MORE ON THE STEPHENIE MEYER PHENOMENON:

Orson Scott Card in Time magazine 12 May 08:

“In an era when much of the romance genre has been given over to soft porn, and dark fantasy is peopled with one-dimensional characters bent on grim violence, many readers have become hungry for pure romantic fantasy – lots of sexual tension, but as decorous as Jane Austen.
Meyer did not calculatedly reach for that audience. She writes with luminous clarity, never standing between the reader and the dream they share. She’s the real thing.”

Damian Whitworth in The Times 13 May 08:

“Strip away the vampires and it’s easy to see how the themes of Meyer’s books appeal to teenagers, especially girls. The heroine is swept off her feet by a handsome hero. In the unremarkable Bella, who wins the heart of the charismatic man with a dark secret, there is a strong flavour of Jane Eyre but the traditional theme of a girl falling for a monster is also strong.
Meyer says she didn’t set out to write young adult novels, but just naturally set her story at a high school “because it’s the first time you fall in love, it’s the first time you kiss somebody. All those feelings are so much stronger.”