Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn

The over-exaggerated infatuation young adults seem to have with the newly resurrected vampire romance genre seems to have stemmed from the gothic, romantic, obsessive series, The Twilight Saga, by Stephenie Meyer. This young American author reaches a wide range of readers while greatly influencing the interest of youth literature. Her incredibly successful series, including four novels which have sold over 470 million copies world wide, has made her an international best selling author. The concluding novel of the series, Breaking Dawn, sold 30 million copies its opening day. This novel of the series concludes the fate of the nine main characters that readers have followed throughout the series and a new character that twists the series into a completely new direction. In this novel, Meyer appeals to her diverse set of readers with the ability to take the universal theme of love and exaggerate it into a form of obsession.

It seems as though the lime light snuck up on Stephenie Meyer and completely changed her normal world as a Mormon mother of three in her adobe-styled abode in a town north of Phoenix, Arizona. After about thirty years of being normal and a few extra at being "just Mom" it seems as though it is going to take more than just rushed fame and a few million copies sold to unearth Meyer's "normal" roots and expectations to be an everyday, stay at home mother (Memmott 1D). On December 24, 1973 the soon to be celebrity was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Meyer lived most her life in Arizona with five other siblings along with her mother and father (Abbey 307). By the age of 19, she met her husband to this day and had her first child soon after. Within a span of five years Meyer was a stay at home mother to three boys and was ceaselessly caring for fussy toddlers and an infant. Sleep-deprived and zombie-like Meyer felt as though she was "going through the motions" until the morning of June 2, 2003. After mustering up a few scarce hours for some sleep, Meyer had a dream that changed her world forever (Abbey 309).

"'We belong together.' I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words. This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it. His arms wrapped around me, holding me against him... It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire. 'Forever,' he agreed." (Meyer 85). Two teenagers in a meadow somewhere deep in a forest with the sun glistening into every corner and shining upon his vampire skin like diamonds embedded into a porcelain statue. The two are in love; yet they face a problem inconceivable to a compatible resolution. He is a vampire. She is human. They have no place being together yet they insist on attempting to make this work for there is no thinkable way for one to exist without the other. This is the dream that inspired Stephenie Meyer to write her four astounding novels regarding the love affairs of a teenage girl and an early 20th century vampire in the gloomy town of Forks, Washington.

In only two months Meyer had finished her story that soon became the first novel of the series, Twilight (2005) (Abbey 311). Reluctant to tell even her husband about her vampire romance novel, Meyer didn't consider having it published until she received some enthusiastic encouragement from her sister. Her journey from interesting little thought to a bombardment of fame unfolded in Meyer's lap in a span of about seven months (Abbey 312).

The glory that has become Stephenie Meyer's image seems almost ironic considering her claim to fame was completely unplanned and unforeseen. Meyer went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah and graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree. She obviously had plans to make a career out of writing. As to what exactly that would be, she did not know. Although, with her young children and hectic schedule, any time she had for writing was occupied by something more important. It was until she had that powerful dream of two young teenagers in a meadow that would not leave her that Meyer decided to prioritize her life around her writing (Abbey 309).

Who knew that one little idea could have such an astounding affect on one's life? Meyer has won numerous