Books you're currently reading???

[Kaliayev]

Originally Posted by skysidhe

The main character was the stalker stalking the vampire teenager.

Uh, you may want to re-read it. There are quite clearly several points before their relationship starts where Edward is stalking Bella, including where he breaks into her house to watch her as she sleeps.

Also, you have to factor in he admits to having violent impulses towards her and fantasizes about killing her, and indeed claims to be on the verge of doing it several times before.

There wasn't any sex, or bloodletting or anything abusive in Twillight. There wasn't any descriptive sex details in the others as far as I can remember.

True on the sex part, but vamprism is pretty much a metaphor from sex, right from the get go. The whole exchange of bodily fluids etc...even the film makes this pretty explicit after the final fight scene.

Oh and it IS an unhealthy relationship. The girl does alot of internal dialouge about why it is and the vampire teenager tries to push her away and avoid her much of the time. I don't think the author protrays it being a 'good thing' They become friends.

Actually, throughout the series, she generally does. Also Word of God (ie author interviews) make it explicit she intended for Edward to be seen as the perfect romantic figure - and many of the fans agree.

Also, I would suggest Bella's internal monologues are just (bad) ways of raising the level of angst and tension into the plot. While she gives reasons, they're not actually the reasons most people would give as to why there might be problems with this relationship. Most of it stems from the fact that Bella is a typical "Anti-Sue", a character who believes they have no redeeming traits, yet the world still, somehow, manages to revolve around them (basically antiheroes and heroines for poor writers, who are unable to plot effectively and/or don't realize an antihero is meant to have flaws, not be made of them).

For the rest of the series...Let's just say I didn't loan my neighbors teenager the second book in the series. I thought that was better left up to the parent and her conscience. The second does lose it's innocence of the first but I liked them.

Personally, I thought the werewolf c-section in one of the later books was hilarious, but I would agree with discretion concerning who reads them, considering their content and the age-group to whom the original book was targeted.

I didn't view the first as a romance but then I am quite old. I do see how the others are questionable to some people who aren't into the vampire genre.

Well, I will admit I'm not massively into the genre (Bram Stoker was good, Terry Pratchett's parodies were better, the Buffy TV series was pretty good mainly because of the genius of Joss Whedon, but that's about it). In fact, the only reason I know as much about this book as I do is because I intend to co-write a subversion of it, where what I consider the creepy subtext to the main plot is made much more explicit.

Satire is hard work, but someone has to do it.