Don't Be a Hater (or Why do you hate The Hunger Games?)

During the past ten years, at any given point in time there was "The Big Teen Novel". The Big Teen Novel was a particular work that most teens were reading, talking about, and obsessing over. Today that novel is The Hunger Games. Yesterday it was Twilight, and Harry Potter before that. With the arrival of every Big Teen Novel, there also appears The Haters of The Big Teen Novel. They arise from darkness like a band of flesh-eating zombies, wildly slashing at The Big Teen Novel and all of its loyal minions. Their contorted faces emit condescending moans that sound something like "must ... hate ... twilight!" or "die ... conformist ... morons!" The loyal minions respond with baffled astonishment, tearfully shouting, "how can you hate that which i find to be awesome beyond belief?"

This cycle repeats every few years or so, much to the amusement of more neutral bystanders. We watch with a self-satisfied shake of our heads as the haters and minions duel to the death - or until the next Big Teen Novel appears, whichever comes first.

So can I just say one thing? Just one little thing? Here, come a little closer, because I don't wish to shout. Are you listening now? Good.

JUST STOP IT!

For you loyal minions, you need to understand something about the haters. Most of them haven't even read your awesome novel, so any professions of hatred are not really intended for the story. What they really hate is conformity. They see you as a mindless addict to some prophet of literature who fills your mind with numbing words, rendering you blind and stupid. The sad news is that occasionally the haters are right. But mostly they are bitter because nobody worships their brilliance, and so demonstrate intellect by bashing you of the lower order brain. But here is the good news: popularity does not equal stupidity. Breathing is very popular and quite highly regarded. That does not make it a bad behavior exercised only by those who aren't independent enough to stop breathing. So forgive the haters, for they are slaves to something far more damaging than a book.

For you that hate: go find another game to play. Don't exercise your intellectual independence by squashing the literary preferences of others. Please find another outlet for your intellectual superiority. Otherwise, the rest of us will be forced to round up all of you, put you in a cage, and let you fight to the death. Now that would make for an interesting novel.

Does Twilight Suck? (Or, What Defines a "Good Book"?)

Few novels have produced such a divided reaction as did Twilight. Equal and opposing camps formed, one proclaiming it "The Best Romance Novel Ever!" and the other standing at the walls with torches, shouting "Twilight Sucks!" This has become one of the fiercest debates since "Which way should the toilet paper hang?" Who is right? And whose job is it anyway to decide which novels are good, and which are not? And which way should the toilet paper hang?

For insight into these questions, let's examine the most prevalent arguments of the Twilight haters. But first, turn your nose up a little and adopt the appropriate sneer.

Argument 1 - The story is cliche; nothing about the story line is new.

Analysis: Vampirism as the result of a plague was done most famously by Richard Matheson in I Am Legend back in the 1950's. Check. The girl falling for the bad-boy vampire has been done repeatedly before, best by Vivian Vande Velde in Companions of the Night (a great read, I might add). Check. Vampires are not necessarily evil, they drink the blood of animals, they have werewolf rivals. Check, check, and check.
Conclusion: True. Twilight is a mish-mash of cliches.

Argument 2 - The story is not well written.

Analysis: The vampire genre was taken to new heights by world-class wordsmiths like Ann Rice, Bram Stoker, and Laurell Hamilton. Next to these works, Twilight does come across as a slightly longer version of The Cat in the Hat that makes liberal use of an on-line thesaurus.
Conclusion: True, depending on what you compare it to. Meaning, almost anything.

3. The characters are flat. And I mean, paper flat.

Analysis: The heroine is brooding and clumsy. The hero is brooding and sparkly. The other characters are brooding and whatever else. Their base character changes very little over the course of the series. I guess we shouldn't expect much change from a hundred year old vampire, or a teenager, or the evil undead in general.
Conclusion: Yep - looks true.

And on and on. The many criticisms of the novel in the spirit of "Twilight Sucks!" appear to have merit. Knowing all of this, I read the novel anyway. It was cliche. The writing was awkward. The characters were flat. Oh, and I really liked it.

Why did I like it? I can only explain it this way. Despite the many flaws and foibles of the book (look whose using a thesaurus now!), the story made an emotional impact on me. I cared what happened to the paper flat characters in their cliche, awkwardly described world. I don't know why.

Many critics define books as "good" based on freshness of ideas, proficiency of writing, richness of characters, etc. However, all these criteria are trumped by one other: if the story leaves an emotional mark on you, then to you it is a good book. Twilight did just that, about 100 million times, and counting.

So, does Twilight suck? Yes. Is it a good book? Yes. And I like the toilet paper to hang away from the wall.