Review Detail

In 2004 I happened to be at the Maui Writer's Conference attending the YA/children part of the conference. One workshop had Jodi Reamer who told us about this one huge deal that just happened in the YA world. She called it a YA Alice Rice vampire series. I was curious about this series and once I returned home I looked up the author Stephenie Meyer, who I found was an alumuni of BYU, the same college where I graduated. As a matter of fact she attended four years after I graduated.

I admit, I loved Twilight. I'm a huge fan of Jacob.

In the book The Unauthorized Biography of The Creator of The Twilight Saga, Marc Shapiro shows us who Stephenie Meyer is and what was behind the whole Twilight saga. Most of this information is common knowledge like the dream that started Meyer writing. What isn't known is little facts like her name--which isn't Stephanie like I thought but rather Stephenie. Her father wanted to add 'ie' to the end of his name.

I wanted to know more on how she deals with her fantasy writing and her faith. Orson Scott Card, another LDS writer, does a great job of describing his own journey. What I felt was lacking in this book was I didn't think the author dug deep enough into exploring this. Especially the controversy back in 2009 when her Twilight books were pulled from Deseret Bookstores in Utah.

Also I wanted to know more about her. What kinds of struggles and conflicts did she have along the way. The book describes her childhood as something similar to The Brady Bunch only they didn't have Alice. This is where you can tell the author didn't interview Meyer. Most of the info anyone can find on the Internet.

Still if you're a Twilight fan and want to know something behind the creator of this huge saga, this is a good book to start with.