Let's see,,,,, let me look at this from a book critic's point of view first:
Twilight:
The books stay fairly true to character, Edward is the long suffering teen age vampire who is over a hundred years old, loves the girl, Bella, tries to save her from himself even though he loves her. The character of Bella in the books doesn't have a lot of strength, but is willing to fight for the guy she loves, mainly against himself that is. Jacob's character develops the most, we get to watch his metamorphosis into a werewolf, the inner struggles he face seem a lot more real and better written. The back ground characters at the school are written just as they should be, a foil to the main characters interaction with just the right support. I think the best written characters are Rosalie and Alice. Rosalie always stays true to character, and through the series you come to understand why she feels the way she does towards Bella. Alice embraces who she is and she written very well, although no explanation is ever give as to why Bella can't be affected by other vampires gifts but she can by Alice and Jasper's talents. Elliot is written as a very strong character, but he doesn't end up that when it transfers to the big screen.
Trueblood:
The books started out cute and fun with a dark side, but as they progressed the writer seems to have grown bored with her own characters. Sookie in the books is portrayed as a naive but not dump Southern girl, who was raised right and polite,, but the author used that as an excuse for her to never say no to anyone who needs help,, her grammy would be upset if she was so rude as to say no to someone in need.. The last book written so far is Dead in the Family and it's #10,,, Charlain Harris needs to end the series,, she slept through this one and evidently got lost when she woke up, because the storyline, if you can there is one, wanders through territory no book has seen before. You can just picture the characters in the book standing there and saying "What the heck is going on here? I would never do that!".
Movie Critic's point of view:
Twilight:
Even though the movie and the book stay fairly true to character the acting is extremely weak. Kristen Stewart can't act her way out of a wet paper bag. The first movie was tolerable, I though she might grow, but in New Moon you wish Laurant would have killed her before we had to put up the screaming and groaning that she calls nightmares. She sounds more like she's constipated and trying to crap out an entire cow. Robert Pattinson has the acting chops to make work but I think he's afraid to act and make Kristen look worse than she is although I'm not sure that is possible. Taylor Lautner steals the show, along with the other werewolves. They really did work on trying to show the animal behind the human facade in their facial expressions, they way they moved, talked, and reacted and responded to those around them. Unfortunately they can't support the movie on their own when the focus is on Kristen and Robert,, the two weakest links that unfortunately have the lead roles.
Trueblood:
Don't waste your time if you enjoyed the books, they are nothing alike. The books are campy and fun and cute, the tv show is gory, with a lot more blood, sex, and violence thrown in because if they made the show like the book it wouldn't sell in this violent and blood thirsty day we live in.
If you can look at the show as having nothing to do with the books other than character names in common you might enjoy it.
Overall:
In a competition between the two I would have to say Twilight would be the winner as they have more in common between the books and the movie and it is still new enough and stopped where it did to still be interesting. Now if suddenly the series is turned into a 10 book series like Trueblood, with more to come, then I imagine they will run into the same problem: Not enough story to go around.
