The comments on my Twilight review have been…interesting. There was one in particular, by my friend Megan (who is herself a teenage girl), that I wanted to share with you here, in case you don’t follow the comments (no need to feel guilty; I understand!):
My main problem with the books, in the end, was Bella. Not the death theme, not the stalking, not even the unhealthy relationship. It was the fact that Bella was not an accurate depiction of a teenage girl. There’s not a single instance in any of the books where Bella expresses actually having an INTEREST in anything/one other than Edward. She has no hobbies. In the third book, she is totally apathetic about going to college. She doesn’t care about any of her friends at school, and her relationship with her parents is weak at best, fake and deceptive at worst. And, of course, her reliance on Edward to “survive” should not be a model for teenage relationships.
This resonated with how I felt like the teenagers were not quite real. For one thing, where were their mp3 players? For another…dial-up internet? In town? Really? Megan, though, touches on far more important observations in her comment, and it’s another thing to keep in mind if your teenager is reading – or wants to read – Twilight. These are things that, as I said in my original post, are worth talking with that teen in your life about.
And yesterday, quite by accident, I found Regina Doman’s review of Twilight, via …and these Thy gifts… I found it very helpful, if a lot more positive than I expected.