Eh, I’m gonna disagree. There were plenty of YA novels at about that time that were popular enough to get movies, were liked by girls and were written by women. The Hunger games, Divergent, heck even Harry Potter caught hardly any flak (well with the exception being when J.K. Rowling decided to take a hard right down Terf street).
IMO the reason why Twilight and Stephenie get so much hate is A) Stephenie isn’t a very good writer, and B) the central theme of the books is how important it is to have a boyfriend/be horny for a guy who wants to kill and eat you. This the bedrock of the Twilight hate, it’s a bland book with a bland plot which was only successful because tapped into a vein of teenage horny. Like… imagine if the central theme of Harry Potter was how attractive Harry found Voldemort and how much he wanted to bang him and teenagers were going wild for how romantic and inspiring their relationship was. I have a feeling this alternate version of Harry Potter would catch a lot more hate too.
That’s hilarious.
Also god damn I’m old, 9/11 happened when I was in college.