For years I didn't even think of ever reading this book, that's how convinced I was of how this must be the worst novel anyone has ever written on this planet. Until four days ago I had marked it on Goodreads on my "to go a long way round it" shelf. And now that I have finally read it as a result of some weird mood I must have been in ... I can confirm that it isn't quite as bad as a lot of people proclaim it to be. Sure, a lot of things can be found in this book which are simply wrong; it is full of plot holes and inconsistencies, but it is addictive and keeps you hooked if you are in the mood for a fast-paced story to which it is easy to get attached. I was so convinced I would read Twilight only so that I could hate it and tear it apart in a one-star review that I didn't expect of how it would actually surprise me. That it would be entertaining. Gripping. That I would not have to force myself to reading it, but rather had to force myself to put it down. 
 "There are a few flaws with that story." 
 Bella Swan might have talked about a different topic, but she definitely knew how to perfectly summarize the book Stephenie Meyer wrote about her. Yes, that book which teens have cried about, that book about sparkling vampires and teenie-weenie romance stuff. From a literary point of view, this book is pretty bad. It was easy to find moments in which you wanted to get into a serious conversation with Stephenie Meyer about whether she thinks that the way her characters behave is really okay. (I mean, watching someone sleep without them knowing - nobody can tell me that's normal.) 
 Nevertheless, I will not spend any money on the cash cow Meyer turned her series into, yet I have to confess that Twilight made me feel like a lot of the hate surrounding this novel is directed towards 15-year-old fangirls screaming their mind to the heavens by the mere thought of Edward Cullen. Don't get me wrong, from an objective point of view, Twilight still deserves quite a huge number of 1-star ratings, and I would have been one of those people who hated it if I had expected to love it and be completely enthralled by a fascinating plot and heart-breaking romance. That was not the case, obviously. My first introduction to the series was back in eighth school class, when in our German classes each of us had to choose a book of our liking to present to the rest of the students. One girl chose to read from a passage of Twilight, a girl who fit perfectly into the definition of the term fangirl. I never understood the hype, and still can't see why exactly Edward Cullen is so well-beloved. Would he have turned into such a famous character if Robert Pattinson hadn't portrayed him in the movie adaption? (Which, by the way, made me appreciate the book even more because of the movie's awfulness.) 
 To mention some more positive aspects about Twilight: It introduces teenagers to literature, and while it would of course be more appreciable if teenagers were reading the great classics, at least it is better than reading nothing at all. With reading being regarded more and more as something old-fashioned and obsolete among teenagers, this can never be seen as a bad thing. Before I discovered classics and literary fiction, YA fantasy has always been some kind of comfort zone, something you can identify with as a teenager. The question is, should teenagers even identify with characters like they are portrayed in Twilight? The shy and emotionally acting Bella; the super-attractive and hey-let's-watch-girls-while-they-are-sleeping Edward - it's questionable if they are indeed characters to look up to. It's also questionable if Stephenie Meyer is a great writer (I don't think so; at some points her writing made me cringe), but millions of fans will probably tend to disagree with me. Twilight is not for everyone and it has definitely divided its readers, but I have personally read books which were far worse than this.