Twilight

#281
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown
Year: 2006
498 pages

I am ashamed to admit that I really enjoyed this. In repentance, I will write a lesson plan that offers a critique of its gender relations. Still, I can't deny that it is appealingly written and has a compelling erotic undertone. This is, of course, disturbing in conjunction with the characters' behaviors, which oddly enough both replicate the cycle of interpersonal violence and yet, in its extended metaphor of humanity-as-virginity, shows the male vampire to be more moral and scrupulous than the young woman. In this I agree with Edward's assessment that Bella does not prioritize her own well-being.

After a few thousand pages of sequels, I might well tire of the narrator's petulance and the vampire's handsome, godlike attributes, as well as the ways in which the vampires consistently take control away from Bella. However, there's a lot that's funny and interesting, which goes a long way. There are a variety of not-too-important issues (for example, there's no evidence that Bella was clumsy prior to moving to Forks), but it still hangs together pretty well and should serve as mildly salacious beach reading.