Another thing that bothers me about Twilight is how Stephenie Meyer characterizes MY HOME STATE in her "novels" (for lack of a better term).

I have this to say about Small Town, Washington.

My mother grew up in the link. My father grew up in link. I have visited several towns near Seattle (Tacoma, Puyallup, Everett, etc), as well as several northern towns by the Canadian border (Vancouver, Bellingham, etc).

Therefore, I feel pretty confident in saying that in Washington State, IT IS NOT CONSTANTLY RAINY AND GRAY!

Admittedly, I have never been to Forks. I have met people who have. I have been to La Push, though.

Regardless, a common misconception about Washington is that it's the rain capital of the US. Even Seattle is known for its rain. And yeah, it does rain here, because we are west of the Cascade Mountains and east of the Pacific Ocean. This means that we get all the rain that the East of the Cascades (known as a rain shadow) don't get. THIS means that HALF of Washington is very dry.

Forks is WAY WAY WEST of Seattle. So yeah, it rains a bit there. But one thing that people don't get is that the rain in Seattle-- AND the rain in Forks-- is SEASONAL. We get most of our rain fall in fall and winter, with the showers spacing out in the spring, and then, surprisingly, we have very dry summers. Yeah, that's how weather works, people.

Also-- Small Town, Washington, is pretty boring. But considering I've also visited Small Town, Idaho, Small Town, Virginia, Small Town, Texas, and Small Town California, I feel pretty confident in saying that it's no better or worse than Small Town, Anywhere USA.

Forks-- Nor any small town in Washington for that matter-- Is not the worst place on earth that one could be. Bella may like to trash it-- but I'd like to hear what she has to say when we dump her in Small Town, Uzbekistan. THEN what will she whine about? At least it's sunny there.

Seattle is an awesome city. Geographically (as mentioned), it's almost due East of Forks. Forks is North West from Olympia. I don't remember exactly, but the kids go down to "the city" and I could have sworn that whether they were going to Seattle or Olympia, Meyer wrote that they were heading in the wrong direction. Although, I don't have a page number, or a book to back that up. I'm just grumbling.

As a Washington Native, I just want to say that my state was WAY COOL LONG before Ms. Meyer spawned vampires in our national parks (Forks is near Olympia National Park, which I think is where all the trees come in).