Rate the book: -2The literary world has been taken by storm by the Young Adult paranormal romance Twilight, by the first time author, Stephenie Meyer. Certainly no one could begrudge Meyer her success – especially for an amateur writer to have this kind of explosive reaction to her books.
But is her fame deserved? Of course this writer can see the attraction – a dark, mysterious Edward Cullen bursts into the seemingly plain Bella Swan’s life, a dazzling Adonis, a hollow shell of a man – no personality, see, so the readers can superimpose their idea of the ‘perfect man’ on him.
Well, alright, let’s look at the male protagonists. Dark, sexy Edward Cullen may seem perfect, but the only character traits we see in him is that he is obsessive and...well, a stalker. Admitting to following Swan and watching her sleep unawares, Swan waves it off as ‘love’, disregarding, of course, the fact that she has only known him for literally 4 days. www.ReachOut.com defines they key symptoms in an ‘abusive relationship’ as possessiveness – definitely shown through Edward’s incessant need to ‘have Bella safe’ and insists he knows ‘what’s best for her’, going so far as to employ his sibling to kidnap her in Chapter 6 of Eclipse – jealousy – obviously in a romance there will be jealousy, but to dismantle her car engine to prevent her from seeing her friend, ‘for her own good’, perhaps is going a little over the mark? – and controlling behaviour, which speaks for itself through the aforementioned examples.
The secondary male protagonist, Jacob Black, is the long-lost friend who is naturally in love with Swan (who isn’t?). One of the only characters in Twilight who actually has a personality, we fall in love with Black all across New Moon, where Edward is mercifully absent for most of the book. But in Eclipse, we see a very dramatic shift in his person, finding Black suddenly becomes...pure evil.
Okay, maybe that’s an overstatement. But for a feminist reading Twilight, I have to be a little nasty. Jacob’s repeated sexual harassments – not to mention going so far as to threaten suicide should she not kiss him...and then, in the middle of this harassment, Bella up and decides she loves him – definitely warrants some concern for the impressionable young teens reading.
Let me see, what is the very basic criteria for a good novel? Plot – I can’t really seem to find one. Oh, wait, got one, right at the end – although does it count if it’s just an excuse for Swan to play the damsel-in-distress yet again? Character development – well, Meyer didn’t intend on publishing, so allowances must be made for that, and the bad writing, and the lack of good morals, messages or symbols...
Looking past all the technicalities, we look at the storyline. Teenage girl moves from one place to a very different setting all together, makes friends and a supernatural being falls in love with her. Wait a minute...this all sounds very familiar. Oh, right, wasn’t this the storyline to the great paranormal romance, Mediator by MEG CABOT?
Never mind. Meyer didn’t intend on publishing, did she? Who cares if the storyline is plagerised, or that the entire story has already been done?
Of course, it’s a romance. Romances have clichés, and you can always see a pattern. The handsome supernatural being falls in love with the female protagonist – it’s been used a lot. So what if none of the characters have a personality? It’s a romance, therefore it’s okay to have clichés. But to have a story completely built on clichés and stereotypes? Suffice to say the line has to be drawn somewhere.
But of course, this is just my own opinion. Stephen King gave his own, shocking the world momentarily before the torrents of angry Twilighters yelled, insulted and threatened one of the best authors of the 20th Century. The same thing also happened with Hamish and Andy, a leading radio show on Fox FM; making a few harmless jokes on the Twilight movie, they were inundated with angry emails and letters, consisting of, and I quote, “mostly suck, crap and idiot.”
All this, and not to mention the attacks on ‘anti-Twilighters’. www.twilightsucks.com, a literary forum dedicated to all things anti-Twilight or –Stephenie Meyer, has an entire topic solely devoted to attacks by extremist Twilight fans. Perhaps not all of them are verified, but to disregard them all for the mere chance that they might not be true? If you look at the amount of broken arms, scratches, bruises and general injuries caused by ‘rabid twilighters’, you have to start wondering when Stephenie Meyer is going to call down her army of ‘fanpires’ and tell them that it’s okay for others not to like Twilight!
But knowing Stephenie Meyer, that’s not happening anytime soon.
----reviewed by Rafal
