Settling the Debate Between Harry Potter and Twilight

I am an active reader. I enjoy reading books that are all the latest rage. So when my daughter and wife both started reading Twilight, I decided to give it a try. I enjoyed the book thoroughly, and so did my girls. However, when one releases a book as good as Twilight, a heated debate is inevitable, because fans of one giant book series and fans of the new giant book series are going to clash for supremacy. After searching the internet for only a short while, I discovered that this was what is happening between fans of Twilight and fans of Harry Potter.

Now you might wonder; "Why Harry Potter and Twilight? They are very different books." When you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, they really are not that different. They are both meant for the teenage level. Yes, this is true of Harry Potter. It's not for little kids. Both major book series also feature a kind of "world beneath the world". This means they both have a world that exists alongside, but hidden from view, our normal human world. In Harry Potter, the world is one filled with magic and wizards and is run by the Ministry of Magic. In Twilight, the world is one where vampires attempt to exist harmoniously with humans and are governed by the Volturi. The plots are very different, yes, but both books are of similar type. Similar enough to be debated over, anyway.

On one side, there are those who support Harry Potter as the better book series. They make many claims, among these being that twilight is too mature for the teenage audiences (after all, it does have cases of extreme violence and many cultural taboos, such as teenagers falling in love and having sex and children). However, Twilight fans shoot back that Harry Potter has many elements of death, torture, racism, and profiling. Harry Potter fans say that Twilight is not very realistic when compared to the original vampire legend. The vampires in Twilight can be out in sunlight, have no qualms with silver and garlic, and cannot be killed with a wooden stake through the heart (or anything else through the heart for that matter). In response to this, Twilight fans point out that Harry Potter is nowhere near the traditional legend of a wizard or a witch and that many of it's elements are complete fantasy. One of the bolder claims made by the Harry Potter supporters is that the writing style of Twilight is very poor. Stephen King, noted author of dozens of popular horror novels, has said in interviews that Stephanie Meyers' (the author of Twilight) style of writing isn't very good. The story is good, but the way it is told is poor. Twilight fans defend this, saying that Meyers was trying to make the grammar level comfortable for her audience.

Amidst the heated debating, there is a neutral group that believes both book series are equally good. I am one of this group. Our views go something like this. We don't believe that Twilight is too mature for teenage audiences as most of them are exposed to much more mature things on television and in real life and are fully capable of handling a little violence and sex in books. We don't care that Twilight doesn't resemble the original vampire legend. In truth, Bram Stoker's vampires in Dracula didn't resemble the original vampire legend very much! As for Stephanie Meyers' writing style, we believe it is very good and challenge anyone to do it better.

But of course, I, nor anyone else, cannot tell you what to believe. Read both great book series yourself and draw your own conclusions about it. I only implore you to keep an open mind, in this and all other things.