FANS OF FICTION

Twilight" is everywhere.

The more enthusiastic "Twilight" fans often wear "Twilight" shirts to school and have "Twilight" buttons on their backpacks. Borders sells "Twilight"-themed gift cards. In fact, it's nearly impossible to walk down a high school hallway and not see something related to the "Twilight" books.

The series by Stephenie Meyer tells the story of Bella Swan, a high school student who moves to Washington state to live with her father. While there, Bella falls in love with a classmate who is actually a vampire. Edward, the vampire, loves her back but faces competition from Jacob, the son of a friend of Bella's father, who can shape-shift into a wolf.

"Twilight," the first book of the quartet, was made into a movie, released Nov. 21 to mixed reactions.

"The movie was pretty good," said Victoria Bielomaz, a senior at Clark High School. While the movie mostly stood up to Bielomaz's high expectations, she was disappointed by several details.

"I imagined Edward as being way hotter," said Bielomaz, who also thought that while the last half of the movie was entertaining, the first half was boring.

"They should have had more Jacob in there," said Elizabeth Adar, another Clark senior.

The "Twilight" books enjoy a large fan base.

"Everybody's reading them," said Sierra Vista junior Kayla Cordova.

Cordova, who started reading "Twilight" a week before the movie came out, said she plans to read all four books in the series.

"I don't really read, but everyone said it was a good book, so I decided to read it," she said. In the average year, Cordova said, she reads about three books for pleasure.

Bielomaz, who has read the books multiple times, said when she brings one of the books to school with her, she is often approached in the hallway by other "Twilight" fans who want to gossip about the series.

"Everyone talks about it at school, and everyone carries the books around," Adar said.

One increasingly common topic in high school hallways is whether Edward or Jacob is better for Bella.

"I prefer Jacob to Edward, 'cause Jacob is so much cooler," Adar said.

To Sierra Snyder, a freshman at Advanced Technologies Academy, Edward is clearly superior to Jacob.

"You know he's not pretending like some people do," she said.

A-Tech junior Montana Ridgeway also prefers Edward.

"It's a tough decision, though," she said.

"The 'Twilight' series is the best one I ever read," Snyder said.

Before she first read "Twilight" two years ago, Snyder often would not even read the books assigned by her teachers for class. Now, she says, she reads every day.

According to fans, the books are popular for many reasons.

"I just like the story lines," Bielomaz said.

Snyder, who said she doesn't know anyone who is a bigger "Twilight" fan than she is, enjoys the unique world presented in the books.

"I like how it draws you in," she said.

Ridgeway believes that after "Twilight," the series went steadily downhill. According to her, the emotions in "Twilight" were what made it good: "It followed the basic love-story plot line, but there was more to it."

To Adar, "Twilight" is the best of the four books, because it offers more detail into the background of all the characters.

Teenage girls are not the only people who enjoy the "Twilight" series. Both Adar and Ridgeway said their grandmothers read it, and Bielomaz has several guy friends who have read the books -- one of whose father read them as well.