strange, hipsterish 17 year old brother, my 17 year old sister with amazingly painful aim, and my Muse adoring mother to read these books, they must be pretty good. i picked up New Moon, when reading the last page and seeing MUSE, and I don’t regret it. Although, Bella looses some of her, *for lack of a better word* Bellaness, in Eclipse. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but she didn’t seem exactly like herself. I’ve read Dracula, and The Historian, Blue Bloods, and countless other vampire stories, and each author brings diffrences to their particlular set of vampires. Which is exactly what Meyer did. Some people say that vampires are ruthless and horrid creatures, but did they forget that Dracula was a COUNT? Vampires always seem to hold an honourable place in society, and keep their cover. so why can’t the Cullens have some compassion? Most monsters hold some compassion in their hearts. They just need someone to help bring it out.
Dracula kept three vampire woman in his house, imprisoned a business associatate and slowly destroyed Lucy mentally and pyschically through his nightly visits. He used his position as a Count to hide his crimes.
It is not so much that her characters have compassion its that she does not explore well. Plus the vampires act like they are saints because they avoid human blood. I tend to avoid drinking human blood and am not a saint.
My big beef with her novels are boring characters, large plot holes and the lack of strong females. I would rather watch Buffy kick butt than ready a whiny teenage complain about being human. If I wanted that I could complain to myself.
People, either you enjoy them or you do not. There is no need to be insulting to Ms. Meyers or her fans. That said, I am a 31 year old Twilight fan. New moon was good, Eclipse is beter, but nothing touches the original.