Most of you don't know enough about me to know my likes or dislikes. Obviously you know I like Charlaine Harris and the Sookie Stackhouse novels and Sherrilyn Kenyon and her novels, which must mean I like paranormal romance that has all sorts of fun paranormal characters in it. You know, vampires, werewolves, gods, shifters, etc.
What may come as a surprise to some of my readers is that I abhor the Twilight series. I won't touch the books (except to maybe burn them, but I won't buy them to burn them because she makes money off that and I'm not willing to have her make money off my burning spree). I won't watch the movies. I won't have anything to do with the series, the writer, or anything else.
My reasons why are multifold, but the foremost is, she's a poor writer at best, a bad writer at worst. I'm being generous here, just in case you can't tell.
The second, and you will find as I write reviews, I abhor characters that continually make bad mistakes and don't learn from their previous bad mistakes which is the case with Bella. Let's be honest ladies and gentleman, killing yourself isn't the solution to an idiot boy who leaves you. You're better than that -find someone else that deserves you.
Third, her book teaches girls all sorts of wrong things about growing up and boys. If you want to raise your pre-teen/teenage-daughter right, I definitely wouldn't let her read these books. Trust me, teenage girls don't think beyond the hormones and how "romantic" Edward is. They hope that their emo-goth boyfriend will be just as wonderful.
Fourth, the Twilight Series is by no means original. Not one bit. There's another series I read at age 17 or 18 that has *Gasp* a young high school young lady who falls for this guy who ends up being a vampire and he has a nasty evil brother. They can go to school and all by *Gasp* altering the weather to where it's always cloudy.
At least they don't sparkle.
Fifth, she attempts to change the mythos behind vampires and possibly weres (please note, I haven't read the book so not positive on the were mythos if she changed it). But let's be honest here. Every character has to have a flaw. The biggest flaws for vampires is that sunlight burns and kills them. That becomes a challenge for the character. They have to hide from the sunlight, conduct their business after the sun sets. They have amazing paranormal powers, but all of that becomes itty bitty when touched by sunlight. A vampire that just sparkles in the sunlight doesn't make them flawed, it makes them sparkly and pretty - Yuck.
I also -loved- how they called Edward a "vegetarian" vampire because he only fed from animals, not from humans. Really? Vegetarian? Right. I think if you called Bill or Eric in the Sookie Stackhouse novels vegetarians for drinking TrueBlood, you'd be without a throat.
While I understand the novels are "young adult" novels and are appropriate for pre-teens and teenagers to read, I really have to ask if anyone questioned the lessons the books would teach to those teens. Sure, they're easy to read, have vampires in it, attract young readers, but do the books really teach young girls what they should be learning? I don't think so.
Sherrilyn Kenyon does do some Young Adult books in the Dark Hunter Series. Based on one of the frequently seen characters in her other books,
Infinity: Chronicles of Nick and
Invincible: Chronicles of Nick, are available for purchase or at the library and are based around Nick at the age of 14, when he was attending High School. The book covers all the topics, from being the odd-kid out at a private school when he's not wealthy, to protecting friends and saving the world (and keeping secrets to save the world), Kenyon has life lessons in each of her books. The next in her series,
Infamous: Chronicles of Nick is due out in March 2012.
