Stephen King: Hates Stephenie Meyer, Loves J.K. Rowling

After reading this article of Stephen King praising J.K. Rowling and slagging off Stephenie Meyer, I have to say, I became rather more positive about the state of the world.

To make sure I would stay happy forever, I was cheered by this article that had a poll between Harry Potter and Twilight, and Harry has over three quarters of the vote.  I have to admit that I was worried that people would forget just how great Harry Potter was now that it is all finished and dusted, and with the Twilight series still very much in the lime light.  But I needn’t have worried.  Not to mention that the quarter of people that voted for Twilight are probaby fourteen year old fangirls.

The human race.  I have faith in you yet.

Shockingly Terrible Books

Needless to say, I read a lot, and I have a few rules to reading.  One is to always finish a book you have started.  If it is bad, at least give yourself knowledge of the whole thing to write a better negative review of it.  People deserve to know the truth; I’ll take on the pain, so others do not have to!  Another rule is to read every hyped up book.  Why?  If it is popular, I consider that there must be a reason.  And I’m nosey.  I must investigate.  A more infrequent rule is to pick up a book simply on the strength of its cover every now and again.  Armed with these rules, you just know that the only natural course, is the course to some very bad books.   I list some of my worst experiences here.

The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer (2006-2008)

If you read my book reviews, you’ll know that I reviewed the first book of this series, Twilight, and that I gave it quite a fair review.  It’s enjoyable, I said, but very poor writing with a structure that resembles what China would be like if it were an anarchist establishment.  I smiled at it, gave Meyer a patronising pat on the head, and let the bad literature go.  I just let it go.  As I got further and further into the series, however, my good nature was pushed to its limits and I lost my patience with possibly the worst writer to ever be published.  I thought that, perhaps, she has the mental age of a twelve year old and was called “the fat kid” one too many times during gym class.  There are so many things wrong with this series that I don’t even know how to start.  If you can imagine every bad thing a writer can do to their novel you will pretty much have summed up Stephenie Meyer.  I’m just going to take a deep breath, and list things until I get bored:

Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight”

I consider it my personal duty to read a hyped up book. I must do it. I must have my own opinion, no matter how decided the public are, no matter how slated it is by elitists. I usually side with elitists when it comes to books. Generally speaking, I much prefer to sit down with classics than to pick out anything from today’s literary world. Maybe it was drilled into me by reading classic after classic for my degree.  Who knows?

Despite this, I have a weakness for hyped up books. Why? Blame it on Harry Potter. When I was sixteen (ooooh, seven years ago) I was mocking Harry Potter along with everyone else. Until I read it, that is. And here is my weakness. The reason why I picked up Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Like anything that is hyped up, people want to swoop in and belittle it, because it is popular. Harry Potter is popular, and to this very day I still come across the odd person that wants to insult it, criticise it and put it down. The pattern that emerges when this happens, however, is that the person in question has not picked up the damn books. I think to myself that they simply would not be saying these things if they actually made the effort to read them; they would, more than likely, become engrossed, like almost everybody else has in the world.