Table of Contents

Introduction: Welcome to the Twilight Zone
Chapter 1: I'm in Love with a Fictional Character
Cheat Sheet: Twilight
Chapter 2: Sparkle, You Fool, Sparkle!
Cheat Sheet: New Moon  
Chapter 3: Families That Prey Together, Stay Together
Cheat Sheet: Eclipse
Chapter 4: The Forbidden Fruit Tastes the Sweetest  
Cheat Sheet: Breaking Dawn
Chapter 5: Where to Spend Those Twilight Dollars 
Afterward: The Fog of Twilight
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

About the Author

Tanya Erzen is an associate professor of comparative religious studies at Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in the Nation, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post. She is the author of Straight to Jesus- Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement, which won the Gustave O. Arlt Award and the Ruth Benedict Prize.She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a visiting scholar at the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. She lives in Seattle.

Reviews

“A thought-provoking and entertaining take on the Twilight phenomenon.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Tanya Erzen ventures into ‘the Twilight zone’ in this compelling and ultimately sympathetic foray into fan culture, exploring the appeal of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books and movies in a postfeminist age. Erzen argues that what fans do with a text is as important as, or even more important than, the text itself. Part Cinderella Ate My Daughter and part Reviving Ophelia, Erzen’s book is my own personal brand of heroin.”
—Jana Riess, author of What Would Buffy Do? and Flunking Sainthood
 
“Tanya Erzen’s Fanpire provides a much-needed portrait of the girls and women who love Twilight. From how the series appeals to girls’ and women’s ideas of pleasure, power, and romance to the ways in which the love of these books has forged communities and friendships among women, Erzen’s window onto these subjects is both sympathetic and critical. Fanpire is sure to fascinate and, at times, trouble anyone interested in the lives of girls and women today.”
—Donna Freitas, author of Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses
 
“In this carefully researched and insightful account of Twilighters, TwiMoms, WussPerv writers, and other participants in the Twilight universe, Tanya Erzen explores the complicated waterways of Twilight fandom. Listening and engaging with fans of all ages, Erzen’s account of the Twilight empire and the girls and women who love it opens up new ways of thinking about the gendered dimensions of romance, the persistence of the genre among female fans, and the perils and potential of online and offline female fandom.”
—Carol Stabile, author of White Victims, Black Villains: Gender, Race, and Crime News in US Culture
 
“The Twilight phenomenon is too vast and strange to be ignored. Tanya Erzen digs deep into the fandom and finds the confused, the grasping, and even the self-assured among them. It’s always odd, like a horror book should be, but never boring.”
—Amanda Marcotte, author of It’s a Jungle Out There