I've just finished reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and I'm afraid there is a new name in my list of favourite heroes, Edward Cullen, I would pick Jasper but as he's not a lead he's disqualified :-(. The series is made up of four books; Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. It is mostly written from the perspective of Bella Swan.
Bella Swan moves in to live with her father at the age of 17 at the beginning of Twilight. Her father Charlie is the chief of Police in a small town called Forks in Washington state. On Bella's first day at school Bella is intrigued by the Cullen family and most especially by Edward Cullen who appears to hate her on sight when she is forced to sit next to him in Biology. The Cullen family are all graceful, beautiful and avoided by the entire student population.
When the very same Edward Cullen saves her life by pulling her away from an out of control van Bella realizes that something about Edward Cullen is not right; he is impossibly fast, apparently unbreakable, and held up a van with one hand.
When Bella finds out the truth about Edward it appears their relationship is doomed but Edward and Bella prove that if you want someone enough a little thing like one of you craving the others blood is never going to get in the way.
The Twilight Saga charts Bella and Edward's relationship, the dangers they face, Bella's friendship with Jacob, Bella's feelings of inadequacy and Edward's struggle between his desire to be with Bella forever and his fear that vampires are souless.
For me The Twilight series is successful for two main reasons. Most girls can relate to the Bella who arrives at the beginning, she is basically just average not spectacular at anything and not dreadful either, just average. As a result every girl who relates to Bella at the beginning dreams of having what she has, the certainty she gets from finding her soul mate, amazing friends and everything that is definitely NOT average. She's kind of empty so any reader can be Bella and feel like she's living it.
The far more important reason for the success of these books is, in my opinion, Edward Cullen. Something about this Vampire just capture the female mind. He has the elegant manners of the old-fashion gentleman we've read in Austen, coupled with a beautiful crooked smile and a love of fast cars. It hard not to fall in love with Edward in Book 1 and by Book 4 I'm afraid human males have just lost their appeal.
Viewed like this, as just harmless fun Twilight is great but it has a lot of deeper issues that troubled me a bit. But I'll discuss those in another entry later.
Stephenie Meyer has a lot to answer for. Me? I'm just going to be looking at people on the tube a little close; pale skin, amber eyes, impossibly beautiful...hmmmmmmmm.