Book Review: What's Wrong with the Twilight Book Series?

I'm a fan of YA novels. I gobble up the magical series (J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone/Children of the Red King series, Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl adventures, Lynne Ewing's Daughters of the Moon/Sons of the Dark series(s), etc) like potato chips. You can't stop at just one. I'm also a big fan of adult paranormal romances.

So it goes without saying, I must be a fan of Stephenie Meyer's vampire teen romance: the Twilight book series. But I'm not.

Her popularity, so good for the book industry (last year Meyer sales accounted for about one in every five books sold during the holidays and took the four top slots in 2008's bestseller list) is not so good for readers. Here's why.

I expect a lot from my books. Young Adult novels are by definition risky, earnest endeavors. They are not children's fantasies. They deal with the daily struggles of bullying, alienation, self-discovery, hormones, misunderstandings. Only the last two appear believably in the Belladward books. (Yes, Belladward like Branjolina. I can't believe no one's said it before now.)

From the onset of the first novel, Bella is

1. loved/wanted by both parents and has complete control over choosing where to live
2. accepted instantly into a circle of friends (with no effort on her part in obtaining or maintaining the friendships)
3. pursued desperately by every boy she meets
4. whiny, suicidal and self-absorbed
5. impossible to identify with or have sympathy for

Unfortunately the later novels have more problems - plot and continuity issues aside.

Twilight

Plot can be summed up with this quote from the book:

Edward: "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb."

Bella: "What a stupid lamb."

Edward: "What a sick, masochistic lion."

New Moon

Is it possible that neither author, editor or publisher gave pause to the whole "suicidal behavior" makes me feel closer to my ex-boyfriend because I can hear his voice in my head saying "don't do it"? That is basically the plot of the second book, New Moon. (Except for the strangely paced ending: due to misunderstanding a psychic vision and phone message, Edward decides to commit suicide by walking into the sun. As this does nothing but make him glitter, the fatal part requires him to travel to Italy and do it at a public festival where he will then be executed by the vampire council which fans and critics have dubbed "the Sparkle Mafia". It's a good thing he chose the slow choice, allowing Alice and Bella to catch a plane, steal cars and other plot oddities to catch up with him. Bad news: Edward's incapable of checking his cell phone for the happy news Bella's alive and apparently the Cullens know no one in Europe they could have called to meet his plane.

Eclipse

The plot conflicts arise from "that's just the way it is" ie vampires and werewolves instinctively hate each other. Never mind it's also vampire "nature" to eat people and we overcome that. The (most) unacceptable part of the novel for me - romanticized domestic abuse as in the scarred werewolf lover and Bella's envy of their love/bond.

Breaking Dawn

Even fans hated this book. It reads more like the plot of Kathy Acker's shock-novel Blood and Guts in High School. It includes such lovable fare as

• Belladward get married.

• They have rough sex that leaves her bruised and battered; him feeling guilty and her begging "please hurt me, honey."

• Bella becomes a vampire (no, the vampire of all vampires) with superpowers. No word on how the "your smell/blood is my heroin" thing changes. But marriage kills sex appeal anyway, right?

• Bella gets pregnant with some kind of demon death baby who grows at a superhuman rate, can read thoughts in the womb, drinks blood in utero, and breaks Bella's ribs, pelvis, and spine from the inside.

• The baby is delivered via vampire Cesarean section ie they rip Bella's stomach open with their teeth.

• Jacob, the love interest Bella rejected in the last novel, decides to marry her infant. Which is okay since she'll age at a super-rate. Ewwww. Not okay.

• Everybody lives happily forever after?

Except the fans of the series who finally realize how self-indulgent and irresponsible the author is. Fans actually started a web campaign to "return not burn" the final novel. No one, including those making it, is sure how the above will be dealt with in the movie version.