Twilight could not be any hotter than it is right now. After a Halloween teeming with Bellas and Edwards, the film adaptation of the second book in the wildly popular series, New Moon, swoops into theaters tomorrow to frenzied anticipation.

Screaming teenage girls everywhere (and maybe some screaming adults too) will pour into packed cinemas nationwide to watch the tortured love affair between girl and vampire unfold, with a werewolf stepping in to complete the creepiest love triangle ever to hit high school.

These fans, if that word is even sufficient to describe the intensity of their Twilight passion, will transport themselves to misty and mystical Forks, Wash., where eternally young and hot bloodsuckers hide from the sunlight that kills them and seek the human flesh that sustains them. They’ll put themselves in Bella’s place, pining over a forbidden and dangerous love. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I just might be one of them.

I’ve never been much of a Twilight fan. To be honest, I originally hated it. I mocked the dramatic, soapy dreariness of it all, the silliness of the story and the way everyone took it so seriously. Whenever Twilight would come up I would have to hold back laughter, thinking of Kristen Stewart declaring in all seriousness, “I KNOW what you ARE.”

A die-hard Harry Potter fan for over a decade, I was seriously miffed by the comparisons between such an intelligent, iconic fantasy series and this vampy fluff.

But when I finally let go of my prejudices and allowed myself to enjoy the series for the superficial teen romance that it is, appreciating it for its entertainment value and for the influence it has had on pop culture, I could finally understand its appeal.

What makes Twilight so appealing is not the fact that the books are particularly well-written, imaginative or even engrossing, but their combination of romance and fantasy to create a teen series on steroids. Twilight combines the mystical magic of Harry Potter with the addictive drama, romance and glamour of Gossip Girl and 90210, making an entirely new breed of teen romance that’s absolutely unstoppable.

For the first time, girls can enjoy a little bit of suspense with their teen love story, instead of a typical Nicholas Sparks boy-meets-girl drama.

This thrilling combination, hardly seen before in teenage pop culture, is what keeps rabid Twilight fans coming back for more. Because it’s such a new and exciting idea, Twilight’s model has spread like wildfire throughout our culture, making the idea of mythical, suspenseful romance no longer a rarity but the norm. Shows like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries follow the vampire trend, with growing fan bases that threaten to compete with Twilight’s fame.

The Harry Potter series, though wildly popular and celebrated throughout the world, does not pervade the culture in the same way Twilight does. There was certainly a Harry Potter fever, unarguably hotter and more long-lasting than the current frenzy over Twilight, but there was no wizard fever like the vampire fever that’s currently gripping our nation. There were no magic TV shows based on Harry and his friends; there were no national swooning sessions over Daniel Radcliffe like those over Robert Pattinson, and wizard hats didn’t sell out of Halloween stores months before Halloween like fangs did this year.

Harry Potter was a wonderful and inventive fantasy series, but Twilight is more than just books and movies. Somehow, a stupid little romance novel about dreary emo kids and teenage vampires in the Northwest managed to make the entire country obsessed with vampires, abandoning sticky-sweet teen romance for something darker and more morbid — changing the nature of teen romance in our society, at least until the bite marks fade and we all fall in love with real people again.