I think I’m going to blow... I need one of those little emoticons o_O... there we go!This is
On to the point. If one more person degrades a book because of it's likeness or it's lack of likeness to Twilight, I think I’m going to..... I don’t know fill in the blank; have a massive coronary, suffer from a Twilight induced brain aneurysm, something like that, you get it, right?
Why do I feel I need to point out the fact that just because a book is “paranormal” or “fantasy” doesn’t mean that the author is trying to be Stephenie Meyer. I don’t care about comparisons, those are fine, but don’t say that a novel is a knock off of Twilight.
Because
a.) Stephenie Meyer was not the first person to write about vampires. Have you ever heard of Anne Rice, or if we want to stay with the YA theme here, how about L.J. Smith or Annette Curtis Klause.
b.) Stephenie Meyer was not the first person to write about vampire romance/vampire vegetarians/moving to a new town/falling in love... I could go on here.
c.) Stephenie Meyer was not the first person to write about werewolves! I'll just throw out Annette Curtis Klause here again and that little novel... Blood and Chocolate. And SM doesn’t even have werewolves in her novels! Haven’t you read Breaking Dawn..... these aren’t children of the moon!
d.) Stephenie Meyer isn’t even that great of a writer! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know she's like some mutli-million dollar author and all that, but serioulsy, I've read A LOT better.
To add to my overall aggravation and possibly yours, please feel free to head over to Amazon and check out the reviews for Need by Carrie Jones, you would think that the book is about vampire-pixies, from all the Twilight mentions. What in the hell do pixies have to do with Twilight.... would someone please point that out to me??? Anyone? I understand that the book is advertised for fans of Stephenie Meyer and Melissa Marr, but hello ,why isn’t everyone comparing Need to Wicked Lovely and bitching about the fact that a pixie is just a knock off of a faerie, at least that would make more sense!
Do I even need to mention the fact that every new vampire novel seems to be degraded as an inadequate version of Twilight. GAH!
A part of me even understands the continued comparisons to Twilight, I mean it’s such a big book, lot of people have read it, it’s almost expected to associate or compare it, but don’t degrade a novel because of it’s likeness to another book. I think that is what’s bothering me the most.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
48 comments:
I have not read Twilight. Do I plan to? Yes, eventually. But like you, I am so tired of hearing books praised/degraded because of its likeness or lack thereof.
Love the fact that you tell it like it is!
but she is not the greatest thing ever. There are some authors who are not as widely read but have amazing books.
Stephanie Meyer is not the first or last to write about vampires, love, werevolves... and vampire hybrids. Don't stop enjoying her books, but don't take your obsession as far as dissing everything thats not Stephanie Meyer.
PS: love your site!
Broaden your horizons everyone! Take a break from Stephenie Meyer and read some Jay Asher, John Green, Sarah Dessen, ANYTHING. Give everyhing else a chance without immediately comparing it to Twilight.
Thank you for the post!
Jessica
/sarcasm
Haha you don't have to apologize for your opinions! If people are too insecure (or nuts) to accept that not everyone likes what they does, that's their problem, not yours.
But what I agree with most in your little rant is that any book being compared with another book is something to be avoided. Unless that book claims to upstage something else or whatever - books should be read and evaluated on their own merit.
Thanks for this thoughtful post! I was reading this and nodding my head the whole time. Even a couple "I KNOW"'s and "EXACTLY!"'s thrown in there.
And also, Taren you are too funny!
That is all.
I agree...Stephanie's story is original in some ways, but not all the way...just like pretty much every. single. book.
I love the twilight books...read them all...love them all, but like you said, they aren't the greatest works of literature. they're just fun and good stories.
-lauren
anyway! i'm so glad that i'm not crazy! and Taren... i can't believe there is really twilight perfume.... what has the world come to?
Reminds me of the (many) people who compare all books that include some magic to Harry Potter, forgetting that Rowling was not the first author to write about a school for magicians (Pratchett, anyone?) nor about young magicians.
Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed Need!
Keep up the humorous and great blogging!
Which is why, as you said, I can't stand it when people compare EVERYTHING to Twilight. It's not right. I don't see everything being compared to, say, Violet on the Runway. So why Twilight?
Great post, BTW.
There. I said it.
So it's going to happen with the Twilight series as well. However those books were so poorly written it's sort of sad to see the other books put down. I liked the first book, but disliked the second and third.
I just think it's going to be this way for a little while. People have stopped making such extreme HP references, Twilight will die down in a year or so. ;)
(and HAHAHAHAH! I LOVE your new header image!!)
I do have hope that the Twilight obsession will end up introducing many of them to better books, and am doing my part to help! :)
People who love it seems to degrade other new vampire novels. I mean c'mon all the writer want to do is to write their own novel. I don't think they would need to copy Twilight. They have their own ideas!
Well for people who hate it then just get over with it. If you read it, then fine. If you haven't, well either you read it and find a reason to hate it or you just find something else to do instead.
Finally, Twilight isn't the best novel I read. I read better books than this. BTW thank you for the post!
I've read the whole series, and it just depressed me that people loved it. I thought I was the odd one out, and I resisted it with all my being. It depressed me even more when it was compared with Harry Potter (two VERY DIFFERENT STORIES!). Also, you are so right that there are other YA novels that are so well written, but it's sad that they don't get the recognition they deserve.
Just a little recommendation: Read Companions of the Night by Vivian Velde. You can compare it to that saga if you want, but I find Vivian's style so much better. One that deserves recognition.
You mentioned Annette Curtis Klaus' "Blood and Chocolate" and I love that. It, along with "Ender's Game" and "Dragonsong," are among my absolute favorite books. And I completely agree with you that there are superior authors than Meyer's who have written vampire/paranormal books. The one thing that I think the Twilight series really has going for it is that it has massive appeal to readers of all levels- and I can appreciate that as a librarian and book-enthusiast.
I'm a major fan of the Twilight Saga but this is getting ridiculous.
I'm even writing my own vampire(vampyr) story and I happened to show a friend a scene from it and she went on about how 'it must be a knock off of Twilight.' -shakes head- anyway. this was rad.
I totally feel you on the comparison thing. The thing is, these books happen to be the first vampire books a lot of these fans have read so I can kind of see it but removing the head from the poop chute is always a good thing.
The fans shitting on True Blood is what really gets me, saying it's a rip off of Twilight. Neat. Since True Blood is based on Sookie Stackhouse and those books were first published in 2001, 4 years before Meyer's midnight masturbation fantasy was published. So what happened was Charlaine Harris got in a time machine, traveled forward four years, stole the Twilight idea from Meyer, traveled back in time to her current time to write the books and then get them published so really, Sookie Stackhouse was Meyer's idea. Duh!
If you're doing this O_o to that, then you're in my boat and we're all on one side paddling. Hey, logic and science don't exist in the Twilightverse so why should it exist in the real world? Duh!
I can not even bring myself to read the series after all the hype, I'm a Buffy girl ;)
My novel isn't even published (heck, I'm not even agented yet!) even then Twilight is the first thing they ask about - there are people who see the word "vampire" and immediately ask "is this like Twilight?"
Ugh. My books are about actual vampires, kthx.
One of my "favourite" reviewers on Amazon has a habit of basically reviewing with "IT'S NOT TWILIGHT! IT'S NOT AS GOOD AS TWILIGHT THAT'S JUST MY OPINION NO OFFENCE IT'S JUST NOT TWILIGHT!"
Sadly, that sort of attitude is more common than one might think. The recent EW review that did the same (and that people were upset about) is merely one of those reviews, just with better spelling and grammar, and published by a "professional".
I love Twilight but I don't like other books to be compared.
When I was thinking of buying Need by Carrie Jones and was checking Amazon's reviews, there were a lot of them that mentioned that the plot was similar to Twilight. After I finished reading it I thought "What does this book has to do with Twilight? This is a new and completely different story!"
Thank you.
and you put my exact thoughts into words!
I'm sure plenty others feel the same about this issue..
-Catherine was right, that amazon reviewer gives poor rating to practically every other book other than Twilight, it's irritating
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