Twilight Saga: Does it Deserve to Be so Popular?

The Twilight saga has enchanted thousands - tweens and moms alike - so much so that I wonder if Stephenie Meyer has pulled some sort of glamour over readers.

I admit I've read them. Their popularity made me wonder, is it worth the fuss? And a number of friends have read them, too, some loving them, and others hating them. I have to say I land somewhere in the middle.

On one hand they're somewhat entertaining, albeit too long! On the other hand, I'm sort of alarmed over what I see as the dysfunctional relationship between Edward and Bella.

Meyer brings up Romeo and Juliet from time to time, and Edward and Bella are certainly crafted as a couple that is meant to be. They love each other so much that they barely want to live without one another. Things ended badly for Romeo and his Juliet, and Shakespeare's play can be taken as a cautionary tale for people not to get too swept up in their passions and impulses. But I'm annoyed by the Twilight series.

One, Meyer's writing doesn't do it for me the way, say, J.K. Rowling's does. Meyer's pacing is too slow and plods on forever.

Two, I don't find Edward or Bella that interesting. She pretty much casts her friends to the side since Edward is all she cares about. She draws all kinds of interest from a bunch of guys but never seems that interesting. She says she isn't that attractive, but obviously she must be. Because I don't see the personality there.

Three, she is unusually obsessed with Edward, and they both would rather die than live without the other. In book two, when Edward leaves Bella for a while after he fears for her life after she cuts herself accidentally in front of the other vampires, she drifts aimlessly for months, doing all kinds of foolhardy and dangerous stunts. Later, when he fears she has died, he's ready to end it all himself, exposing his vampire identity, which would draw the ire and a likely death sentence from the head vampire gang, the Volturi.

It's romantic in that swooning sort of way, perhaps, but it's kind of sick, too. Would you want someone to say they'd die or kill themselves if they couldn't be around you? I wouldn't. If I died, I'd hope my husband would grieve a bit and move on, hopefully meeting a nice woman down the road and finding happiness with her. Ultimately I'd rather live and have him to myself, but I sure as hell wouldn't want him to wither away and die of misery. It's sweet, but too sad. Live. Enjoy life.

And four, they're too damn young. Yes, he's been a vamp for 90 years, but she's obsessed with his being turned into a vamp at age 17 and is so fearful of aging. Skin is taut at 18 and everything is perky and line free, but you're still too young! Live a bit. Go to college. Edward is at least pushing her in the right direction by wanting her to educate herself.

I'm not even going to go into detail over the religious aspects. I have friends who argue it's a thinly veiled parable, and to some extent I agree, but that's not what bothers me most. There are good messages there, such as when the werewolves and the vampires start to become friends. It's a good message about letting go of intolerance.

That Bella and Edward don't sleep together, mainly due to Edward's insistence on being pure for their wedding night, it is nice that there isn't a rush to the sack. Perhaps that's part of Edward's appeal, that he doesn't tell her that if she loves him she'll put out. He wants it after they've put a ring on it. In that case, he's almost more the girl in the relationship, since girls are traditionally tied to wanting commitment and seeing marriage as some sort of Holy Grail.

The prolonged courtship, the delayed gratification, might be a delicious agony in itself. And of course, it takes three books and part of the fourth for consummation. It's not as long a wait for Bella, but for the reader, yes. But then again, sometimes wanting something is sweeter than getting it. I understand that, but not with these two. I yearned for Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre to get together, but Mr. Rochester had fire! He was ugly but he had charisma!

And one last beef with the series that I have: I don't understand how a vampire who lives only on blood would sparkle like a diamond in the sunlight. And these vampires smell fantastic. How can someone who lives on blood smell of flowers and all kinds of nice, irresistible scents? That makes no sense. The whole supernatural/paranormal genre asks all of us to suspend disbelief, but this is a jump that's too hard to make, at least not without raising a lot of eyebrows. Essentially a killer sparkles in the sun and smells like Cinnabon and a lilac grove? Come on! When did these what are essentially parasites get to be so damned sexy?

Another thing a friend pointed out to me is that by the end of the series, the main characters have to give up nothing. There's no change, except now they have this half-vamp, half-human baby who everybody loves. All this child has to do is touch someone and she communicates her story and everyone is in love with her.

In book four the Volturi (the vampire papacy, in essence) want the child destroyed because of immortal children's deadly legacy, but they back down when one of Edward's vampire family brings a 150-year-old immortal child to the tribunal. All ends well. So after being spooked for a bit, everything turns out OK. No one is hurt or injured. It's all too happy an ending. Not that happy endings are bad, but to me it has the feel of it being all for nothing.

But it least it keeps people reading, so there is something good to it after all.