I was defending Twilight, of all godawful things, to my sisters this afternoon under the justification that it was a compelling enough read that you can understand why it gained the popularity it did. It is not a masterpiece. It's majorly flawed with a lot of unchecked racism, but for a teen supernatural romance novel from 20 years ago it mostly works.
Which is where the disconnect happens. They're comparing this novel for 15 year olds to the works of Ann Rice as though that's a reasonable comparison. Like yes they are both works of vampire fiction. Yes they are both read by 15 year olds, but they are not the same genre.
Twilight is teeny-bopper lit. It is for the bookworm tweens and teens who wanted to be goth, but who were still a little afraid of Hot Topic. It's in the genre of Vampire Kisses and Vampires Suck and the dozens of other vampire novels for teens that were pouring onto the market in the mid aughts. You can weight a Vampire Diaries against a Buffy or a True Blood against a Being Human but to weight a Twilight against an Ann Rice is frankly stacking the deck.
Such a baffling way to judge fiction. I may not enjoy Fourth Wing, but i'm not trying to pretend it can be judged against Game of Thrones as the same genre despite both involving dragons and sex.
