Reading Twilight as an Adult
And Why I No Longer Think it Unceremoniously Sucks
I’ve been dissing Twilight since I read it for the first time when I was 16 years old. I read it and hated the writing itself. Liked the story, but couldn’t get past the cringy-ness of some of the language.
In fact, it took years for my best friend to convince me to read the rest of the books in the series, which, I had to admit, I liked. I’ve always liked the story — there’s no question about that. But as a book? The writing kind of sucks.
At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for all these years.
So color me surprised when I started reading it as an almost-30-something and realized I’ve been wrong for a long time.
Well, not entirely. Don’t get me wrong, the writing isn’t some work of art in and of itself like many other books I enjoy. It’s predictable and overdramatic. Pretty much how you’d expect a 16–17 year old girl to sound.
Which is why the book is actually a pretty big success. It does everything it tries to do — nothing more or less.
I have a new working theory on Twilight, and although that won’t stop the women working at Meijer from judging my taste in books (as they did when I brought New Moon with me for post-COVID vaccine reading — the…