Blood Overdose

Ok, so I don't normally review books here, although I suppose I could since I read enough of them, but I wanted to say my piece about this series because as a woman who has neices and friends with young female children it disturbed me. Not the books per se, but their possible impact on said girls.

Towards the end of last year I ran out of reading material between visits to my library (aka, my mothers house) and decided to try a series I had recently seen four different women reading on the train. This series was by a lady called Stephenie Meyer, the first of which is called Twilight. And yes, this is the book of which a film version has been very recently released.

I didn't know about the film, nor indeed anything about the author, before I started reading it. I'd just seen it around and heard from various people that the series held cult status amoungst teen girls and also that the popularity of the books had caused a new sub-genera section to appear in my local Dymocks - that of Paranormal Fiction.

So I was interested. I picked up Twilight and I was hooked. I bought and read all four of the books in the series over the following week I think. The writing wasn't brilliant and was quite repetative in places but the conflict was tight and continuous so kept me reading. I'm a little ashamed to admit that it was one of those series of books where I actually curtailled my sleep to finish them (a rare occurance these days).

But whilst it was very compelling I couldn't exactly say I enjoyed it. The tale is captivating and keeps you reading (as I can defeinitly affirm!). I also loved the idea of the series, although it's not exactly original as any Buffy fan will tell you - a vegetarian vamp falls in love with a human girl - and I guess I was hoping for the same sort of fiesty, fun and intelligent world as that of Buffy and Angel. But the messages you get from these books are instead singularly disturbing.

The males are all portrayed as uber chovenistic - dominating, possessive, controlling - their behaviour made me want to hit them regularly and throw the books accross the room as indeed I did on more than one occasion. I feel sick just thinking about their behaviour now, and it's been over five months since I read about them! The whole "I'm in love with you and will love you to the end of eternity but I can't touch you, I'm dangerous - don't let me touch you or I'll hurt you, don't let me make love to you or I might kill you" schtic of the lead, the vampire Edward Cullen, smacked of scarring emotional abuse to me and the 'she asked for it' defence of a rapist. And his competition, Jacob Black (a warewolf), uses emotional blackmail on the poor girl every time he sees her just to get his own selfish way. And they both stalk her. Freeking scary if you ask me. I could kill both of them quite happily and I LIKE vampires!

And the supposed heroine (Bella Swan) is writen as a non-entity. She starts off sacrificing the life she loved for her mother's new man, then subverting her will to every man that comes along afterwards. The hardest thing I found to deal with is that she doesn't EVER get a backbone, which is what I was frankly expecting and hoping for her to do, and the only time she shows any spirit (and it's not really spirit but a dogged determination to go through with something) is in circumstances which are frankly disgusting. She is a placid, submissive, pale immitation of a female, willing to give up her freedom, her hopes, her dreams, her sexual desires, her very life to any man who cares to take it. She is married by age 18 and is obsessively overjoyed when she falls pregnant right away. And young women are reading these books in their droves?!?! Ugh.

Anyway, I finished the books, but they left a very bad taste in my mouth. Then I heard of the film coming out (which I haven't seen by the way and won't until it comes out on dvd), and that the book sales of the entire series had been rocketing even pre the idea of a film, and that Ms Meyer was raking in amounts of money second only to that generated by the Harry Potter franchise, so I decided to investigate futher.

It turns out I'm not the only one left nauseated. We're in the minority, but we do exist. Mainly women, mainly allarmed at the effect the messages in this book will have on teen girls.

I know that in fact I probably wouldn't be half as horrified with the whole thing if I didn't know that the main audience for these books was teenages and that within that group the reading and possessing of said books have become status items. Actually, I probably wouldn't be at all horrified - I've read worse books with worse messages - but the teenage girl angle has me spinning.

What was the bloody woman thinking? She's a female! How could she do this to her own sex? In the 21st Century you'd think we might have actually managed to get passed this whole woman-as-a-lesser-being thing, at least in the Western world. And this woman is from America! Land of the god-damned free!

Now I'm not advocating censorship nor that these books should be removed from the shelves or anything like that. But the whole series glorifies abuse and an awareness of the issue would be a damn good thing in my world. If either of my neices were old enough to read this I'd want to sit down with them before hand, and during, and after to make sure they understand the issues involved. Especially that the messages - sublimate your will to that of a man, allow him to abuse you emotionally, obey him in all things wether right or wrong, sacrifice your life, mind, body and soul to the guy, wed young and have babies - are not how things have to be. That as young females, they deserve respect and to be treated as equals, and should know that abuse is wrong and something they don't have to put up with.

So there you go. An actual firm and strong opinion from me which is relatively rare. I am seriously disturbed and I still feel sick. If this is to be the future trend in teen books someone should clobber it in the nuts right now.

If you have or know a teen girl who has read or is reading the series, talk to her about it! Please!!