Vampires don't sparkle

I, (like many others), don't like the Twilight saga, but I have to give Meyers props for rewriting an old cliche.

It’s actually interesting how many concepts and tropes are held as these almost immutable and timeless things but they were very much created by humans and often within only a generation or a few generations of us. Most people know about wedding rings, “blue for boys and pink for girls,” many know that gendered clothing or appearances for children are often newer concepts. Much vampire mythos and various western monster mythos comes from the turn of the 20th century or so when films and such began to explore those myths and add to them. Concepts of hell and the devil as we tend to know them are relatively recent influences of pop culture- Faust was a major influence but later pop culture works and films created the “devil” that many know and slightly humorously- many religious folks take as gospel but is in fact an invention of pop fiction. Elements and concepts of history… so many things are easily traced to relatively modern roots.

There is some speculation that people afflicted with porphyria are, in part, where the myth of vampires come from. Porphyria, a blood disorder, when untreated can cause some of the features we associate with the old vampires—thin lips with exposed teeth, thin or no hair, sunken eyes, curled hands… and a sensitivity to sunlight that causes blistering and a burning sensation.

I've never (fully) read the books. So you die if sunlight hits you in them?