A few general spoilers in this review, not really many details or things you didn't see coming, though.


Insane hype, questionable messages about love and sexuality, terribly tasteless and annoying fans, wildly successful yet really fairly average movies with that massively overrated Robert Pattinson,... There are a lot of things to hate about Twilight, even without actually having read the books, and reading them won't necessarily improve people's opinions. Still, I read the 750-ish pages of the last volume, Breaking Dawn, in a single day yesterday, so evidently I enjoyed it enough that it's worth exposing myself to ridicule by reviewing it. Plus, controversy is good, right?

The Twilight series consists of four books (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) and, as the whole world must know by now, revolves around the love life of American teenager Bella Swan, and her feelings for vampire Edward Cullen and werewolf Jacob Black. It has been compared (favourably or unfavourably) to other recent hypes, most notably J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, but the similarities are mostly limited to the hype and the general fantasy theme.

Since romance is so undeniably the core of the series - there are elements of suspense and adventure in the series, to be sure, but those are ultimately of secondary importance - it's perhaps not surprising that the most controversial aspect of the series is its view of relationships and sexuality. Author Stephenie Meyer has been blamed (or, by some, praised) for promoting abstinence until marriage, an old-fashioned view of relationships, and a pro-life agenda. This has also been linked to her religious views, as Meyer is a member of the LDS.

While I agree with many of these criticisms, I think ultimately they're merely consequences of a larger and more essential problem Meyer has, the problem that ultimately ruins the potential that I do think Twilight actually had. Which is that Meyer seems to be in love with her characters, and is unable to see them come to harm. The character of Edward Cullen has often been maligned, and for good reason; while Meyer evidently wants to portray him as the perfect man, which is problematic enough in the first place, his personality has dominant and obsessive characteristics that many people might not consider so perfect at all. Worse, from a literary point of view, his supposed perfection makes him little more than a cardboard character, lacking real depth and evolving little over the course of the series. His vampire kin, which particularly in the later books makes up most of the supporting characters, largely suffers from the same problem, with a few semi-exceptions. Most of this has to do with Meyer's depiction of vampires: virtually indestructible, immortal and hauntingly beautiful creatures with a host of other superpowers like extreme strength, agility and speed, flawless memories, the list goes on. As if that wasn't enough, certain vampires have additional powers, like Edward's mindreading powers, although those - so conveniently - don't work on Bella.

The other supernatural species presented in the series, the werewolves, are fortunately less flawless, and as such far more interesting. While Jacob Black and his friends are equally powerful, fast and immortal, they are - mostly - ordinary humans when not in wolf form, and provide a much-needed balance. By tying the werewolf thing to Native American ancestry, Meyer also has some space to explore the experiences of Native Americans in contemporary America, growing up and trying to find a balance between their ancestral traditions and the modern world; it's nothing that hasn't been done better and much more realistically elsewhere, but it's one of the better aspects of the series all the same.

And then there is the protagonist herself. Bella Swan does not seem to be very popular among Twilight hecklers, either - a friend of mine noted that her name was very appropriate, considering that "Bella" is one of the most stereotypical names for cows in Dutch - but personally I'd consider her the only reason I made it that far in the series. Meyer goes to some effort to depict her as a normal, average teenager, a far cry from the sickening perfection of her romantic interest Edward. And I'd say she deserves some credit for the result - Bella is a far more interesting character than anyone else in the series. Except when it comes to her obsessive, irrational and rather fairy-tale-like love for Edward, that is. Meyer evidently is a believer in True Love, and has Bella unconditionally and hopelessly in love with Edward almost from the get-go - and him with her, although his reasons for that never really grow any clearer.

As a result, the second book, New Moon, in which Edward's role is rather small even if Bella spends a lot of time moping over him, is probably the most enjoyable of the series, focusing largely on the non-fairy-tale-like and hence far more readable relation between Bella and Jacob. Unfortunately, Bella's ultimate choice is never truly in doubt, as Meyer refuses all the opportunities she creates for herself to put her depiction of True Love into perspective. Another potentially interesting theme, particularly considering Meyer's conservative Christian background - that of the importance of the soul and the afterlife - is occasionally touched upon, but ultimately discarded easily as Bella's decision to give up her humanity and become a vampire herself is pretty much unwavering from the start.

The first half of Breaking Dawn, the final volume and the one in which this transformation takes place, is without a doubt the most controversial part of the series, and as a result also one of the more entertaining ones (aided in part by having a good amount of pages from Jacob's PoV, with special credit to Meyer for the chapter titles in that section). "Outrageous" and "ridiculous" are about the kindest adjectives coming to mind for a few plot twists in this part of the book, but then, those are under the circumstances far preferable above "boring" and "predictable" - if a book can excite such emotions, that is in a way a good sign. Regrettably, what should have been the climax of the series then turns into a massive anticlimax in the latter part of the book, as Meyer focuses on some contrived suspense-plot, having largely resolved the far more important romantic plot of the series. Additionally, vampire Bella is, not very surprisingly, not remotely as interesting a character as ordinary Bella, and some more interesting plotlines are largely abandoned or tied up hastily.

In conclusion, the Twilight series is not particularly good, despite a number of decent ideas, characters and plotlines, so one might call it a missed opportunity. This is mostly due to Meyer's infatuation with her own characters and with the notion of True Love, and her refusal to allow anything but a "perfect" fairy-tale ending (she even went as far as to call the last chapter of the series "The happily ever after". Comparisons to Harry Potter are far-fetched and give Twilight more credit than it deserves (even considering the similarly saccharine epilogue to the final HP book). What is more, the extreme violence depicted on several occasions in the series makes it rather less suitable for younger children, which could lead me into a rant on the disparity in American censorship of violence and that of sexuality, but I'll leave that for another time. Still, the books are for the most part entertaining, even if opportunities for more depth are eschewed and the overabundance of romantic scenes between Bella and Edward in some parts of the series gets old very fast.
As for the criticisms on Meyer's relationship views, I don't agree that she's all that reactionary or anti-feminist. Considering the female characters in general, and the fact that by and large they are stronger and more interesting, I think it's safe to say that the case of Edward and Bella is more a consequence of the "perfection" of Edward than it is an intentional message. The implicit promotion of abstinence until marriage - and very early marriage as a consequence, as Meyer herself apparently has done - is hard to deny, but I don't feel she beats readers about the head with it, or preaches to them. However, I will agree that as far as messages to teenagers go, telling them that it's right to be obsessively and unconditionally in love, giving up any- and everything for that, is a rather bad one. But then, I dare say teenagers aren't so stupid as to fall for that, either.

Thoughts? Rants? Declarations of undying love for Edward? (Okay, maybe not that last one... )