The Vampire Effect

It certainly seems that the "Twilight" series has continued to expand it's popularity, especially amongst adults. I find it interesting (as someone who also ended up loving the series by Stephanie Meyer and couldn't put them down) why it is that adults, people in their 30's and 40's are being so sucked into a series of novels that were written for teenagers. (Much the same way the "Harry Potter" books, took the world by storm, regardless of the age of the reader...I was the loser at the book store at one minute past midnight getting her copy of the book, with the last three novels.) Is it that we, as adults, are so accustomed to reading (by our own design or by societal pressures) more "heady" books...the classics, written by Hemingway, Woolf, Plato, Bronte, Austen, et al., to the political and biographical books of today..."The World is Flat", "American Lion", "American Creation", "Team of Rivals", etc., that everyone once in awhile we want to escape in the easier, lighter fare of books geared young people? (And, if it's just lighter fare for which we're looking, couldn't we just get that from a Harlequin romance novel?) Or, is there something about reading books like "Twilight" and "Harry Potter" that takes us back to our own youths? A time in which we read, "Sweet Valley High", "The Babysitters Club", "The Saddle Club", and books by R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. (The "Twilight" series and the "Harry Potter series both being, in my opinion anyway, much better written that any of the geared-for-adolescents books that I remember pleasure-reading, as a kid/teenager.) Perhaps that's it...are the younger person books of today, better written than that used to be, making them more enjoyable to read for people of all ages? Or, with the internet, an increase in cable channels, video games, parenting changes, and societal changes, overall, that children are growing up faster than they did, 15 to 20 years ago? (And, at 31, I suddenly feel like a fossil, having pondered that..."These kids today, with the hair and the music....".) What I do know, is that every time I login to that website that was initially intended as a way for high school and college students to keep up with their friends, facebook, a site in which everytime I check, there are friends of mine, my age and older, who have joined the world of social networking, there are more and more status updates from people who are reading the, "Twilight" series, have gone to see the fim version of the first book, joining "groups" to demonstrate their devotion, and becoming "fans". Or, perhaps, it has nothing to do with the quality of the writing, being able to read and enjoy something of a lighter fare, or being transported back to the days of our own youth...perhaps we all just want to be wizards, witches, vampires, and werewolves.