Earning the Wrath of Teenage Girls Everywhere
Okay, I’ll say it: I hate Twilight.
For those of you who aren’t regularly around teenagers, you might have seen this book cover on your way through Borders or Barnes and Noble:
Twilight is a publishing phenomenon, to say the least — it’s sold something over 3.5 million copies, even muscling out Harry Potter on some lists, if memory serves, and is responsible for (among other things) one of my first-period students writing “I Heart Edward Cullen” all over her notebook.
The first thirty pages of the novel had me somewhat intrigued: a young teenage girl from Phoenix moves to rainy Forks, Washington to be with her estranged father. There, she starts high school and immediately encounters a brooding, mysterious group of students whose strangeness seems to have the air of another world, or at least an older time. In that respect, it initially reminded me of the relationship between the outsider Richard and the élite Greek scholars of Donna Tartt’s obsessive and weirdly fascinating novel The Secret History .
Suffice it to say that the bloom started to come off the rose fairly swiftly after about page 30, and there were more than four hundred pages to go. Let’s start with the main character, shall we?
I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t remember the heroine’s name even though I was well into the book and I had to check back a few pages to see whom I was reading about. The name, by the way, is Isabella Swan, a moniker that seemed more suited to a trashy Bertrice Small-type romance than a young adult novel, but I was willing to go along with the ride — hey, I’ve enjoyed novels with protagonists named Amber St. Claire – but to my annoyance, the heroine seemed to be barely more than a blank page. As some reviewers for Amazon noticed, this character vacancy is probably a chief reason for the novel’s popularity, for how better to project one’s own fantasies than onto a blank screen? What passes for characterization is Meyer’s description of Bella as one of those faux-naive types existing nowhere except in trashy romances — the type who seemingly has no idea she’s attractive even though she could walk on a carpet of dropped male tongues on her way to biology class. Instantly upon her arrival in not-so-sunny Forks, she’s surrounded by a circle of cutouts from Central Casting: the goofy, chatty girlfriend, the nice-but-a-loser would-be suitor, the clueless dad who seems like a cross between Sheriff Andy Taylor and Gomer Pyle, and (of course) the mysterious Edward.
The mysterious Edward’s mystery is that he’s a vampire. Oh, and he’s gorgeous. His amber eyes occasionally glare, occasionally gleam, and are occasionally onyx. He’s a genius and does everything with precision and perfection. He is far more sophisticated and street-smart than the heroine, and makes his knowledge known in a world-weary tone that does great credit to the writers of the Cliffs Notes for The Picture of Dorian Gray. He’s gorgeous, and he drives a Volvo, and his house contains a lovely collection of antiques, including his family members. Oh, and in case you forgot, he’s gorgeous.
Meyer bends over backward – really, the woman does a whole Pilates class – to sidestep what we can call Vampire Ethics 101. As other readers such as Amazon’s Gaimangirl have observed, Mayer eschews ethical complexity throughout. For all of the strained and cringeworthy moments in Interview With the Vampire or its sequelae (a vampire in a rock band? Ow…), at least Anne Rice spent thought and time presenting a diverse array of approaches to the moral conundrum of being a vampire, whether it was the rich joy of human predation practiced by the decadent Lestat or the torturous, Catholic self-hatred of Louis in that same novel. Compared to Stephanie Meyer, Anne Rice looks like Kierkegaard. Meyer’s approach is to present the issue perfunctorily and deal with it in a joke: Edward and his vampire family are, he laughs, “vegetarians,” which means they prey only on animals. Oh, and since they don’t use weapons to hunt those animals, they’re not even violating hunting statutes.
Yeah, because vampires in this novel aren’t scared of garlic or crosses, but the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife puts the fear o’ Jesus into them.
So many elements in this novel simply fail to make any kind of sense even on the novel’s own terms. Hey, I’ll suspend my disbelief for a good novel: I’ll willingly accept that King Arthur’s nemesis Morgaine was a pagan priestess; I’ll accept that a whale can become invested with all the symbolic resonance of sperm, sex, death, and obsession; and I’ll even accept a road trip novel starring a chubby alien named J. Lo and a girl named Gratuity.
What I can’t accept is that a vampire has any kind of interest in going to high school. Really, isn’t that one of the first things that every teenager would do if they were a vampire? Is she serious? Like, “I’m undead and have eternal life, but I don’t want to settle for a GED”?
What I also can’t accept is that the author did NOTHING with this premise. I can only imagine what the authors of the ironically self-mocking show Supernatural would’ve done with the idea of a high school vampire in an AP U.S. History class:
Vampire Student: “Well, actually, Mr. Smith, there was a lot of uncertainty in the U.S. in 1945 about whether hitting Hiroshima with the atom bomb was the right course of action…”
AP Teacher: “And you know this how, Mr. Cullen?”
Vampire Student: “Uh…call me a living history fan.”
Mayer never really explores the logic of her own premise, that this family of vampires has settled in on the rainy Olympic Peninsula to live in a town of three thousand people. Even the inhabitants of a hypothetical small town populated only by incredible idiots, all of whom were eternally distracted by a supply of free cable TV showing nothing but porn and Hannah Montana, would tend to notice little things like the fact that one’s kids never really grow up and just keep going to high school, or that that nice Dr. Cullen got his medical degree from Cambridge… in the 1600s.
At the risk of being dogpiled by an angry, torch-carrying mob of Meyer fans, if Twilight were just this bad, it could be laughed off as the silly, ill-written trash it is.
Regrettably, it’s more than a novel: it’s a teenage phenomenon, but too many teenage readers tend to regard the novel with what can kindly be called an utter lack of critical distance. One Amazon reviewer, “Sara Nightingale,” hotly rebutted an accusation that Bella’s actions were “stupid” by saying, “Bella isn’t stupid; she just doesn’t always think things through and tends to follow her instincts.”
Um, Sara…isn’t that what stupid means?
The lack of critical distance is more than laughable, though. When this relationship between Bella and Edward becomes regarded as the perfect romance — and it has; there are Vampire Romance Clubs apparently forming in honor of this book – it starts to become dangerous.
Let’s never lose sight of something really crucial, folks: Edward is gorgeous, Edward is sexy, Edward has amber-or-is-it-onyx eyes, and Edward has skin that sparkles like he’s covered with cheap glitter lotion if you put him in the sunlight.
But more important than all things, Edward is a killer.
Whether he’s a killer of animals or a killer of human beings, he’s a predator, and in that sense, Edward Cullen is not fundamentally different from the serial killer narrator of Darkly Dreaming Dexter or that other sexy beast, Ted Bundy.
Edward feels a constant, physical lust to take Bella’s life, to make that red blood flow, and much of the tension in the novel comes from his resisting his desire to rip her throat out. They cuddle together (chastely, for Mayer is a good Mormon gal), in a scene that has Bella literally courting death as she initiates a kiss.
Over and over, in ways both literal and figurative, Bella places herself into danger so that Edward can save her, even (in a later novel) cliff-diving into rushing waters that drag her to near-death so that the experience will allow her to”hear” Edward’s voice in her head. Bottom line, Bella feels cannot live without Edward, so she wants to die in order to be with him forever.
Already a blank page, Bella experiences a masochistic desire for self-erasure which is deeply disturbing, the more so because Mayer accepts this death-drive at face value and presents it uncritically…even romantically. Unable to have sex with Edward as a mortal, the only way Bella can truly experience intimacy with him is through her own death, through the erasure of her mortal self and the assumption of his own (and vastly superior) identity. Meyer never questions this potentially painful issue to any length, never asking herself (or having Bella ask herself) what that would really mean, to give up her home, her father and her mother, her friends in Forks or Phoenix, or the pains and benefits of assuming an adult identity, being pregnant, giving birth, and watching one’s children grow up. Were this presented honestly or literally as a case of a teenager who’s attracted to a violent stalker and wants to become one of his victims, or were Bella a woman from a different race who wanted to give up her essential self in order to assume a white identity (very white, in this case), many people would justly be outraged. Peel off the vampire overlay, and what you have is misogyny.
That’s bad enough. The fact that Bella, with no ethical qualms whatsoever, wants to be a vampire herself is worse. Bella herself wants to be a killer. (This is fairly ridiculous, since the heroine literally faints at the sight of blood in biology class. Apparently, she’d wind up being the Karen Carpenter of the vampire world.) One fundamental difference, though, between Bella and a serial killer like Bundy or Dahmer or a fictional one like Dexter, is that serial killers are largely born that way. Bella, though, has a choice.
My conclusion? Twilight sucks.
I often wonder at the difference between modern YA fiction and what was available when I was a kid. I think I skipped that phase, going from Stormy, Misty’s Foal straight to The Shining.
I listened to an interview with Meyer at the Eye On Books website, and could see on Amazon that this was some kind of phenomenon, so I reserved an audio copy of The Host, which is not part of her vampire series. It’s in, so I will listen to it next week.
Were vamps always so hip? I don’t remember much in the way of “it’s cool to be a bloodsucker” vampire stories until Anne Rice came along. Now it’s Buffy and Laurel K. Hamilton and Sookie Stackhouse and a half-dozen other demon-hunting vampire-staking heroes and heroines along with an assortment of virtuous vampires and worthy werewolves.
I think Anne Rice really kicked off what was (by that time) a pretty moribund, brush-the-dust-off-Lugosi genre. Yeah, there was Kinski’s Nosferatu and Langella’s Dracula, but both of those were pretty traditional takes on the vampire myth. It took Rice to have a “relatable” and (to quote you) “virtuous vampire” in IWTV and the later Vampire Chronicles books, without which _Twilight_ would simply cease to exist.
The series would not be a success if there weren’t a lot of teenage girls (and boys?) who could relate to Bella.
The truth most people don’t want to face is that the vast majority of teenage girls (and women well into their 30’s, go watch Sex in the City) are just as brutally stupid as “Sara Nightingale”. Their defense would be something to the effect that your “small ration mind cannot possibly comprehend my emotional wisdom and complexity!” For anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 10-20 years, none of this is a shock.
Misanthropically Yours,
G!
I don’t necessarily agree with you, George. I’ve met plenty of teenage boys and girls who were about as deep as a kiddie wading pool, but I don’t think it’s a vast majority…or if perhaps it is, I’m holding out the romantic hope that age and experience will help the situation. That said, though, your “defense” there had the ring of truth.
“I’m holding out the romantic hope that age and experience will help the situation.”
Keep hoping!
[...] Because They’re Reading Doesn’t Mean it’s Good I wrote last week about Stephanie Meyer’s epically disastrous vampire novel Twilight, but I’ve been thinking more and more about the issue of bad literature and how it relates to [...]
Just Because They’re Reading Doesn’t Mean it’s Good « Lorem Ipsum said this on June 13, 2008 at 6:01 am |
[...] I wrote last week about Stephanie Meyer’s epically disastrous vampire novel Twilight, but I’ve been thinking more and more about the issue of bad literature and how it relates to [...]
Dangerous Literature « Lorem Ipsum said this on June 13, 2008 at 6:25 am |
I strongly disagree with you. First of all, I’m wary to believe that you actually read all the books completely; many of your facts are wrong. For instance, it was explained that the vampires only went to high school to blend into the human town. It was the only way they could live there without their secret being discovered. Of course it wasn’t the first thing teenagers would do, because… they aren’t really teenagers. In fact some of them are hundreds of years old. I’m sure they don’t have the mindset of your average teen. They’re old souls in a teenage body, if you will. They didn’t want to go to high school, it was the only way they could survive.
The books also explained that the family of vampires had only lived in Forks for about two years. People WOULD notice that they never aged, which is the reason that the family never stays in one place for long. They are constantly moving to avoid humans finding out their secret.
Not thinking things through and following instincts DOES NOT make someone stupid. ‘Stupid’ is someone who is not smart. Bella’s character follows her heart, and does what she thinks is best. Sometimes she may not make the best choices. But she is a teenage girl. That’s just the way her character is. I don’t understand how that makes the story “suck”.
Stephenie Meyer’s story is just that. It’s a STORY. Don’t pick it apart and flip things around to make them seem like something they’re not. It only shows that you didn’t read very carefully. It’s fiction. Like the books (or not) for what they are, and leave it at that.
Leah, though I did refer to the cliff-diving episode in a later book, I only claimed to have read Twilight, not the entire series. I couldn’t stomach the entire series, really.
You may not come back to this blog — I only saw your comment today, after it’s been up for a while (sorry) — but I wanted to give you an answer.
You said, “For instance, it was explained that the vampires only went to high school to blend into the human town. It was the only way they could live there without their secret being discovered. ”
See, I frankly think the vampire teenagers attending high school served the needs of the author, not the needs of the story in itself, and there’s a difference. In other words, I don’t find it persuasive — if anything, I would think that the vampire teenagers would attract unwelcome attention, which was by and large quite true; moreover, I don’t see how they could live there more than a few years without the inhabitants of the town getting quite suspicious. In short, it was a major plot hole.
Also, Leah, you said, “Not thinking things through and following instincts DOES NOT make someone stupid. ‘Stupid’ is someone who is not smart. Bella’s character follows her heart, and does what she thinks is best. ”
Following your heart is opposed here to what? To following your mind. Not following your mind — whether you follow your heart, your liver, your left toe — is stupid by definition because your brain is the only organ that thinks. She may indeed “[do] what she thinks is best,” but what she thinks is best is impulsive, ill-considered, lacking in common sense, and yeah, stupid.
The problem here that you’re not addressing is the fact that in “following her heart” and having that viewed as a GOOD thing (!), you realize that you’re buying into one of the oldest stereotypes in the book about women, right? That they don’t have reason? That they are all emotion, no brain? That they follow their heart? I realize you may be very young, and I’m not trying to condescend to you on the basis of your age, over which you have no control. However, what I am saying — urging you, rather — is not to buy in to a stereotype that has been used as a reason to keep women out of college, out of high-paying positions, out of positions of responsibility, out of the respect many of them earn and deserve. Please reconsider how damaging the “follow your heart” ethic really is. Please.
And no, Leah, I do not intend to “leave it at that,” nor should you…ever. When you believe something is “just a story,” you blind yourself to that story’s genuine power to transform and influence you for good or for bad — and not just this story, but any story. You fool yourself into thinking that these fictions have no effect on you, which basically makes you completely vulnerable to them. Again, you don’t (and shouldn’t) believe what I believe because I’m telling you so. However, you shouldn’t turn off your brain, follow your heart, and dismiss something as “it’s fiction” without thinking, “What is this making me believe?”
Good luck, and thank you for your sincerely-meant reply.
Thank you for replying. I do agree that Bella does frequently make “stupid” decisions. I know that your brain is the only organ that thinks, I meant following your heart in a figurative sense. But that’s not what matters.
Stephenie Meyer made Bella ’stupid’ as a character in order to move the story along. Twilight would not be twilight without that factor. Not all fictional characters are going to be smart, just as not all people in real life are smart.
I am not buying into the stereotype of ‘following your heart’, don’t worry. I never said it was a good thing, in fact I don’t really like the character of Bella. I am actually not very young, and I am fully aware that this fictional story affects me. I love the books and they obviously impact my life. But I don’t, and won’t ever let a book influence my decisions in life in a negative way. I won’t turn off my brain and ‘follow my heart’ like Bella does, because that is a flaw in her character that I don’t like.
Obviously the story is not meant to be realistic, it’s full of mythical creatures and fairytale romances. The romance itself is unrealistic, things don’t really happen like that. I know this.
But really, thank you for your concern and once again thank you for replying. :]
I’m glad you checked back — thought I’d replied too late. Pleasure speaking with you, Leah.
I read Twilight because I wanted to see what the fascination was for the 11-13 year old girls who were reading it. BTW, I work in a middle school library and have had occasion to book conference Twilight with approximately 25 girls. Sadly, all of these young ladies thought the book was romantic. The issue of Bella being stalked by Edward (remember he frequents her room at night with out her knowing it) completely went over their heads. The girls confused the superficiality of his looks with romance but never got the point that his looks were to lure his victim. Of most concern is the fact that these young ladies, when not reading this series, were reading the Clique or Gossip Girl “novels”. (Incidentally, most of the year we did not have any of these books in the library – so the mommies must have been buying them.) Although the author claims the books are innocent I think they are one more step in the sexualization and submission of pre-teen girls. The book also deserves a critical look in terms of sentence structure(subject/predicate,subject/predicate), vocabulary(was there any), and overuse of the “to be” verbs instead of active verbs, all of which contibuted to it tedious pace. Lastly, did I mention Twilight was the most read book among the female students and young female teachers who felt Edward was the ultimate bad boy. Be afraid!
I confess, I have not read the _Gossip Girls_ series because it looked basically like what you described its as being: “one more step in the sexualization…of pre-teen girls.” I was also very disappointed in _Twilight_ and surprised, as you were, by the stalker/predator role in this novel being viewed romantically. Yikes. “Ultimate bad boy?” Wow, they haven’t read much, have they?
First, I have read and enjoyed the three novels. But. Yes, there has to be a but. I saw them as simply a modern young adult extension of gothic literature. The same themes of sexuality and chastity, violence and love, the killer and the lover. It’s interesting when tastes in literature go full circle. Anne Rice’s revival of gothic themes and its mainstay, the bad beautiful man has begun influencing our YA lit.
Edward’s innate dangerousness being a draw for young female readers is not a new concept. People had the same problems with gothic literature. Although I can hope that Twilight will be a gateway book into Rebecca, or Wuthering Heights, I kinda doubt it. Hmmm… I think I’ll buy another copy of Rebecca to hand to students who have just finished Twilight.
Hey, Adsoofmelk! You commented on my blog, but didn’t leave your site address. Be sure that I’m bookmarking it now, and would have done so sooner if I’d known where you were.
When I don’t have my “I’m going to be a professional about this” hat on, I completely agree with you. And you bring up some great points that I hadn’t thought of before – especially on Edward’s killer nature.
The thing is, Meyer went to such lengths to make Edward not a killer that… she makes (unwittingly, perhaps) Edward into a killer. All she did was make his ability to kill an inability to live without, and made Bella into an indirect victim. And you’re right, if he wasn’t a vampire, it wouldn’t have made it past the publisher’s desk. It’s a teenage book about masochism. A dash of vampire goes a long way, I guess.
I appreciate your thorough and funny analysis, and will certainly be back for more.
Sorry about that! I agree with you about Meyer’s efforts to make Edward a killer-but-not-a-killer. I think the point of absurdity for me was when he brought up how he kills animals — but it’s not a violation of hunting laws because he’s not using a gun or weapon.
Oh, puh-leez.
Anyway, W.E.B., thanks for paying me a visit!
So, first of all — I love The Secret History. I have, but have not read, The Little Friend, though I may pick it up in the spring.
Your review and analysis of Twilight shores up my resolve not to read it until I absolutely must. I don’t identify with characters who start naive and ‘blank’, and finish the same way. My stepdaughter LURVES this series, so I think if I do read it and talk to her about it, I’ll ask some of the questions that you and other commentors have brought up. Thanks!
I tried to read TLF, but it didn’t “hook” me the way Secret History did, unfortunately. Hey, glad to help — and I think that talking about it with your stepdaughter would help a great deal. I think it’s easy for issues like (what amounts to) stalking to slip under the radar and read as “romantic” when it should normally be treated much more seriously. Great idea!
I read the entire Twilight series of books–and I loved them! What a wonderful story. I confess that I am not a teenager. I am in the 40 something age group.
Hi! I found this blog totally randomly and just came across this entry. I find your point of view very interesting.
I read all Twilight novels (including the latest, Breaking Dawn) and sometimes, I wonder why I did. In retrospect, there are aspects of the series which I enjoyed but quite frankly, I do not consider those books to be “good books”. To me, most if not all characters are pretty 2-dimensional and never have any real depth. (Exception made for my dear Jacob Black, whom I love.)
I hadn’t really though about the “stalker” issue until you mentionned it. I think a lot of readers confused it with devotion and therefore view it as romantic. Which, I think, is something that happens a lot in the series: excessive (sometimes stupid)actions are seen as devotion. Devotion = romantic.
Also, readers tend to praise Edward for his self control; he is constantly fighting with himself not to kill Bella, and since his nobeler instincts win out in the end, he is viewed as a noble killer.
Anyways… just my 2 cents here.
[...] Twilight and was unsure how I felt about it. The more I think about it, I completely agree with Adso’s post on this. Unfortunately, I think The Axe is right, also. I’ll [...]
More on (or is it Moron?) Twilight « LanguageLover’s Weblog said this on October 7, 2008 at 2:02 am |
Hi there. You must be tired of all of us commenting over an already overhyped book.
I’ll admit it, the first time I read it, I loved it. Your review was highly entertaining (especially the vamp student in history class part!) and if I’d read it before reading the book I might not have liked it so much.
I think the real reason people fell in love with the book and Edward Cullen is because of the world we live in today. Beautiful, thin models are airbrushed to meet the impossible standards of a cosmetic ad. We are being stoned to death by gorgeous actors and actresses with megawatt smiles. Though in the back of our heads we might know that those smiles belong to their well paid dentists and their hair is actually courtesy of a poor chinese woman who sold her shiny black locks for some food to serve her children, it still influences us.
No matter how many times Oprah will sit us down and tell us that money can’t buy happiness, I know she’s bullshitting us. Hell, look at her bank account and doesn’t she look happy? No matter how many times Jessica Alba whines about being cast as a sex object and her real talent being ignored, it’s not going to change a thing. Our eyes are dominant. We want beauty. We despise aging.
I remember my sister saying “man, this OLD guy was flirting with me today!” I asked “how old?” disgusted by the mental image of some wrinkled man way past his midlife crisis hitting on my 18 year old sister. “He was like 28!” I imagine our parents must be like fossils to her.
We are bashing the book because we’re alarmed by what Stephanie Myer presents us. She’s given us this generation’s image of the perfect man and because she’s so spot on, it sells. What she also presents is our loss of identity. We are so influenced by everything around us we don’t come up with our own things anymore. Yes, all knowledge is secondhand. That was true in “the old days” but even more so now.
Impossibly young, impossibly beautiful and dangerous. Being a nice guy who won’t swat a fly isn’t exciting enough anymore. No, he has to be dangerous, obsessive even. I think this sort of answers to many girls’ desire to be loved and adored by someone. But what they want the most is a partner who is gorgeous. And devoted, like “wisdom of insanity” said. Their gorgeous Edward would never cheat on them, would never get tired of them and even after so many years he would still look flawless.
We’re all superficial, these days. I sure like my boyfriend to have a brain bigger than the size of a neutron and even if he matches all the qualities of my personality traits list, I still would have a hard time falling for him if he was ugly.
I read about a girl who dated a guy because his name was Edward and when she got pregnant, she decided after reading the latest novel “Breaking Dawn” that keeping it “would be cool after all” and called it after Bella’s demon spawn. Now, that’s alarming.
Though I enjoyed the book (I’m as shallow as those poor teenagers) I also think it should be perceived as the explanation point that shows us how distorted our image of perfection is. Wrong has become right and that scares me more that Edward’s venomous teeth.
There. Longest reply ever made. If you think it’s stupid, then I must say I’m still very young (20) if that’s any excuse to hide behind
Didn’t really read your review I just skimmed through to the end. I don’t intend on reading Twilight because vampires are far too cliché for my taste. I just wanted to say I’ve read 41 pages into Darkly Dreaming Dexter and have loved it. Anyway, my reason for leaving this reply is that I wanted to say that serial killers like Bundy and Dahmer aren’t born that way. They are created, by society and the people and things around them, and in some case or at times most cases they put it on themselves. Believe me, I know this from experience. Just take Ed Gein for example, his mother isolated him from reality, and just look at what he became.
I’m 30, I read all 4 books. Myers wrote the novels for every one 2 make their own decisions,don’t pick it apart.Fiction,yes how ever it’s nice 2 escape reality every once in a while, i know everyone who has read the books can relate 2 someone in the books! Every person is responsable 4 their own actions, if you allow a book 2 in fluince you, then it’s no differnt then your friend or foe telling you 2 jump off a bridge. STUPID!! RIGHT!!
I think the issue is that some people especially teenage girls (which it is marketed at) are not taking it as fun fiction they are taking it as “OMG best relationship EVA!” and there in lies the problem. Obviously Anne Rice had some pretty messed up relationships, but they were geared at an adult audience. Twilight has some pretty messed up messages as well only it’s geared towards adolescents who are just beginning to develop identities and beliefs about romance.
lol I’m glad I’m not the only teen who hates this series. i read twilight back when it was relatively unknown and i couldn’t stand Edward and how much of a dumb-ass Bella was.i think Meyer is into the woman-are-inferior kind of thing, because a friend, who read the whole series, told me in one of the books that some male character forced himself onto Bella and she actually fell in love with him at that moment.UGH! trash indeed.
Wow, this is amazing. You basically just summed up what i feel about Twilight in one little blog
and BTW, i did read the whole thing, so i know what im talking about when i say it SUCKS. And oh yeah, Harry Potter pwns all, so whatevs.
Wow this is fascinating. I came across this blog with the help of google. I’m a university student in New Zealand, and although the hype here is nothing on the states, the twilight books have become alarmingly popular here too. I’m doing a ‘Young Adult Fiction’ course currently for my BA(Hons), am about to start on a 5000 word essay discussing the portrayal of sex and violence in teenage lit and how the two are intertwined in the supernatural culture, and how the supernatural can be used to mask what would be an unusual/unhealthy/shocking/plainly abhorrent relationship in real life…
So that’s how I’ve come to Twilight. I’m yet to read one – I’m still trying to see if they are relevant to my essay, but the more I hear, the more I’m convinced I should read them.
Now I’m even more intrigued by how defensive some people are getting over a bit of literary criticism (see many above comments) and what a cult following the saga has had (i.e the middle aged mothers and their teenage daughters who call themselves “Twilighters”?
Anyway. I’ve bookmarked this page and will now return to my Google-ing.
why did you read it if you hate it?
Corse shes naive – its for teenage girls who havent encountered “true love” yet. the whole idear is that you are ment to forget that this wouldnt actually happen. Hes ment to lure her in, shes a 17yr old girl who is in love. Dont tell me you didnt feel that when you where younger that you wanted to do anything to keep him? shes just a child, a book for teenagers that only they will understand fully.
Declining literacy + increasing anti-intellectualism = Twilight
Amyy, the problem with that is that it’s presented so ncritically. Meyers could take this story in a hundred interesting directions but never does; instead, she blithely idolizes an abusive relationship.
I love twilight! It is probably one of my series, i was through with the book within a few days. and dont be all smart by saying i read it quickly because it was an easy read, i read it so quickly because it was an amazing saga and i just couldn’t put it down. you screwed up many facts and i think that if you just finished the saga you would realize that the connection between bella and edward or bella and jacob are true and passionate not just teenage love.
whooo TEAM EDWARD!! <3
ahh!
yesssss, please reply! haha :]
seems like my coments have been taken off here GRR
i must say thats not very nice
Vampires in high school. One of my very good friends and I make fun of that all the time. Why would vampires rich, smart, and mature, relive the experience of HS students? Buy stocks or something and travel the world to places that are dark or danky or whatnot. Is HS really that fun? Being a rockstar makes even more sense than being a HS student.
They choose Forks because it is cloudy? That doesn’t make sense. Living somewhere in Scandinavia, where it’s dark half the time for half the year, would make much more sense.
There are so many plot holes in this book it makes a sieve look like a normal pan. Granted, I’ve only read Twilight and not the other books, but like you, I couldn’t bring myself to read any more. It was painful. The movie was also painful.
I hate twilight, too.