I'm one of the people who slogged through the whole damned series, so I don't think I'm being too judgemental in my assessment of the books.
So, I think the author could be a decent writer. Her prose isn't terrible (when it's not interupting the maybe thirty pages of plot to remind us again that Edward Cullen is super-hot) and the concept of the story sounded interesting. That said, the book was absolute crap and as a reader, I honestly felt a little insulted by the author.
She basically handed me a hollowed out character (as Hannah pointed out, we never find anything out about her future ambitions or ideas), introduced her to an impossibly beautiful man that the readers knew from reading the damned book jacket is a vampire, so why did we spend three hundred pages not putting two and two together, and then her entire being is devoted completely to him. Seriously, for those of you who didn't make it to book two, she actually refers to herself as a satellite orbiting around her planet. He's filled with a deep inner loathing (even though he's beautiful! and smart! and good at everything!), and doesn't think she should really be with him, but is totally okay with coercing her into doing whatever his latest plan is by nibbling her ear or some shit, and she is completely okay with the fact that he's ridiculously jealous, controlling and possessive.
By book two, they've both established that if something were to happen to one of them, the other would kill themselves. Hurray! A positive message for all their young female readers!
Supposedly there's a love triangle, but no, there isn't. Even when he isn't there she doesn't do anything but pine for him, so did anybody honestly not think they would get together in the end?
It was honestly some of the laziest fucking writing I've ever processed. This can't even be one of those guilty pleasure reads for me.
Also, at the local (small! not even chain!) bookstore, there is a whole section of books dedicated to "supernatural romance". About ninety percent of these are vampire smut books. And none of these books gives vampires any weaknesses! This blows my mind! Why even bother making them a vampire if they don't HAVE to drink blood, stay out of the sunlight, or avoid holy relics? That's not a vampire, that's a demigod! Can somebody explain this to me? I don't really understand the appeal of wanting to get all up on a vampire anyway, but why even bother making it a vampire if not one single rule of being a vampire applies?