Don’t Judge a Book by Its Fan Base

Growing up, I only read the first book of the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer. I could not get into the whole love triangle between Bella, Edward and Jacob, and the mind games Bella played to get what she wanted. When I told people back then – when Twilight was at the height of its popularity - that I did not read past the first book, they looked at me like I had three heads. Worst of all, my older sister was a huge fan of the Twilight series. She would drag me to watch the movies in the local movie theater; she would have long conversations with her friends about which “team” they were on (if memory serves, my sister was Team Jacob); and she had a large poster of the trio - Edward, Jacob and Bella - looking serious and intimidating. And, even before my mother-in-law was my mother-in-law, she would sometimes sit down and watch the Twilight movies or have the movies playing in the background.

 You would think that with being surrounded by all this Twilight love, I would cave in and finally read all the books. I would have, but the thing that was holding me back was the fan base surrounding the series.

Don’t get me wrong - I, too, have an obsessive fan mentality (I am a huge Harry Potter fan, go Hufflepuffs!), but growing up, I couldn’t understood the appeal of the odd love obsession between Edward and Bella that took hold of the hearts of so many teenagers. I never could grasp the need the two had for each other in the series. (To me, the only logical character is Charlie Swan.) You couldn’t walk in school or any shopping establishment without seeing people wearing shirts with the Twilight characters, hearing teenagers whine about how Team Edward is better than Team Jacob and vice versa, or cell phone ring tones of Bella’s Lullaby. Then everything changed for me.

It wasn’t until a few weeks prior to my writing this blog that my co-worker Alyssa (Team Edward), and our mutual friend Brielle (also Team Edward), changed my mind. I don’t remember how we got on the topic of Twilight, but Alyssa said “You can’t be a librarian and not read it.” So I decided “Eh, what the heck.”

That night, I logged into my Libby account and checked out the first book, Twilight, and I’m glad I did! Yes, to me the romance between Bella and Edward is cheesy, and I laugh to myself at some of the things they say to each other that had made my older sister swoon. But, looking past all of that, the book is well written, the backstories of the characters pulled me in, and the fighting that goes on in the book series will put anyone at the edge of their seat. Does this mean that I am now a die-hard Twilight fan? No, but I am glad I put aside my biases and gave the series a try.

Here is a list of other book series that I plan to read after Twilight; I recommend you do the same. And remember - never judge a book by its fan base!

The Hunger Games (book one in the Hunger Games series) by Suzanne Collins

“In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.”

City of Bones (book one in The Mortal Instruments series) by Cassandra Clare

“Suddenly able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster.”

The Maze Runner (book one in the Maze Runner series) by James Dashner

“Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.”

The Cruel Prince (book one in the series The Folk of the Air) by Holly Black

“Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him--and face the consequences. In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. As civil war threatens, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.”

A Game of Thrones (book one in the series A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin

"Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavours to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of throne."

Prince Lestat (book one in the series The Vampire Chronicles) by Anne Rice

"The novel opens with the Vampire world in crisis...vampires have been proliferating out of control; burnings have commenced all over the world, huge massacres similar to those carried out by Akasha in The Queen of the Damned... Old vampires, roused from slumber in the earth are doing the bidding of a Voice commanding that they indiscriminately burn vampire-mavericks in cities from Paris and Mumbai to Hong Kong, Kyoto and San Francisco. As the novel moves from present day New York and the West Coast to Ancient Egypt, fourth century Carthage, 14th century Rome, the Venice of the Renaissance, the worlds and beings of all the Vampire Chronicles--from Louis de Pointe du Lac, the eternally young Armand whose face is that of a Boticelli angel; Mekare and Maharet, Pandora and Flavius; David Talbot, vampire and ultimate fixer from the Secret Talamasca, and Marius, the true child of the Millennia; along with all the other new seductive, supernatural creatures--come together in this large, luxuriant, fiercely ambitious novel to ultimately rise up and seek out who--or what--The Voice is, and to discover the secret of what it desires and why... And, at the book's center, the seemingly absent, curiously missing hero-wanderer, the dazzling, dangerous rebel-outlaw--the great 'hope' of the Undead, the dazzling Prince Lestat."

- by Rebecca Eaton, Hollowbrook Branch