The Twilight series just turned ten
By Emma Kanagaki, a Librarian and Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
Can you believe it’s been 10 years since Stephenie Meyers released her mega-hit novel, Twilight? The special 10th anniversary edition from Little Brown Books for Young Readers and Listening Library will include exclusive bonus content on sale October 6, 2015.
The Twilight Saga, love it or hate it, changed the way we consume young adult literature and began (at least, for this generation) a cultural phenomenon of fantastical teen stories for audiences young and old. The novel was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a Time magazine Best Young Adult Book of All Time and has sold nearly 155 million copies around the world. The saga was memorably turned into a series of films starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.
“It’s amazing to me that ten years have passed since Twilight was first published,” said Stephenie Meyer in a press release. “For me, this anniversary is a celebration of the fans, with all of their incredible passion and dedication. I’m excited to get to spend time with them again.”
I must confess that I devoured the Twilight series with enthusiasm. Memorably, the fourth and final installment of the series, Breaking Dawn, was released while I was on a road trip with my family to Cannon Beach, Oregon. The night it was due out at midnight, I was going to be in some random town I’d never been to before, but as luck would have it, they had a bookstore! So I called ahead and asked them if they could please reserve a copy for me to come and pick up at midnight. They agreed and I was excited to have my copy all set.
Imagine my surprise when I showed up to the bookstore (in jeans and a t-shirt), only to find mobs of teens decked out in blood-stained wedding gowns, makeshift vampire costumes, shirts with glittering Edward faces and scores of black, moody-looking clothing with fake vampire fangs.
Suddenly, my passion for the book seemed lacking. I was just interested in reading the last bit of a story I had dedicated some time to; that took up many lunch hours at school discussed with friends. But I wasn’t nearly as moved or changed by the series as those people dressed up in that Oregon bookstore were.
Twilight was not just a book, it was a fandom! And I stumbled across my own small slice of it at that midnight book release. So if you’re reading Twilight for the first time, welcome to a group of passionate fans. Or, if you’re reading it for the tenth time, enjoy some time with the characters that you’ve known and loved for years.