Reviews Literature / Twilight

Twilight In The Context of a Bad Metaphor

An interesting fact is that a lot of people don't read twenty books a week. Many, in fact, barely read one book in the course of an entire summer. Think of the average book as a meal, exceptional books as your favorite food... and Twilight as something from the Sonic down the street from me. That Sonic opened a few months ago, and I have to be blunt again when I say that the food is not what I'd call gourmet. Or even good. Yet, whenever I drive by, there is a ridiculously long line for it.

For those who don't read a lot, Twilight is Sonic. They've heard quite a bit about how amazing it supposedly is, and go in determined to enjoy it. Unlike Sonic, they have little to compare it to save for whatever books they had to read in school, which they probably don't remember entirely well (assuming that they even enjoyed them. I'm a major bookworm and English major, but even I've wanted to throw half of the assigned reading material I've had over the years through the nearest window). However, similar to how going to Sonic is where I live, even the mention of Twilight has become an almost foolproof way of starting a conversation, especially after the movie.

The Twilight movie, like the book it was based on, is junk food. I went into it expecting to enjoy it—what had kept me from going through the series had always been the writing style (if it can even be called that); and I'd always heard that The Host was nowhere near as enjoyable in terms of the story. My cousin, who had invited me to watch it with her, couldn't stop raving about it. So, I went in hopeful, and came out... very glad that I'd never forced myself through the book. There are no actual words that I can use to describe my reaction to it, so I'll simply go with 'urg'. I tried, I really did, yet in the end I spent most of the movie alternating between pointing out the flaws and climbing back onto the couch after I'd laughed myself off of it.

But much of the audience of the movie watched it because of their love of the books. For many of them, it was the equivalent of a large burger to the small one that had been Twilight in written format.

I've never liked burgers, just as I've never really seen the appeal of going to a place where you eat bad food in your car after watching someone bring it to you on rollerblades. Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy Twilight, either.