We go back to the OG DNA of the contemporary boom of the early 2010s today, with a read along of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, with fabulous fan fic writers turned brilliant romance novelists, Christina Lauren. Christina and Lauren talk about the way the books inspired them to write, helped them find a community, and their fated mates (each other). Jen talks about reading Twilight as a middle school teacher, and Sarah talks about never reading it at all…until now.

Within, we’ll talk about characters feeling big feelings, about how Twilight inspired romance novelists across the board, about third acts that go hard, and about how Alice is unquestionably the best character in the whole thing.

Get Christina and Lauren’s most recent book, The True Love Experiment, wherever books are sold, and this week from Bookshop.org, where you get free shipping and help your local independent bookstore.

If you want more Fated Mates in your life, you are welcome at our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! Join other magnificent firebirds to hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.

Show Notes

Welcome back Christina and Lauren! After listening to them talk about Twilight, don’t forget to pick up their latest book, The True Love Experiment. We’ve had Christina and Lauren on a bunch of times to talk about FanFic, The Soulmate Equation, and the forced proximity trope.
Not sure of the exact article that Lo read about brain scans and married couples, but this seems like a good overview.
And a selection of some of our favorite articles about Twilight:
From The Atlantic: At Its Core, the ‘Twilight’ Saga Is a Story About
From Entertainment Weekly: The Twilight Effect
From The New York Times: Love and Pain and the Teenage Vampire Thing
From Slate: All 349 “Murmurs” in the Twilight Saga, Charted and Ranked
From Salon: Meet the Twilight Dildo Inventor
From Vogue: 56 Thoughts I had While Rewatching Twilight
From Vulture: The Most Horrific Twilight Character Backstories, Ranked by Absurdity and a video about The Rise and Fall of the Vampire Romance Craze in Film and TV.
A Google Folder with PDFs of this week's articles.

The Rest

For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2023/7/11/s0543-twilight-by-stephenie-meyer-with-christina-and-lauren
If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
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If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.