Stay away from this post if you like this series, if you dislike snark, or if you don’t want to be spoiled about this book. You’ve been warned.
Somehow, despite my love of both vampires and romance, I was immune to the pull of the Twilight saga. But when I gave a paper on the Sookie Stackhouse series at my university in April, I noticed many of the attendees were women whose teenaged daughters had read the Twilight books. I got into a long conversation with an English professor whose 13 year old daughter devoured them, and she told me I just had to give them a try, not because she liked them, but because she wanted to know what I thought. Then I gave the Sookie paper at the Pop Culture Association conference in New Orleans, and I was shocked at the number of Twilight papers. Like my English professor colleague, many of the presenters distanced their own aesthetic taste from the text, some to the point of mocking it — they wanted to make it really clear that they had a merely academic interest; they were not fans. In my neighborhood, the books have been making the rounds of moms. They are usually in their 30s or 40s, white, heterosexual, middle class, and can’t blame it on their kids, who are too young for these books. They say, sheepishly, mystified, laughing at themselves, “I don’t know what it is. I just could not put them down.” This group’s taste generally runs to “book club fiction”, certainly not YA , romance, or paranormal. That was it. I decided I had to experience some of this phenomenon for myself.
I watched the movie Twilight this summer with my 15 year old niece and her 44 year old mother, when I got to see the mom/teen girl bonding over Twilight in action. They had read all the books, as well as some internet-leaked version of events from Edward’s POV, and their delight was catching. I enjoyed the movie, which harked back to the earnestness of movies of my teenage years, like The Lost Boys, Reckless (Aidan Quinn’s first movie), Footloose, Sixteen Candles. What Twilight has in common with those movies is that it takes the drama and pathos of the teen experience seriously. It’s not distanced or ironic. I also liked the Forks setting.
When I had a long car ride the other day, I decided to get the audio book of New Moon, to really experience Meyer’s writing for myself. After about three hours of Bella, I wanted to … well, have you ever seen that bit in Annie Hall, when Christopher Walken tells Woody Allen about his urges while driving? Specifically, the urge to turn the wheel into the oncoming headlights of another car? Then you have some idea of how I felt listening to Bella think about Edward ad nauseum. At first I thought, well, she’s young, her boyfriend is her whole world, weren’t we all like this once? Eventually, I had to pull over and breathe into a paper bag. That was enough of New Moon on audio for me.
Still, the story had sucked me in. I wanted to know what would happen. So I Kindled the book when I got home and finished it this weekend. Here are some random thoughts:
There is an appeal, I get it, kind of. The story is interesting, although the pace careened wildly, and the return of the Cullens felt tacked on rather than resolutionary (I made up that word). The writing I found adequate to piss poor. Here’s an example, the last line in the book, of the latter: “I squared my shoulders and walked forward to meet my fate, with my destiny solidly at my side.” Anyone with even a working knowledge of the English language should know that line makes no sense. I felt about 1/3 of this incredibly repetitive book could have been excised, with much better results. Rarely have I had the urge to throw my Kindle across the room, but at the 1000th mention of “the huge hole that had been punched through Bella’s chest” at losing Edward, suddenly $350 didn’t seem like too high a price to pay to make it stop. Wasn’t there any other non torso-related way Meyer could think of to communicate Bella’s distress?
Bella. Sigh. I totally understand why so many women have been a tad concerned at the way their daughters have embraced this character, although maybe they don’t. There are no “Team Bella” t-shirts, perhaps because it would be like embracing carbon monoxide, colorless, odorless, tasteless and highly toxic. To call her a “heroine” is an insult to the word. There is nothing to Bella besides her love for her boyfriend. I was prepared for teenage obsession — it exists, I get it (John Cusack with the boom box, anyone?). But Bella never thinks about anyone or anything else, ever. She’s either thinking about Edward or thinking about trying not to think about Edward. We don’t even get relief when she falls asleep, because she dreams about Edward every night (too bad she didn’t have access to propofol like Michael Jackson did. General anesthesia would have helped provide relief to both her and her poor readers.). It’s a kind of obsession I couldn’t believe until I read it. But unlike other literary protagonists with similar obsessions, Bella’s love for Edward is superficial and one note, and thus a very hard thing to hang such a long book on. It’s the hearts and puppies kind of love. “Love you forever. Ditto.” is all the complexity and nuance you get here.
She’s melodramatic, narcissistic, not very bright, and wholly dull. After chapter after chapter of Bella as a nearly catatonic empty shell, I kept fervently wishing her quasi-suicidal outings would actually succeed. But no, Bella is too witless to even get herself killed.
And what makes Edward such a catch? It’s never clear, because we see him through Bella’s unimaginative eyes (New Moon is written in the first person). We know he is “beautiful” and “perfect”, with a hard cold body, and that he’s in love with Bella. What does he do in his spare time, or does he even have any, considering what a time suck serving as the glue of Bella’s fragile identity must be? It’s like a perfect circle of narcissism.
I also thought this teen world was unbelievably, jarringly, clean. Bella actually chastises Jake for using profanity, and Edward actually chastises Bella for ordering a Coke. There’s no sex, no alcohol, no drugs — not even the occasional joint. Forks is definitely not like any American town I know of. Does this have something to do with Meyer’s religious beliefs? I am out of the loop, but recall hearing that at PCA.
I probably enjoyed Jacob the most — this character actually has an arc, unlike Bella and Edward who are mindnumbingly unchanged from page one to page last – but I wouldn’t root for Bella and Jacob, because I liked him too much. I was interested in the whole wolf storyline in general. I would love to read a romance based around Sam and Emily’s relationship, actually. In paranormal, we so often have the fear of the supernatural hero accidentally hurting the human heroine, but he never actually does. How would it go if he disfigured her face (or reverse the roles, and she did it to him?). Now that’s a story I’d love to read.
Wow. I’m so glad I’m not the only who thinks that! I started with “Twilight” the first book and was completely unimpressed with Bella’s selfish and self-absorbed behaviour.
She gets to a new town where everyone bends over backwards to welcome her, and she treats them like freaks only to moon over the one guy in town who treats her like dirt. I couldn’t sympathize with her at all.
Hmmm… Well, I loved the books and I do read a lot of paranormals, fantasies and romances. My HUSBAND even liked them a lot and he’s definitely not a book of the month club type either. I think it’s funny that you liked the movie which we both thought was just about the worst movie we’ve seen since “Tarzan and the Lost City of Opar”.
New Moon was far worse than Twilight both in the characterization of Bella and of Edward. The aspects of Bella’s character or lack thereof were not as glaringly obvious in the 1st book as they were in the 2nd.
I wrote a post a while back over at my blog on all the religious aspects of the books I found troubling. As you mentioned Jessica, the complete unreality of Bella’s existence as a teenager is one of them. It’s not that she just doesn’t engage in profanity, drugs, alcohol or even caffeine but that she seems to be utterly unaware of the existence of such temptations. Moreover, the whole strange and contradictory attitude towards sex in all of the books is rather odd.
I would argue that Meyers is a good storyteller is not in fact, a good writer. The difference being that her prose is rather clunky and raw. However, she does have the talent to draw the reader in and her voice/style is interesting enough to hold the reader’s attention. Technically proficiency can be taught but style can’t be. Someone, somewhere ought to have done a better job editing. Again, the first book is much less glaring in the clunky prose department. I think it may be a problem of series writing in general — the book gets popular and the publisher is more interested in getting the second part out than in doing a decent editorial job.
I agree! The disfigurement story would be an excellent book. Someone should write that one.
I have never seen the appeal of Edward, even though I can understand why young girls like Bella would be gaga over him. Twilight is just like the many romances we have read where the seductive, sexy, rich, attractive, unattainable male catches the eye of the young, beautiful, lost somewhat naive and ho hum heroine. The first time I read Twilight, it reminded me so much of Christine Feehan’s Carpathian series.
But Bella has a choice from the beginning whether she wants to be with Edward. Edwards keeps pushing her away. And in New Moon, Edward is the weak one. He decides to walk into the light and commit suicide by the Volturi killing him. Bella has a downward spiral but eventually gets out of it due to the support of Jacob. I think Jacob is a wonderfully written character.
Don’t read Breaking Dawn. That book is a WTF Twilight zone type of read that Meyer’s editor should have told her to re-write. I wanted to throw that book against the wall.
But she would miss the scariest baby ever! And the most moving love story concerning a scary baby in all of recorded fiction!
In a way, it gets so very odd that it’s worth having read it, because when would you ever read anything like that again?
Marianne McA wrote:
But McA, don’t you want a Nessie that comes out of Bella’s womb much like the alien that pops out of John Hurt’s chest in Spaceballs singing and dancing?
These books are so weird, in that, like the Harry Potter series, I will never read them, but because I’ve seen *so* many reviews and comments about them, I feel I *have* read them.
This isn’t necessarily a good thing
I can understand why young girls read these books. I can’t for the life of me understand why fully grown married women sigh over them.
Your review was vastly entertaining
Much more fun, I suspect, than the books themselves.
katiebabs wrote:
Now THOSE books were truly awful; talk about poorly written stories with doormat women who have no purpose in their lives except fitting them into the world of the “heroes”!
I still unapologetically enjoyed Twilight and its sequels although Breaking Dawn did have some truly problematic and unfortunate stuff. The lack of a more gritty high-school reality didn’t bother me, because I think it would have pulled focus from the romance and vampire-mystery/danger.
I think one of the main things I appreciated was the deadly nature of the vampires especially after reading so many “grown-up” romances where the vampires lacked bite!
I loved Twilight. New Moon sucked ass. Eclipse was refreshing but Breaking Dawn was a total WTF.
I wish I would have stopped with Twilight. I’m looking forward to the movies since you can’t only shoot a movie from Bella’s POV, right?! I think that was the biggest mistake SM did when writing these books. She should NOT have done it from Bella first person but perhaps third person or even switched first person from character to character. I would have like that much better.
By the end, I really didn’t much like any of the main characters. I understand the appeal of the books, intellectually, but I don’t find many of the characters drawing me in.
I’m most interested in Carlisle and the backstory (sadly unexplored!) of the other vampire communities.
I have been soo tempted to read this, having a friend who is addicted to twilightsucks (?) website has me curious.
But think I may avoid it lol.
I almost fell off chair laughing. My reaction was similar to yours, but towards Twilight.
What disconcerted me about Twilight – I felt it held two extreme ends: one side is a focus on the clean living and the other side, a focus on the obsessive side of love. In other words, one side is healthy and the other side isn’t. It’s almost a nod towards a Wellerism.
Judging by your review, New Moon seems to enforce that peculiar balance (or rather, imbalance) even more.
But what really put me off Twilight is Bella. AnimeJune says it all for me. At least hers is a lot more polite than mine ever will be. I suspect if it wasn’t in 1st POV, I’d not feel so homicidal towards Bella.
(Massive kudos to you for mentioning Reckless.
It was James Foley’s first directional effort, too. (He went on to direct Glengarry Glen Ross.))
AnimeJune wrote:
I think the movie made her seem more sympathetic. I didn’t feel the full impact of Bella’s “personality” until I read New Moon.
pamelia wrote:
I was saying that women who normally DON’T read romance, paranormal, or YA love the Twilight series. I find it odd. It’s what makes the difference between a “bestseller” and a “phenomenon” I guess.
Now that Tarzan movie… it sounds right up my alley!
@ Angela Toscano:
Wonderful post, thank you for linking. Everyone should go read it if they haven’t yet. I had not thought of the Volturi that way but it makes perfect sense.
I deliberately did not read any Twilight posts prior to writing this review, for obvious reasons.
@ katiebabs:
Great insights, KB. I agree with you about Edward being weaker, and Bella trying to recover. The parts with Jacob were the parts I was most engaged in.
I had not thought of the Carpathian connection, but now that you mention it, yes, I can see it. I have been meaning to write a review of the first Carpathian for ages, but I think it would get me banned from Romancelandia. It would make this look like an “A” review.
Marianne McA wrote:
SOLD!!
@ Ann Somerville:
What’s interesting to me is that even my friends who have read them don’t seem to know why they got so engrossed.
I will say to them, “oh, then, you should read [this romance or that romance]. It is so much better than Twilight.” And they say no thank you and go back to Oprah’s Book Club. WTH?
pamelia wrote:
I can see your point, and I agree that Bella really was in danger, as the Jaspar episode indicates.
Interestingly, I went to about 10 papers on Twilight at the PCA, and everyone there kept saying that Meyer “defanged” the vampire, even allowing them to go out into the light. It was “vamp-lite” to them.
Jessica Kennedy wrote:
Yes, yes. I think this explains why I enjoyed the movie (for what it was) and hated the book.
Janice wrote:
I agree. His story is very interesting. Are you back in the classroom yet?
@ Edie:
I’m kind of glad I finally read one, so I can be critical with authority. You should try it!
Maili wrote:
Yes, absolutely. a number of you have been circling around this, and it is a really odd juxtaposition, one I would not have seen if not for all of these comments.
Maili wrote:
LOL. The scene when they let the lab animals out of their cages to the tune of We’re The Kids in America (whoa whoa) made a big impression on me!
I had no idea the same director did GGR!
In paranormal, we so often have the fear of the supernatural hero accidentally hurting the human heroine, but he never actually does.
I just read Jeri Smith-Ready’s WICKED GAME, and the hero does in fact harm the heroine in an early scene.
Jessica: the comparisons to Feehan’s heroes and Edward is almost identical, even though Feehan’s are more obsessive and won’t take a no for an answer. Have you read LJ Smith’s Vampires Diaries? I wonder if Meyer read those because the the Twilight series is also very comparable to Smith’s series. You have a young teen woman who loved an immortal foreign hunk. The only thing that is different is he has a an evil brother.
I found Twilight strangely compelling, after I finally forced myself to finish it–which I did mostly so I could discuss it with one of my daughters. I found the writing dreadful, but I think Meyer was on to something, I’m not sure what, but something. I read most of the next three books with the sense that whatever that “something” was had gone seriously awry. Breaking Dawn was astonishing on so many levels, I can’t think of a place to begin. It had everything but the kitchen sink thrown into it, and not in a good way. In the end, I think there was a thread of a great idea in the series, but it needed a writer with considerably more sophistication and skill than Meyer to bring it alive…or undead, as the case may be.
And I’ll probably still watch “New Moon” on DVD once it comes out, but I couldn’t tell you why.
Aoife — But why, why was it compelling? (and it was compelling enough to me to watch the movie and read New moon after all). Did she put a compulsion spell in the ink?
KB — No, I didn’t read that one, but an evil brother sounds good to me!
Of the books in this series, I only read Twilight. I share many of your feelings, especially about the prose, about Bella, and about the absence of sex, alcohol and other vices from this world. Nonetheless, I too found Twilight strangely compelling.
I can’t answer for Aoife, but for me a lot of it had to do with the tension between the way Edward was both drawn to Bella romantically, and almost irresistibly drawn to the taste of her blood as well.
In a way, I think it could be argued that Bella’s blood and Edward’s ability to confer immortality on Bella stand in for those other temptations like drugs and unprotected sex. In any case, the age old allure of the forbidden, of running a risk, was IMO a major factor in the success of Twilight.
If Edward hasn’t represented a great danger to Bella’s life, as well as being her protector, I don’t think Twilight would have been such a huge success. It’s that dichotomy, the duality in Edward, and the way Bella was so vulnerable to him in her part of their all-consuming obsession, that made that book difficult to put down.
I also thought that Meyer rendered Edward’s otherworldliness very well.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on Meyer’s book for adults, The Host. I thought it was both less successful than Twilight, yet more ambitious, complex and thought-provoking.
Evernight by Claudia Gray is a Twilight clone that has the (trying to avoid spoilers here, damned if I know why) paranormal character accidentally harming the human character.
I did enjoy Twilight but the obsessive descriptions of everything Edward got to me. This post sums it up beautifully: http://thedairiburger.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/twilight-an-overanalyzed-study-guide-p-4/
By the way, my husband and I were at Borders yesterday and came across a bizarre collection of “Twilight” merchandise, including band-aids and sweethearts candy (with phrases like “lamb” on it.) “What is this, a shrine?” was his comment.
Just to throw in, Bitch Magazine had a great analysis of the Twilight series written by Christine Seifert at Westminster College (Utah) sometime last December that’s been on their website’s front page ever since. The article discussed “abstinence porn.” (I just got around to reading it today since I try very hard not to think too much about Twilight – too annoying to me on a variety of levels.)
I’ve always thought the compelling thing about Twilight (read only the first book) is the absolute safety of its sexual fantasy.
You have this guy who is truly obsessed about this girl, yet for her sake, wouldn’t touch her. Now compare this to true adolescent life, where boys are just itchy to do you-know-what, whether they really love the girl or not. I can totally see the appeal to both girls who have not gone through the whole growing-up process and the women who had, but sure wouldn’t have minded a bit of pure romance along the way without the pressure for sex.
And as for the lack of any other temptation that Bella faces, it might be that Meyer never experienced much of it herself, or that she doesn’t want to pollute the atmosphere of her book with it. Either way, the result is actually good from a story-telling point of view, in that it reduces the clutter and focuses the book squarely–and unwaveringly–on the danger of Edward.
Aha, made my comment and saw the comment above me about Abstinence Porn. A much more succinct way of putting it.
Janine wrote:
I’d say Janine summed it up pretty well. Twilight is compelling because of all the things that don’t happen.
I have teenage daughters (heretical teenage daughters who turn their noses up at this series, but still), so the whole Twilight phenomenon fascinates me. As others have said, I think the books’ appeal boils down to 1) how very much Bella matters to Edward, and 2) the fact that Bella sets the pace of their physical relationship and in fact must work to convince Edward to do more than he’s ready to do. These are, I think, a pleasant change from what most teenage girls encounter in their real-world relationships.
But as romance, I found the books disappointing. There was none of the intricate getting-to-know-you dance; the scenes in which the h/h discover they have something unexpected in common, or observe, say, a gesture of unsuspected kindness or grace in the other, that compels them to keep revising the opinions they’d originally formed. It was just: he’s gorgeous. She smells really good. And done. As though Meyer wanted to skip over all the developing feelings and get to the good stuff – only, for me, the developing feelings ARE the good stuff.
Oh, and Jessica, I agree that the movie Bella seemed like a more dimensional character than the book Bella. It helped a lot that they fleshed out her girl-friend characters a bit and suggested she had actual relationships with them, as opposed to in the book, where apparently the only girls worth befriending are vampire girls.
@ Sherry Thomas:
It’s not a phrase you easily forget
Aoife wrote:
That stopped working for me though. By the end of the second book, I was mentally going, “Okay Meyer, either shit or get off the pot.” I never did get through the 3rd and 4th books.
Of course, I am not a teenage girl.
I haven’t read these books, but I applaud your invoking of that Walken scene, which I love, and it comforts me that you are a person who seriously contemplated throwing her kindle.
The ereader has robbed us of the ability to toss a book away with disdain! Grr!
@ katiebabs:
KB, what is this heresy you speak? The Vampire Diaries is, like, 100x better than Twilight! And aside from the fact that they’re both about teenage girls who fall in love with vampires, there is nothing similar about the two books (that I can remember at the moment, anyway).
Heidenkind: Ah be still my tender heart! It has been so long since I read The Vampire Diaries. Oh yes, they are the books to read.
Ahh, Twilight. I read the first one when it first came out on the basis of a rec from a friend. I went back to her and went, “Dude, wtf?” (or words to that effect) and she, she completely lost the plot at me. So I’ve been observing the Twilight phenomenon from the beginning. Some time later, somewhat roundabout, and embarrassed, she told me that it had taken her back to that time of being 12-14ish, single-minded and selfish, where the idea of the desired object was all. She suggested it tugged on her strongly because it reminded her of that stage, and my criticism of it felt like criticism of her, because the story validates the idea that it’s ok for the sole focus of a girl’s life to be the love interest.
I’d add to that that maybe one of the reasons it’s so successful is because Bella is such a blank slate. She has the identifying characteristics of socially acceptable heroine, (pretty, popular, meek, self-abnegating) but otherwise allows the reader to impose her ideas and experiences upon her.
Incidentally, the absence of sex, drugs, profanity and the emphasis upon the Male as the be all and end all – Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon, and I think that is painfully evident from her writing.
L.J Smith – heh, I use her Nightworld books as an example of an author who does this type of teenage paranormal romantic fantasy lite well. I still reread them from time to time, usually when recovering from flu.
I read and liked Twilight. Then I read New Moon – ug, I HATE angst and was ready to strangle Bella by the end of it. But you should keep reading this series just to get to the WTFery that is Eclipse!
Yeah, I hate Bella, especially in New Moon. I also listened to the audiobook and had to skip some CDs because I couldn’t stand it anymore. The entire concept has totally drawn me in so that I do kind of like Twilight. But Bella is BLAH and Meyer’s writing leaves MUCH to be desired.
oh, so very right, so glad someone agrees… I loved Jacob, he was the only one with character. I often told my co-workers (who read the books before me) what the hell do they see in each other(bella and ed)? No hobbies, interest, friends… just annoyingly they have each other. Jacob is the realest character in the book. I definitely was more interested in the wolf storyline as well. Have to say I totally agree with being repulsed by the repetition in the book… by chapter 3 I was like ” I get it, your depressed, now move on” and often wondered about stephanie meyers lack of adjective variety. I must admit the books were addicting though, I ravished all four in less than two weeks.