My Twilight Dilemma

Twilight. You have all heard of it. If you haven't, I'm forced to ask, which rock is it exactly that you live under? I am fascinated by people's fascination with it, and even more than that, I'm fascinated by my own fascination.

To put it frankly, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn are not good books. They are poorly written, the main characters are really annoying, and nearly all of the story lines are in some way derived from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (among other things). The values taught in the books are not values preteen girls should be reading about, yet so many of them are. When I really stop to think about it, they actually make me quite angry.

That being said, I am obsessed.

For years, friends had been telling me to read the book about Edward Cullen. He was the perfect man-the one all other men should strive to me. I knew nothing more about it other than he was a vampire. It did not interest me. Then last January, my friend told me about Twilight. She went into detail about the plot, and I was slightly intrigued. Then something clicked in my mind, and it dawned on me that if Twilight was about vampires, perhaps this was the Edward Cullen book, and perhaps I should actually read it. So I borrowed it from her.

I read it in a five hour sitting. It would have been four and a half hours, but my roommate made me take a shower in the middle of it. So I guess it was two sittings. The details are unimportant. The important thing was I was hooked. I read the next two before the end of the week, and was at the midnight release of Breaking Dawn.

This leads me to my mixed review. I figured I would break it down into Pros and Cons. I am going to skip the summary on this one on the assumption that most of you have either read it, or just don't care.

Pros
1.) The background characters are fascinating. I have never been more captivated by characters than I am by Jasper Hale, Alice Cullen, and Seth Clearwater. Even Charlie makes me smile. Meyer has a way of giving each character, no matter how small, enough of a story, that you can fall in love with them separate from the book. You do not need to love the book to be completely awestruck by Alice and Jasper's romance. In some ways I feel their love story had more depth than Bella and Edward's did.
2.) Meyer has an incredible ability to make you want to know more. It does not matter if you like the stories or not. You need to know what happens. Whether you gain this knowledge by finishing the books or asking your friends, the story is captivating and you cannot stop until you know how everything plays out. This is the main reason why I read it so quickly. I could not stop to savor it because I had to know what happens.
3.) Her characters are (most of the time) believable. With the exception of Edward, Carlisle, and Esme, I feel like the characters could really exist. Wait. Some of them are vampires. Let me rephrase. I feel like their personalities could really exist. Everyone has flaws. Everyone has strengths. And there are enough different personalities that nearly everyone can find someone they can relate to. Some girls see themselves as Bella, some as Alice, maybe even Angela. And every single girl has definitely met a Rosalie. It is an unfortunately unavoidable fact of life.

Cons
1.) Feminism. I think it sums it up right there. These are the most anti-feminist books I have read in a long time. Bella is completely useless without some sort of man in her life. She does nothing for herself, and goes into complete shut down mode when Edward leaves her, only to be brought out of it by Jacob. If Edward was not there protecting her, she would have died a long time ago because of stupid decisions she makes. Her entire existence hinges on her being the best wife and mother. I'm all for good wives and good mothers, but shouldn't there be more to life than just that? I'm normally the first person to defend chivalry. It is not dead. Or at least it shouldn't be. But does Bella even know how to open a car door for herself? Also, Bella carelessly continually wants to have sex, even though she knows the danger, and it is the man who has to calm the sexual female down and say, "Not now Bella, I would kill you." Which brings us to my next point.
2.) Sex. Once again, I feel the one word sums it up. By the time I was halfway through Book 3 in Breaking Dawn, I called my friend and said, "Have you figured out the moral of this story yet?" Her response was, "Become a vampire, because sex is fun." My thoughts exactly. There was some brief mention of sex in the other books, and it was very clear that there was going to be some in Breaking Dawn. But there was no warning that there was going to be that much, or that the books would focus on it so completely. The entire first and third books (within Breaking Dawn) were full of it. Either Bella was trying to get some, they were having it, or Emmett was making fun of it, and it got a bit overwhelming. I thought back to all of the preteen girls I saw at the bookstore the night before, and was horrified. This book was way too mature for the audience that was reading it. In my mind it does not matter what audience they are written for, it matters who is reading it. Meyer knew who was reading it. And gave parents no opportunity to stop their daughters, because there was no warning.
3.) Edward is a creepy stalker. The guy watches her sleep. From inside her bedroom. He follows her to Port Angeles without her knowledge (Okay, so that ended up being slightly helpful. But the point is he was still stalking her). He does not give her a single moment alone, save for a few "human minutes", as they call them, scattered throughout the books. Edward is far from the ideal man. He is pushy, demanding, and controlling, and I am convinced if he was not so attractive, there would have been a restraining order so fast, even Alice would not have seen it coming.
4.) Jacob is a creepy stalker. Once again, we are shown a guy who is supposed to be an ideal man. And he follows her around, will not accept her decision to be with Edward, and tricks her into kissing him even after she was engaged to Edward. And don't get me started with him imprinting on Renesmee when she was only a few minutes old. I don't care if his thoughts were not sexual. It still creeped me out.
5.) Bella is not the most selfless person ever, regardless of what the characters say. I can think of virtually no decision Bella made throughout the entire series that could be considered selfless. Sure, she told Mike to ask Jessica out, when Jessica really liked him, but she only did it to get him off of her back, not to help Jessica. She is one of the most selfish characters I have ever read (not to mention whiny), yet Edward and Jacob continually talk about how selfless she is. It makes no sense. It seems as though Meyer does not even know her own characters.

In short (okay, maybe not that short), I am obviously very conflicted about these books. They have the greatest and the worst characters and story lines I have read in a long time. And like I said, I could not put them down, and I continually recommend them to people. I guess my feeling is, young adult literature is written for an audience that is two years older or younger than the main character. Bella is 17 in Twilight. So if you are 15-19, they are great books, and you will be able to handle them. But please do not give them to an 11 year old, like I saw so many parents doing at the Breaking Dawn release. They were not written for them, and will give the way wrong impression.