Book Review: Twilight

The writing in this book was not as bad as I’d been led to believe it was going to be but the book itself was teeth grindingly awful all the same, I only picked it up because ~I wanted to judge it for myself rather than believing all the hype surrounding it. It horrified me in a way that had nothing to do with vampires,

Firstly as soon as Bella moves in with her father she turns into a surrogate housewife pretty much, doing the cooking and laundry even though he’s been feeding himself and doing his own laundry for years.

I don’t understand how the relationship between Bella and Edward is supposed to be romantic and seductive and all those other things it’s been touted as. Edward comes across as a scary controlling sadistic stalker that Bella should run far away from at the soonest possible opportunity

Someone breaking in to your room to watch you sleep every night, or taking you places you don’t want to go because they are physically stronger than you, or repetitively telling you that they are so much stronger than you and could easily kill you if they wanted to, or telling you it’s your fault the other vampire wanted to drink you because you smelled so nice, (rape apoligism much?) is really disturbing and adds up to the kind of relationship where the woman eventually ends up getting killed rather than true love.

I think the issue of abusive relationships is something that should be discussed in adolescent literature, very much so, but the problems with this book is that firstly this isn’t presented as an abusive relationship and secondly there are no healthy romantic relationships in the book, Bella’s best friend, who is clearly only a foil to move the story on, there is no depth of connection between the characters, is obsessed with her boyfriend, Bella’s mother, who is drawn as flaky and dependant seems to be following her partner round the country like a devoted sheep dog.

There was an article in the womans literary journal Mslexia about the author Stephanie Meyer that I found really problematic. Apparently the twilight series is Buffy the Vampire slayer without its smart arsed humour - and its sex drugs and rock and roll so Buffy without some of the bits people really, really liked, but it’s also Buffy without well drawn characters or deep rich female friendships/relationships or opposing viewpoints or any healthy relationships. Buffys relationship with Angel, especially after he came back from Angelus was somewhat problematic but firstly there was discussions amongst Buffy’s friends about that but also Willow and Oz had a loving non abusive relationship and even Xander and Cordelia, while being a really bizarre pairing, weren’t’t abusive to each other.

Also apparently Meyer wrote the book partly because she wanted to show teens that abstinence was possible and a good thing. If I had a teenage daughter I would rather she was having sex in a consensual loving non abusive relationship than practicing abstinence while in an abusive one.

According to Mslexia in the next book in the series Edward’s lust for his new wife causes her such physical injury that he dare not make love to her again until she becomes a vampire herself. Because clearly men can’t control themselves, they just get caught up in the heat of the moment, and women should give up everything they are so their partners are sexually satisfied. Also who the hell would define damaging someone like that as making love

One of the things that disturbs me most about this though is that it’s a best seller and teenage girls love it! How do we still live in a society that teaches teenage girls, that scary obsessive stalkers are romantic? How do we live in a society that doesn’t teach teenage girls that equality is sexy, that covert threats are still threats, that the phrase “he’s controlling because he loves me” is contradictory.