Twilight and Harry Potter?

Today I shall review Twilight and all of its sequels, (though I have only read up through Eclipse as of yet), for this is probably one of the most popular series of this time.



Twilight features an insecure teenage girl (a pattern is already emerging in my entries) who moves to Forks so that her mother can travel with her new husband. Bella lives with her dad in a place that she normally dreads visiting, and just when you start to think that the book is boring, vampires complicate the plot.



Bella falls in love with a boy at school named Edward, who is a vampire, though she does not know it at first. Fighting with his own love for Bella as well as a desire to drink her blood, the two become entwined in an odd relationship that has the added excitement of danger.



These books have been compared to the Harry Potter series in the past, and Steven King commented on this association by saying that he thought JK Rowling was a better writer overall, and I agree with this, to an extent. Meyer has done a good job of creating a best-selling romance that teens obsess over, and her writing is interesting and contains sophisticated vocabulary, but it somehow lacks the balance needed to execute a realistic-magical dichotomy. She tries to take something extraordinary, like a vampire, and make it conform to rules of normal life, like romance, and somehow, everything in the books seems too. . .awkward to appear realistic. Whereas, in Harry Potter, everything is just unreal enough to make the reader use their imagination, while it still seems real enough to keep a ten year old child hoping that they'll receive a letter enrolling them at Hogwarts.

Plus, the two writers, while both aim their work at teenagers, have different messages. One of the reasons for Meyer's literary popularity is her ability to create the perfect romance (or at least one that could keep her readers fantasizing). Rowling greatest accomplishment, in my opinion, was her ability to create the perfect friendship; Ron and Hermione both display loyalty to the extreme, and their fights and make-ups combine to make a complex relationship with Harry on several levels.

So overall, if you're looking for a good love story, pick up Twilight. If you want to read an adventure featuring great friends, get a Harry Potter book.