So another three-bit piece of genre trash is getting the Potter treatment. Oh boy, knock me over with a feather. Meanwhile, Tina Fey gets a six million dollar bionic advance for a book she hasn't even written (and probably won't - ghost writer, anyone?). It is developments like these that have my darker side hoping that the Second Great Depression comes more sooner than later.

My best friend and neighbor encouraged me to read this book, as her adult daughter and preteen granddaughter had so enjoyed them all. So I did read it, as we usually have similar reading tastes. What pure dreck! It was one of the most boring books that I have ever read. She brought me book 2, I skimmed 20 pages and decided I am done with Stephanie Meyer. Saw her on Today show today, and she rhapsodizes as to how the book wrote itself. No, her Mormon training wrote the book, with vampires thrown in for spice. This is a Mormon morality treatise. Like the old morality tales we got in the Catholic school library.

I was at the checkout counter of a national bookstore chain, and told the employee there how I loved books and envied him his job. What books were people buying these days, I asked, as I handed him my purchases? "Nothing but vampire books", he answered disgustedly. Sign of the zeitgeist, I guess. Now the Harry Potter series is without a bit of sex, nary a little hint of sexual tension, but the story engaged me so, I read them all and so did my husband. Go figure!!

I notice a lot of complaining about Bella's flatness and lack of character, but I get the impression that she's simply not someone who sees herself very clearly. The books are told from her perspective, and it's pretty mysterious why all the boys like her so much. But that is as it should be; Bella is clueless. It also works well as a device to allow the reader to project herself into the role.

If you read the leaked chapters of Midnight Sun, which is the Twilight story from Edward's perspective (it's posted on Stephenie Meyer's website), you get a better idea of what it is Edward loves about her and why he behaves as he does.

It's true that the subtext of having all sexual contact initiated by Edward, and stopped by him when it goes too far, is pretty creepy. But by the end of the series it is Bella who insists on having more. And after you've seen his perspective, you know that his caution is not unwarranted.

And whoever mentioned the soda thing; yeah, that was hilarious. She's 17 and he's worried about her drinking Coke.

Heh. If you think that's syrupy, do not go anywhere near the books or watch the movie.

DAYUM!

That is the most beautiful, powerful and delicate line ever written at Salon.

If you haven't gone though puberty yet.

I now need to go and wash the syrup from my eyeballs.

Chicks dig vampires! I was a vampy fellow in my earlier years and got laid all, nay, every time! Sad but true!!!

I read through all of these letters and while there are some valid points being raised, there is also some serious freaking out going on. The tone of some letters implies that if girls read these books, they will get the wrong ideas about relationships and seek out an abusive boyfriend. This is the same logic that is used by equally well-meaning parents who worry that teaching the same aged children about birth control will lead to rampant teen sex.

There is a fine line between sticking up for your values and imposing your taste upon someone else. Its not hard to keep a 9 year old girl from reading the book, but if you try that with an older girl, it will just force her to borrow it from a friend and keep it in the school locker. Its better to acknowledge that kids have different tastes than you and that its okay. This will put you in a better position to discuss the values in the book with out having the kid on the defensive.

Instead of being scared of birth control, homosexual life styles, vampires in Forks etc..., take the book as a wonderful opportunity to discuss relationships with your daughters. It will be a lot easier to do this now with a fiction book that they adore, than when they have their first boyfriend.

...the vampire movie that had my generation of women/girls panting was 1979's DRACULA, with Frank Langella. Why? Well, partly because Langella was amazingly hot. :) But it was mostly because its relationship between Dracula and Lucy was one of equals. Both are out-of-their-time in some way--he's an ancient aristocrat and she's a proto-feminist with a will of her own. But they are irresistably drawn to each other's intelligence and strength and _that_ is what makes their pairing erotic, not the old "wimpy herione/moody hero" dependency dance that TWILIGHT is trying to (re)-sell. That 1979 DRACULA is about the best when it comes to encapsulating the appeal of the "sleek goth" version of the vampire myth. As another poster noted, it's the appeal of being selected by a fascinating, impossibly-talented being because no matter what your faults, you are unique (in fact, your faults are what said being finds irresistable.) But where TWILIGHT falls down is in making its heroine a blank slate with no personality. If there's no give-and-take between lovers to show how they are attracted in spite of everything, there's no real sensual fire--and consequently a damp squib of a romance.

I think I'll watch both versions of "Nosferatu" again.

Puppy does the Gumbo will always be my favorite.

...but I will admit...an English major, a reader of Proust, Tolstoy, Conrad, Calvino, Levi, Ovid,...etc...I read the Twighlight series in a matter of days. It was hokey and very dorky in parts, but the eroticism of restraint was the hook, and if this had come out when I was 13 I would have been addicted to it. The story eventually jumps the shark unfortunately...especially when the werewolf Native American part starts....I mean it gets really, very, bad. The first part of Twighlight is gorgeous. Mrs.Meyers hit on something that tweaks our inner 17 year old swooning girl that is still in us even if we are middle aged.

The frustration with Mrs.Meyer's book is the lack of sex...but that is fine...it's for girls, and let's not forget that Meyers is a Mormon. The most ridiculous part of the book is that none of the kids drink. They have a party at the beach and everyone is eating peanut butter and jely sandwiches and drinking soda! The absolutely worst part is when Bella ACTUALLY drinks a caffinated soda and Edward warns her as if she is about to shoot up heroin. I mean come on, that is laughable and absurd. That is when the book lost it's charm. There is a heavy Mormon hand writing this book was all I could think.