Heather Finley

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-01-14-top-100-titles_N.htm

          Love her or hate her, Stephanie Meyer has done something no other author has ever done.  She took the top four slots in the Top Sellers of 2008 list.  Another article on the same site stated that one in every five books sold between Thanksgiving and the end of the year was written by her.  That is completely insane.

          I know there is lots of people online saying that Twilight is the worse book they have ever read.  I have a few points to make on that.  First of all, I think it says a lot to have so many people read your books.  If she was such a horrible writer, people would not have read past the first book.  Even if the story behind the book is amazing, if an author is horrible, it will not be a best seller.  People obviously read all the book to make them all top the list.  I think it take a certain talent to write a book that so many people want to go out and read.

          I would also like to draw people’s attention to the audience that the books were originally aimed at.   It is written as a young adult series.  Being a romance series, I would say it is target more towards girls.  So what other series are targeted at teenage girls?  Gossip Girl? A-List?  Is it that much of a stretch to say that the Twilight saga is better quality writing than those series?  I honestly would say it is just as good as the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books.  Actually honestly I thought two of the four Pants books were just okay (the middle two).  I wasn’t much of a New Moon fan but I enjoyed the other three Twilight books quite a bit.  I do think it was a little weird that she changed writing styles for Breaking Dawn but I got over it. 

          The Host however I thought was a great piece of writing.   I loved it so much.  Meyer stated that this book was written for an adult sci-fi audience and I believe that she did a good job of upping the reading level.  There were many underlying themes in The Host.  It said so much about the human race and was written from such an interesting perspective.  I did in fact cry at the end of it because I thought it gave such a beautiful testiment to the hope and will of people.

          I was also quite happy to see Nicholas Sparks have so many books appearing on the list as well.  He is a very talented writer as well.  There was a few others on the list I’d read as well.  I see that Dewey made it pretty high on the list.  I keep almost buying it but am scared to.  I feel like it might cause me lasting emotional damage.  I am a huge cat person and cry when anything happens to cats in books or movies.  I have a sick feeling the book will end with the cat passing away and I seriously don’t know if I would ever recover from it.  This is kind of like how I own Marley and Me but haven’t been brave enough to read it yet. The movie made me cry a lot.

          So what do you think about Stephanie Meyer?  Are you a Twilight lover or hater?  Was there any other books on the list that you read and love or hated?