Soul-Sucking Fiends...

There has been a series of books climbing the charts in popularity over the past year or so. It is currently being made into a feature film starring one of the ugliest teenagers in The Biz. It's been hyped, adored, fought over, and even had a "Goth Prom" event for it's latest installment at our local Barnes and Noble. It is the vampiric-romance known as the Twilight series.
After seeing every single teenage girl at the junior high reading these massive books and hearing the buzz from my very trustworthy literati friends, I thought this series was a must.
I read the first three 900+ page books over Spring Break and found myself getting completely involved in the story of Bella and her beloved vampire Edward (who reminds me of my very own anti-social, pale, genius).
I thought Twilight was a fun read, if not a bit unpredictable. In the second book, New Moon I was aggravated that Edward was barely in 50 pages of the book and annoyed by his replacement: an angsty teenage boy-wolf. By the third, Eclipse, I was just about done with any of the frothy entertainment I found in the first. But then again, maybe I had been trapped with the characters too long... Maybe I was feeling like Twilight was a house guest that overstayed his or her welcome. I just needed a break and I'd be ready to burn through the final installment.
Then, Spring Break ended and I headed back to school. My students found out I had read the books and they all wanted to talk about the story with me. I heard girls gushing about how hot the fictitious Edward is, how strong Bella is for loving Edward no matter what, and I even heard some of my male students whisper confessions on how they enjoyed the series as well. The more I talked with my students, the more concerned I became. Was this story of obsession really a good read for my already histrionic students? Is Bella, a girl so consumed by "love" really a character for young girls to look up to? As I thought about this, I became more angry at this Young Adult series for the messages it is sending to our adolescents out there.
Here is my final conclusion: teenagers do not need to read a book that promotes a young woman giving up her identity, her friends, her family, her very soul and even her own LIFE in order to be with a man, nae - a vampire - hundreds of years her senior. It's hard enough to try to guide young people to keep their heads when falling in and out of "relationships" at their age. My job becomes that much harder when they've got over 3,600 pages encouraging, condoning and glamorizing the unhealthy, obsessive, dependent aspects of "love."
Where's Jane Austen when I need her???


And here's the actor they chose to play the tormented, brilliant, romantic, HAIRLESS Edward:
Um.... Where's my blonde Grecian-statue-like man? With a beautiful white, hairless body and chiseled features? This is not the Edward of my fantasies. This will not redeem the book and make me swallow my words. This is just... ew.