Twilight Divide: As 'Breaking Dawn' Premieres, Popularity Split Along State Lines

Just as the penultimate film in the Twilight movie series, Breaking Dawn: Part One, hit theaters, a new report by social site Goodreads reveals that the Stephenie Meyer book series is at the heart of a state-by-state divide similar to the one that separated the Rust Belts and Bible Belts of America's past. In fact, the YA vampire series is proving to be one of the most divisive book series on the site to date.

Goodreads, a literary recommendation and social networking site, has its share of Breaking Dawn and Edward/Bella fans, with the Twilight series topping its user-polled Best Books Ever list, beating out Harry Potter for the top honors.

The same series, however, also tops the site's list for Worst Books of All Time, with all four books (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) in the top four slots -- beating out even Miley Cyrus' memoirs and Ann Coulter's Guilty.

Such divisiveness is nothing new for those who love and love to hate the brooding vampire and his limpid sweetheart; similarly, the data revealing that twelve times as many women read the Twilight series than men is nothing new to those same fans and haters alike.

What is more surprising is how sharply fans and decriers of the Stephenie Meyer series are divided by state lines, forming a sort of Twlight Belt across a United States loosely split along Red State/Blue State lines.

In the accompanying graphic (click the image to enlarge), Goodreads data reveal that of the over 880,000 users polled who've read the book and the series as a whole, those who live in the Midwest and the South are heavily in favor of the series, while those who live in the East and West Coasts, as well as in Alaska and Hawaii, roundly pan the series. The biggest fans of the series are located in a virtual line that runs down the center of the U.S.

Surprisingly, YA readers in Utah, Meyer's home state and bastion of the Mormon values that vampire Edward espouses throughout the Twilight series, weren't fans of the YA books. The state did rank, however, in the top ten of those users who had read the series. Perhaps the sex scenes, and the graphic birthing sequence in the Breaking Dawn segment of the books, turned Utah readers off to Meyer's characters.

Let us know: Is your state a Twi-hard lover or a defiantly anti-Bella and Edward state? Are you stuck in the middle of a Breaking Dawn frenzy, or are you the only one in your state who seems to care about the star-crossed romance? Check out Goodread's infographic to find out.