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As Bella lies on the floor, lifeless and bleeding, Edward realizes he has two choices: let her become a vampire or suck the vampire venom out of her arm. He questions himself, wondering if he can resist drinking all of her blood.

If you haven’t heard about the Twilight Saga yet, you must be living under a rock because Twilight has become one of the most popular books of the 21st Century. With over 70 million books sold worldwide and translated into 37 languages; it has easily become a hit.

Stephanie Meyer, the author of Twilight, says she first came up the idea for Twilight when she had a dream about a human girl and a vampire who thirsted for the girl’s blood. With no plans to ever publish the book Stephanie Meyer wrote the first installment to the Twilight Saga. With encouragement from her sister, she sent her manuscript to different publishing companies. After denying seven publishers she finally settled with Little Brown Books for $750,000. Twilight first arrived on the scene in 2005 and within the first month, it was #5 on the New York Times Best Selling List.

Turlock Christian Sophomore, Marley Burton, believes she was one of the first to jump on the Twilight bandwagon, “I read Twilight when it first came out, before it was popular, and then I found out through all the media madness that there were three other parts to the saga.”

The four books include: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. But that’s not all. The movie rights for the franchise were purchased by Paramount Pictures and put into production by Summit Entertainment. Even though the first movie was kind of a disappointment, released in theaters on November 21, 2008, it still managed to gross $35.7 million its opening day. By September 19, 2009, the film has grossed $383,520,177 in the worldwide box office and, as of July 12, 2009 it earned $157,078,128 in North American DVD sales.

Turlock Christian Senior, Demsina Babazadeh, thinks that regardless of how much money the Twilight movie made, it still was dissatisfying, “Well, to be honest the first movie was kind of a letdown. I don’t think they captured the chemistry between Edward and Bella at all”.

Fortunately, the movie sequel for New Moon, is expected to be better, in fact one actor in particular is adding to the film’s frenzy. “I am so excited for New Moon, because of Taylor Lautner,” says TC Sophomore, Mary Sargisian.

As with many cult movies there are various opinions about the Twilight books and movies both abroad and here on the TC campus. “I love the twilight series,” says Sargisian, “It is defiantly one of my favorites.”

Disagreeing, Senior, Hiliary Sharp, shared reasons why she decided not to read the saga. “Although I think the whole idea behind Twilight, the vampire-romance, is interesting, I don’t agree with some of the moral qualities hiding beneath the romantic exterior. A dangerous, and addictive, secular theme is played out within the saga: that there is a person out there that will give you satisfying, eternal personal fulfillment and will complete your life”.

Sharp makes a good point. The Bible commands us in Proverbs 4:23 to “guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. And Romans 12:2 Warns us not to “conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Definitely a warning that all twilight heart throbs should be aware of.

Regardless of whether you’re a Twilight groupie or not; one thing is clear, the Vampire genre is back and it has found a way to turn blood into a great deal of money.