On Twilight. Oy.

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Ah, Twilight. Yes, after realizing how many of my high school students had read the series (most of them in junior high), and after one of my all-time favorite students told me I needed to read them because the gender issues in them were really disturbing, I read all four books. They're not good books, but they are quick, gripping reads -- the kind of book you read obsessively for two days and then it's done, and while you're reading you keep thinking, ah yes, this was written to be turned into a movie.

What bothers me about the ubiquity of the Twilight books is the relationship dynamic they set up for the (mostly) tween (mostly) girls reading them. Because Edward is a vampire, and Bella is human, every romantic encounter they have is freighted with danger: he is so in love with her, so aroused by the smell of her blood, that if he loses control, they both know he might kill her. Because he doesn't want to do this, he is by turns emotionally cold and crushingly overprotective. While there's a logic to his behavior in the fantasy world Meyer has created, in our world, a relationship like this would be abusive. I worry about Edward helping shape the concept for so many girls of what it means to have a "good" boyfriend.

(Spoiler alert -- in the next couple of paragraphs, I'm going to reference major plot points in Book 4.)

This ties into the question of sexual desire, and who is supposed to feel it. A lot has been written about Twilight as a sexy abstinence book -- Bella and Edward don't have sex until after they get married, early in the last book. Before this, Bella wants to, but Edward won't go along with it. She desires him intensely, but knows that she has to keep a lid on her desire, because if she turns him on too much, he might lose control and kill her. There are a few scenes where she doesn't hold back while kissing him, then gets mad at herself for tempting him too much. Because, you know, boys can't control themselves the way girls can.

When they finally do have sex, it is reported to be mind-blowingly fantastic (we don't actually get a sex scene), but Bella wakes up covered in bruises. Edward feels terrible and never wants to touch her again; Bella reassures him that she's fine, doesn't hurt at all, and wants to do it again immediately. Then it turns out she's pregnant, and I don't know what happened to Meyers during her own pregnancies, but this one is horrible -- the half-vampire baby makes Bella violently ill, breaks her ribs, and brings her to the brink of death while ripping its way out of her. (Another picture I'm thrilled to have put in the minds of my students.) This paves the way for Edward to finally turn Bella into a vampire, which she's been asking him to do for three books. And the moral is? We're all happy, young, gorgeous, rich vampires who don't need to kill people. And did I mention we're gorgeous? And young? And rich?

I read my fair share of bad books as a kid: dozens of Sweet Valley High books, for one, which I borrowed from a friend in junior high. It was like eating junk food. I knew this at the time, knew that these were fun books but that they were essentially the same, and that I wasn't getting anything real from them. All I've retained is that the main characters were twins, and they had perfect size-6 figures and wore gold chain necklaces with their names spelled out so people could tell them apart. I'm sure if I re-read SVH, I'd find plenty of gender issues to object to as well. But like you, I think that when something terrible is part of the larger picture of reading, and if it gets kids going and interested in reading more, it's not necessarily so bad.

That being said, I'd like to know that there's some really good fantasy/fairy/faerie/vampire YA lit being written out there as well. Is there? What do you recommend when this question comes up?

Love, Annie

YA: good stuff & the other stuff

Dear Annie,

Getting back to the YA question. Feed is definitely dark, although its social commentary is spot-on. Marcelo and Godless, though, are both pretty life-affirming – figuring out who you are and getting comfortable with the idea. Oh sure, you might climb a water tower and go swimming inside and worry that someone might seriously injure themselves – but hey, that’s what we do at this age, in one form or another. And in the meantime you’re rejecting your parents’ religion and figuring out what you believe.

A lot of current YA books that publishers are pushing right now are series with vampires, werewolves, and faeries (with that spelling). Yech. It’s scary how unimaginative publishing companies can be – and how ruled by marketing machines. Roger Sutton, editor of The Horn Book, has a good editorial about that in the current issue. See especially his last paragraph.

So is this the moment for us to talk about the Twilight series? I resisted carrying it at the store for a while, then caved to demand. I confess I’ve only read half of one of them, and was overwhelmed by what a romance novel it was: too many adjectives, too much heavy breathing, and a too passive leading lady. Our kid clientele goes up through high school, but I 've been struck by how many of the kids who want to get Twilight are middle-schoolers. I think the movies have driven some of that -- one day I watched an argument between a boy who came up about to my elbow and his mother: "Mo-om, everyone in the whole sixth grade is reading it!" She eventually caved and got it for him.

I have a certain amount of ambivalence about reading junk. Sometimes it's relaxing and, in the context of other (better) stuff that kids are reading too, is all part of a mix. I don't think one book is going to warp anyone permanently. Yet when something takes off as much as this series has, it makes me nervous. I don't want to say a teenager shouldn't read it, but I wish eveyone who reads it had someone to have an intelligent discussion with about it. Which I gather you've done some of with your students, n'est-ce pas?

Love,

Deborah