About a month ago, I sheepishly admitted on Facebook and here on the blog that I had gone out and bought a copy of Stephenie Meyer's much-talked-about book Twilight, the first volume in a series of four about the love story between immortal vampire Edward Cullen and human Bella Swan. Having recently finished reading the last of the books, I've got some opinions to share now. I know that all three of you have been holding your breath. Oh, and spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't read the books and plans to do so.

I have done it. I have read four books about a vampire. A teenaged vampire at that, and golly did that ever make me look forward to the day when I have teenagers of my own. I haven't read that much whiny self-centered drivel since I read back over my own journals from high school. But I want those of you who love Twilight to hang in here with me, because I wouldn't have kept reading through all four books if I had totally hated the whole experience. I will have some nice things to say. Unfortunately, there's just no way to avoid saying one really harsh thing here at the start. Here goes.

Stephenie Meyer is, well, she's just not that good of a writer, at least not at the start of the Twilight series. Before you send me hate mail, let me clarify that I am not attacking the woman's creativity or storytelling chops. Clearly, she hit upon a relatively new plot idea, which is difficult to do, and is imaginative enough to give the vampires-walk-among-us world she's creating some truly interesting angles. The vampires don't have to drink human blood. They can survive on animal blood. That is great! I would never come up with that! That is why I have not written a best-selling fantasy series, and probably never will. My hat is off to her. I'm also willing to concede that maybe the writing in Twilight is actually really good, because Bella Swan is supposed to be a junior in high school, and the first book surely does read like something written by a high school girl. A really boy-crazy high school girl. That is a problem, because we're supposed to perceive Bella as some kind of strong silent loner of a gal who is way more mature than her age. But I'm telling you, if Twilight had a drinking game attached to it where you had to take a swig of your favorite adult beverage every time Bella Swan used the word "gorgeous" or "incredible" to describe Edward's physical appearance, you'd be passed out under your reading chair within 25 minutes. Instead, I just counted the number of times I put the book down and laughed until I almost cried over some particularly awful sentence.

With that out of the way, I'll admit that it may not be fair to criticize these books on literary grounds, since I don't think they even attempt to be "serious" literature. Once you make your hero a vampire you're probably done waiting for that phone call from the Pulitzer Prize people. It's all about plot, and while that's not what I want to read all the time, it has its place. Kind of like candy. Not good for every meal, but unbeatable when you have a real craving for it. Still, the thing that bothered me from the start and continued to nag at me through all four books was that I never figured out what exactly made these two characters, Edward and Bella, so special aside from the fact that he's a vampire, she's not, and they think each other are really really hot. I kept waiting for someone to make me care about this couple on an emotional level, and it just never happened in the first book.

The good news is that if you keep reading the books, at a certain point you just accept that Edward and Bella are the hero/heroine duo of this story because you've been beat over the head with it so artlessly, and then you can focus on other, more likeable characters. The bad news is that If you don't buy the love story, there just isn't a whole lot to that first book, and that leads to one thing I concluded about the series overall -- it is very inconsistent, but it does improve. Having read the whole series, I would say that Twilight itself is absolutely the weakest book of the four, and by Breaking Dawn, the last book, Meyer has actually grown or been edited into being a decent writer. That is a big relief because man, that first book has some serious problems. Sure, there's that whole danger and suspense plot at the end, but that felt completely disconnected from the rest of the story. It was like halfway through the book Meyer forgot she was writing a love story and decided to write an action movie instead. But I'm not going to pretend that she didn't hook me on some level. I closed the first book thinking two contradictory things: First, "That was absurd. I could write this garbage." and then, "Holy cow, I have to know what happens next."

So onward I plowed. And I am glad, because it was in Book 2, New Moon, that I really got to know my favorite character of the whole series, the first one I believed in, and the only one I really rooted for during the remaining books -- Jacob Black, werewolf by birth, a childhood friend of Bella's who becomes her best friend when vampire Edward up and leaves at the height of his ongoing "You shouldn't date me, Bella Swan, because I am a very dangerous vampire and am no good for you" routine. I will have a lot to say about that in a minute, but first, Jacob.

Jacob is so endearing as a character. He's funny. He's likeable. He has a pulse. Maybe if Meyer had chosen Jacob as the romantic lead, I'd be happier with the books overall. But she didn't, so we have Jacob as the stalwart friend who grows to love Bella romantically and must deal with the fact that for reasons beyond anyone's understanding (mine in particular) she consistently chooses Edward. Yet Jacob always makes decisions that are good for Bella, even when that requires him to do things to help his romantic rival. He is, in short, a really good guy. So I feel thankful that Meyer at least gave him some kind of happy resolution, albeit a pretty weird one. (I just can't get into all the mechanics of vampire and werewolfdom here, people. If you need to know, you'll have to read the books yourselves.) The triangle between Jacob and Bella and Edward was the most compelling part of the books for me, even though I knew I was rooting for the losing team. After all, no one tells you that these books are about "that girl who falls in love with a vampire, but then marries the werewolf instead." No, these are the vampire books, so Jacob is pretty much doomed, and that is a real shame.

That leads me back to Edward, and why I could never find him appealing as a romantic lead: At the end of New Moon, when Edward returns to the story because he just can't stay away from Bella, I realized that I can't like Edward very much because he is That Guy. I think a lot of us have That Guy in our lives at some point, ladies.He's the one who keeps you hanging because he just hasn't made up his mind. He's complicated and mysterious and deep and that's intriguing. But eventually, most of us grow past the adolescent girl and, therefore, past the immature guy. Then we want a real man, someone who can make up his mind. Someone with a job, preferably, and who wants a life with us that includes some security and a family. I concede that eventually, Edward does become Bella's protector and committed man. Maybe they settle down and own a farm somewhere after the books are over. But before that happens, we have to somehow root for Bella to turn away from Jacob, who is her friend, and loves her, and can provide for her, and won't require her to trade her humanity for a life with him. Instead, we're supposed to want her to choose forever-17 Edward, who seems to love her based largely on physical attraction. Personally I never recovered enough from my feeling that she was making the wrong choice to be happy about the entire rest of the story. On the upside, the conflict of all that playing out made Eclipse, the third in the series, a decent book, and one that held my attention much more than the previous two did.

Of course, when we're rolling our way into Breaking Dawn, the last book of the series, the choice is made and now the chips fall. Going in, I felt like that was going to be pretty anticlimactic, but wowee, I was wrong. If you've been waiting, this is the part where I eat a lot of my skeptical words: That is a great read. It really is. It took her three books to get me, but she got me in the end. I read that book like it was on fire. I held my breath. And I finally cared about Edward and Bella. I still think that if Meyer had done some things differently, I could have cared a lot sooner, but better late than never, right? In fact, my only objection in Breaking Dawn was pretty minor, but I still have to mention it: Who names a kid Renesmee? That is not a name! I laughed OUT LOUD every time I read it. It took away from the overall effect of some of the more intense scenes ever so slightly.

So to recap, the report card from me on these books is as follows:

Twilight: D- Badly written, terribly executed, saved from total failure only by interesting premise.
New Moon: C+ Kind of boring, too much whining from Bella, but we get Jacob, which is worth a lot.
Eclipse: B+ Actually a character-driven story, and one that I can care about, even though I don't think the better man wins. Pretty good stuff.
Breaking Dawn: A Much better writing, possibly because of breaking the story up to be told in part by my man Jacob Black. Actually has a connected plot throughout. Really fun to read.

On the whole, I'd read Twilight again, if only because it was a fun detour from the kind of thing I usually read. I'm probably going to watch the movies, too. It's very creative and enjoyable, and has given me my new dinner party question: "If you were a vampire, what would your superpower be?" (Mine would be the ability to clean the entire house using only my mind.) The only thing that troubles me about Twilight on a serious level is that the books are, undoubtedly, marketed at adolescent girls. I think that for anyone mature enough to see the flaws, the story is pretty harmless, but nonetheless, it sets forth a pretty distorted picture of what it is to love someone. The idea seems to be that being in love is all about the drama. If you're a guy, it's about finding someone you just can't resist in a physical sense. If you're a girl, it's all about sacrificing everything normal and traditional for someone who may or may not be good for you because you've decided based on pure emotion that this person is your soul mate. Oh, and he's really really hot. Basically, it's how teenagers already think, and it's not a great way to choose a spouse.

Having been married for a few years now, I can tell you that Dan has yet to need to defend me from lethal threat, much less armies of the undead. Not that he wouldn't if the need arose, but it just doesn't come up that much in real life. What he does do is get up and go to work every day to support our family. He takes the garbage out. He is a great dad. He loves me. There is very little drama, and most of it is caused by Kate. Obviously, we wouldn't make a very compelling lead couple for a fantasy series. But I'd take what we've got over Twilight's version of love any day.

I did tell Dan it would be OK if he bought me a Mercedes like Edward bought for Bella. A Porsche would also be fine.