I have four words for you: vampire/human hybrid baby.

Stephenie Meyer’s writing style is more akin to a historical romance or fan fiction than that of a sensical novel. Her characters are more or less shallow and 2-dimensional, and the background setting is ill-conceived and inconsistent. But aside from that, the first book in her series, Twilight, isn’t terrible. It’s angsty teenage vampire schlock, but it’s decently enjoyable schlock. The books get worse as the series goes on; #2 is awful and unfocused, #3 is fair and includes some badly-needed background story, but the final book in the series defies rational description.

Anyone building a world inside a story must, by logical definition, follow their own rules in it. Meyer just sort of starts ignoring the rules and background setting she establishes in the previous installments, and by this point in the story the characters are all one-dimensional paper cutouts whose sole purpose is to shadow and prop up the sociopathically selfish main character who quickly loses any intelligence or redeeming features. Every supporting character has his or her one trick and simply does it – poorly. One can almost see the walls of reality crashing in as all of the previously-established setting rules, characters and limitations are ignored or reversed in this book.

This story is so awful it will inspire mental nausea; beyond that, it is badly composed and poorly written. One has to wonder about an author who starts out as an amateur and devolves from there. The popularity of this series does nothing to erase its sins or raise it to the level of good literature. For being purile, immature and shallow is forgiveable; being self-serving, inconsistent, and ridiculous is not.