I love Cleolinda! There is a lot to enjoy snarking about in these books. Sparklepires!
Here is an awesome cartoon LiveJournal entry which a) explains why you should NOT read, and b) below that, summarizes the series so you don’t have to read it anyway.
I only read the series because I teach junior high and like to keep up with the latest stuff, and because my teenage daughters read it. I do not plan on seeing the movie. If you want good vamp stuff, read Sookie Stackhouse.
You have to read it only to better enjoy things like “Growing up Cullen” and Cleolinda Jones’s recaps.
MONSTER MUST KNOW???
But yeah, like everyone else said…she managed to turn vampires into sparkly Mormons and the books drive home a pretty hilarious anti-feminist message. OTOH, it’s no worse than the fact that something like BSG is influenced by Mormon theology. I mean, except that Twilight is truly truly truly outrageous (and yes, that was a Jem allusion).
Better yet, Fevre Dream by George Martin. Or even Bloodsucking Fiends, A Love Story and You Suck by Christopher Moore ( the latter two are funny, the former is…much less so ).
I’m not a fan of frau Stackhouse. I read the first three - started out weak and got progressively worse IMHO.
I love that! Thanks for posting it, I laughed a lot.
I do get a lot of fun out of the spoofs. Words like “fursplode” only add richness to our culture. 
I also disagree with everyone that says don’t read Breaking Dawn. I mean, WTF…you’ve managed to get this far, why not go all the way? This is the novel where Stephenie Meyer straight up starts snorting blow and then sits down at her computer and types out some hallucinatory livejournal fanfic with full-on swinging references and teeny tiny mutants named EsmerNettalina like whoah, someone was doing some interesting livejournal communities research! And then I guess she had a pretty bad crash because it’s true that the 2nd half drags, I think mostly because she went off in search of cookies and meth and to re-freeze her full length body pillow that has a picture of Robert Pattinson’s face taped to one end because it wasn’t as marblehard as four hours ago when she was cuddled up against it watching Tori Spelling movies on the Lifetime Network eating queso and that probably resulted in some super tight deadlines because you know her editors are like "it should only take you a couple of weeks to pound this shit out girl, so get on it!
Anyway, that’s all to say that Breaking Dawn should be widely distributed as an example of what happens when your brain is on crack.
Suddenly, temptation returns! Get thee behind me, anu-la! 
These were linked in the comments. I was amused :).
I’m never going to read any of these books, but I’m now terribly curious to know what happens in book four that’s so off-the-wall-batshit that everyone who’s read it must comment on the insanity. Can someone clue me in?
The only thing that’s disappointing about Breaking Dawn is that it’s so obvious Stephenie Meyer is sitting at home letting her freak flag fly what with dropping acid, humming Hendrix and perusing the polyamory boards so you’d expect way more fcking for your dollar than you get, you know? I mean, now that they’re married you’d think you’d get some more info on what all sparkles and most importantly solve the mystery of how a vampire’s eye venom is sizzly enough to melt a pair of contacts but vampire ejaculate does nothing to damage the internal hideyholes of one Ms. Bella Swann-Cullen but it’s all a bunch of fade-to-black nonsense. I’m thinking there was more fcking in the original drafts but her editors took it out and were all “Go take a cold shower, Stephenie.”
Amongst other things, there’s the plot point referred to in Tamberlane’s second link (in the post just previous to your own).
To be fair, his other car is an Aston Martin Vanquish. (I think Ms. Meyers liked The Italian Job) He just got the Volvo so he could blend in while he goes to high school for the 27th time.
Yes, I read them. They are like cotton candy. All fluff. Super sweet. and something you tend to grow out of after a certain age, but every once in a while cotton candy temptations creep up and you can’t help yourself.
It’s a Volvo C30, which *are *ultra-cool, but fairly uncommon.
I thought about reading them for shits 'n giggles. Also I like to snark young adult novels on my blog, but I thought this might be too much horribleness even for me to handle.
I didn’t read that much of it, but this is what I picked up:
[spoiler]So, despite being eighteen years old, Bella is SO IN LOVE with her sparkly vampire that they get married and go off to some private island, where they have very creepy sex. She gets pregnant IMMEDIATELY (like, she knows about it before the honeymoon is over) and then they go back to Washington where Edward turns her into a vampire, which requires her cutting herself off from everyone she knows…IIRC, they decide to tell her parents she’s dead.
Then she gives birth to the baby, which she names, I swear to god, Reneesme, which is a mixture of the baby’s two grandmother’s names, Renee and Esme.
That’s when I gave up in horror.[/spoiler]
Esme Weatherwax would not be amused.
You’re really missing out. Especially the pivotal dry humping scene of Book 3 that culminates in the Awkward Teen Abstinence Message delivered in a very Thus Spake His Holiness Sparklethustra moment.
*Virtue is all Monster!!! has, Bella mine. We musts bind ourselves a’fore the God that hath deserted me and the many Men who want to savage you before I yoke mine sparkling loins to thine! *
Also, I could take it all a lot more seriously if Sparklepire who has two medical degrees (two!) didn’t spend all his time being like what is this fire that hath seized my “core”? Uh, permaboner, dude.
You know that line about you owe me a new keyboard? Well, I just sprayed diet Mt Dew over mine, but it seems to have survived. 
Does Bella at least ever vamp out? Tell me she vamps out!