1. Most of the fans seem to be girls. Not a big problem, except that she seems to be missing about 50% of the YA demographic. I read somewhere that a female MC will not appeal to male YA readers, only to female YA readers, whereas a male MC will appeal to both. It's an interesting conundrum.

2. Stephanie Meyer has an interesting publication story for her first novel. Check out her website if you're not familiar with it - it's motivational for those of us who remain unpublished.

3. There's one particular part in the linked article that really caught my attention.

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"...and attribute their love of Meyer’s books to her “realistic” writing style. It’s not unusual in her books, which are 550 pages on average, for a scene to span twenty pages, long enough to mention every sound, every change in speaking tone, every infinitesimal change in facial expression. But what may come across as flat-footed to an adult reader seems to hold youngsters in a hypnotic sway. “It’s like you’re actually living it,” said a freckle-faced 13-year-old girl..."

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4. People are calling her the second coming of JK Rowling. Did I miss the boat on this? I've never heard of this series before this article. Albeit I never heard of Harry Potter until the fourth book came out, but still.

As for the male/female MC split, yeah, it's kind of unfair but a well-known fact that if you want to have the widest appeal, you need a male MC. HOWEVER, women read more than men, especially as teenagers, so you're not losing 50% of your potential readership by appealing to girls. I don't know what the actual stats are on that, but you can get a solid, loyal following of teenage girls and there have historically been many more YA series geared for them than for boys. In fact, I seem to recall an agent at a conference telling us a few years back that there is a need for YA for boys, especialy on the younger side of the teenage scale.

As for the description thing, I'd have to see it to make the call. I'm a very visual person, and if someone is describing something that doesn't jive with what they caused me to imagine, it bores me. I suppose I could conceive of someone controlling the description in such a way that that doesn't happen.

Still, all that said, I couldn't put them down. And that really is saying alot. Just to illustrate: in recent weeks I rented His Majesty's Dragon, read about 100 pages and lost interest. Then, I checked out The Naming by Alison Croggon. 50 pages or so, and set it aside. I even rented the classic Wizard of Earthsea. I didn't get 40 pages into that. It's still sitting on my nightstand, unfinished. THEN, I checked out Eclipse, the thrid book in the series and I finished it in 3 days.

Now, I know some will decry my lack of culture and appreciation for great literature. Go ahead, even though it is absolutely not true. I revel in many of the more dense literary works, but an irresistable story is hard to ignore, no matter what it's flaws may be. Two words. Harry Potter.

Just my personal opinion.

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I've read this stuff! My daughter was bringing it home, and raving about it (she's 19). It is sllllooooowwwwww! Which means that the story arc is rather flat, with most of the detail devoted to character and setting. She had some nice Native American riffs included.

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There's a niche for everything. If this sells, maybe Tolkien really would have sold in this century, too. Everyone says no way it would have sold, but who really knows?

I wondered at first if maybe it was just slow in places. Detail is a tool for pace and extending tensions, so I thought maybe that's what this author was doing. But from what Deb said, I guess not.

That's very interesting.

They're not the second coming of Rowling, but the one I've read is good, and my wife read the second two compulsively.

They're relatively slow to start. Maybe more people than you would expect are willing to get through the slow parts because she starts each novel with a 1-page prologue that is, essentially, the exact moment before the climax of the book, when bad things are about to happen, and then she goes back and tells you why that's happening.

(essentially the first book's prologue is "and then a very bad person came towards Bella and there was nothing she could do, he was going to murder her", a scene we don't reach for another 400 pages)

I would say there are definitely slow parts. The first half of books 1 and 2, I was essentially waiting for something interesting to happen, watching all the character-buiding going on with little to no actual plot (that I cared about anyway). We get to hear a lot of how beautiful and Godlike Edward Cullen, the vampire, is, because Bella is so googily over him. We get to hear about how horribly normal and unfascinating Bella is, because that's what she thinks about herself. We get to hear about Bella's fear of waking up one day to find Edward doesn't lover her anymore, even though he's more dependable and loyal than a golden retriever.

The thing is, despite all that, if you make it sufficiently far into the book, you really do care about the characters. And you wonder what all the rules are for her vampires (I'm not a huge vampire fan, but they seemed slightly unusual, not just the cut-and-paste vampire rules, but maybe that's just because I don't know any better.) And despite how slow it tends to go, it's an easy read. I don't want to make more Harry Potter comparisons, but it is kinda like reading Harry Potter. You see some literary things that make you wince, but you look past them.

I wouldn't say this is the next Harry Potter, but maybe it's too early to tell. By the time HP got to books this thick, each one left me thinking "OMG what happens next! I can't believe I have to wait to find out!!" but after reading all 3 Twilight books, which I admit I enjoyed thoroughly (and I'm male, btw) I finished the 3rd one thinking "wow pretty good. Wonder what'll happen now..."

as for Twilight i have heard of it but never read it. some of my friends have said it is good, and the others said it was alright. whenever i read it i will make up my own mind.

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Maybe more people than you would expect are willing to get through the slow parts because she starts each novel with a 1-page prologue that is, essentially, the exact moment before the climax of the book, when bad things are about to happen, and then she goes back and tells you why that's happening.

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Oooohhhh...all right, this series just lost any possibility of my reading it. I absolutely HATE this approach. It completely fail to create the proper dramatic tension (because when they first tell you about bad things, you aren't emotionally invested in them), but then it snail. Often, these beginning are done this way to give the author time to snail crawl through background information and info dumps.

However, I found it somewhat pointless. The description is so vauge that it really doesn't mean much to you. If I had picked up the book in the bookstore, having never heard of it, and read the prologue, I don't think it would make me say, "Oh, I have to read this now."

So, I guess I'm defending Meyer's choice, but also saying that it probably didn't have the desired effect on me, so she could have done without it.

No, Stephenie (that's the correct spelling) Meyer is not like R.L. Stine, she's actually good.

I think of it like this. The teaser has two possibilities.

1. It creates dramatic tension

or

2. It does not.

I don't think Meyers can win in this case, according to me, because if it does create dramatic tension, that usually requires something to be spoiled on some level. And I hate spoilers, even intentional ones. And if it doesn't spoil anything, and correlatively doesn't have any dramatic tension, then it is uninteresting and serves no purpose in being there, chopped out of context.

Ultimately, no matter which direction it errs, it isn't worth it.

However, I don't mind some types of prologues. If it is the inciting incident like THE murder or when John learns for the first time he's an alien. Okay. Then chapter one starts with the police finding the body or John sneaking around Area 51 to find his father.

In both cases there is a reason to put the story event in a prologue -- a large break in time or pov or something.

So, I've sampled. I read the prologue/teaser. Hated it. Why? I think because it was so blatant. It didn't really show a story incident or a plot point. Just was there to yank my chain to get me to worry about the pov. Didn't work.

Oh well. I never buy a book or pass on because of a prologue anyway. A lot of times I skip the prologue and head for the opening of chapter one. That's more indicative of the novel.