First, I read the first book, and it was boring, then when I thought about it, downright offensive to women.
Then, I had to contemplate all the teenage girls, and their mothers too, who have swooned over these books and consider a cradle-robbing, bipolar stalker to be the ideal man.
Then, I ruminated that a lot of the popularity is probably connected to the chastity of the lead characters, as though an abstinence message is so fabulous that it cancels out bad writing and terrible messages about femininity and romance. Which makes me reflect on how bass-ackward our culture is about sex.
Today, I was reading Let Me In, the novel that the highly acclaimed film, Let the Right One In is based on. It’s about a vampire. And it’s about love. And it’s lovely and ugly and brutal and tender, and all around nuanced and affecting.
And of course when someone asked me about it and I mentioned it’s about vampires and love, they said, “Oh yeah, I’m reading **Twilight **right now,” as though they’re the same type of book. That made me sad.
Having read both, I feel I can say that Let Me In is the anti-Twilight. As much as such a thing can be realistic, Let Me In attempts to explore what a relationship with a centuries old monster would be like with a sad, lonely teen, in a believable way. The emotions and actions of the characters are total credible, whereas Twilight is laughable. That’s the difference between a well-written book and a poorly written one.
However, Let Me In does not appeal to those who want to swoon over a romance. It’s a love story without being sentimental and romantic. In fact, it’s pretty scary and sad. Twilight is a fairy tale.
Twilight really objectively sucks, though. It’s not just a matter of taste or opinion. It actually is offensive, misogynist, sexually disordered, amateurish, badly written Mary Sue/abstinence porn which has nothing genuine to say about teenagers, love or sex (nor does the author seem to KNOW anything about those subjects), and fails to entertain or enthrall even as prurient, escapist entertainment about vampires.
Let the Right One In (both the novel and the movie) is vastly superior to the Twilight franchise by every conceivable standard.
I agree 100% with your assessment, Rubystreak. (edit: and yours Dio)
And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for shallow, fluffy, vampire romance as well - I just picked up three more Sookie Stackhouse novels today as a matter of fact. Those aren’t nuanced, and Harris has some truly irritating writing tics, but at least Sookie is a fleshed-out character, and the books acknowledge some moral gray areas and some issues that would crop up when dating a vampire. (I also like that she does URST well, but also includes some hot consummation, but as I mentioned above, people’s reactions to that may vary.)
I should really pick up some of those Charmaine Harris books. I like the TV show. I understand the show diverges from the books a lot, but they’re probably still worth a read.
I just finished the 5th of the Charlaine Harris books- they are fun, witty reading. Not “great” writing- but interesting storylines and at least Sookie is a very realistic character (some of the sex is really, really gross though!!).
Yeah, I’ve been rather enjoying the Sookie Stackhouse novels. As others have said, they’re not really deep or thought-provoking, but they’re fun to read, and the characters are reasonably well-written. I am constantly amused by Harris’s descriptions of what people are wearing.
I must check out Let Me In. I hadn’t heard of it until this thread.
We read Twilight for bookclub. We bemoaned its misogyny. We ranted about what it was teaching our daughters. We deplored its popularity in a world where there is better literature.
And then we realized that every single one of us had read (and reread) Flowers in the Attic at the “Twilight” age. And felt our glass house.
I both enjoyed and disliked Twilight. It was like eating cheap potato chips while sitting in front of the TV. You know they aren’t very good. You know they aren’t long term satisfying - but I ate the whole bag…and at some point I might do it again.
That was my thought about them, too. They aren’t necessarily great but I just started Dead Until Dark and it’s going well–fun, cute. Not nearly as offensive as Twilight.
I also hadn’t heard of Let Me In. Always good to see some vampire fiction that’s fun. And not Twilgiht bad.
It’s Let the Right One In. That’s the original Swedish title (from a poem I think), and the title of the movie. When it was first published in the US the title was changed to Let me In, but then changed back to the original.
The movie and the book are both very good. The movie stays pretty faithful. The author said he wanted to do a “realistic” vampire story in the sense that he wanted to explore what it would be like to actually be a centuries old vampire in the real world, and decided it would be excruciating lonely. He gets into themes of alienation, friendship and adolescence that are truthful, poignant and moving in ways that Twilight never touches. LTROI also isn’t afraid to go to some very dark places that would make Stephanie Meyers’ head spin around. Eli from LTROI would make Edward Cullen her little bitch in about 30 seconds.
The title of the book is a reference to the Morrissey song “Let the Right One Slip In,” combined with a reference to vampire lore wherein a vampire must be invited inside.
Eli truly is a monster, no excuse made, no sparkles. That doesn’t mean she is incapable of love, but loving Eli is a problematic and possibly doomed venture. Meyer tries so hard to manufacture drama about how dark Edward is, but there’s really no downside to being a vampire, nor to being in love with one, in Meyer’s world, and that really drains all the tension out of the situation.
Just be aware, the Charlaine Harris books are fun vampire fiction. Let Me In is not fun and frothy. It’s wonderful, but it gets very, very dark. Like, the hero is a kid who’s probably on the path to being a serial killer at the beginning of the book. And after that, it starts to get really twisted. But all in all, I’d rather have my (imaginary) teenage daughter read a well-written book that includes murder, bloodletting, and attempted anal rape by a living corpse, than buy into the “Edward Cullen is sooo dreamy, I want a boyfriend just like him” garbage.
Not that I won’t let my kids read Twilight or whatever when they’re old enough, I just want them to read it critically, realize it is the potato chip of the literary world, and understand the manymany reasons why Edward is not a good boyfriend, outside of a completely skewed fantasy context.
Dio, the Harris books are worth reading if you’re enjoying True Blood, IMHO. The show is still using kernels of ideas from the books, but going in completely different directions with some of them. Like, in the books, Jason is not involved with the Fellowship and is a very minor character until book 4 or so. Or, Eric actually staked the bartender and had to pay a fine - no punishment of Bill, no making of Jessica. You should be aware that they are definitely part romance novel - being a guy, I don’t know if that appeals to you at all. And the sex scenes are pretty effective generally, but usually include at least one horrible clunker of an analogy, such as, “My breasts were practically vibrating like puppies begging to be petted.” I did not make that up.
I have been wondering about this since reading some of the Twilight threads, please forgive my ignorance of female psychology but why do teen girls and women like the Edward character. Why is the chastity and abstinence message “hot” for girls to read should it not be the opposite?
It’s hot that he wants her sooooo badly but won’t go all the way her because he’s afraid he would hurt her, so he just tantalizes her with some minor petting and touching, for her own good. This, of course, drives her wild with desire. There’s also this thing about how they smell sooooo good to each other, this intoxicating perfume blah blah. What’s weird about that is that it’s established in the book that all vampires have humans out there who smell that good to them, and generally they eat them because they can’t resist. So, to Bella, Edward smells like CK One X10000, to Edward, Bella smells like filet mignon.
Hilariously, when they finally do get married and have sex, they break the bed and he bites a pillow in half. She is covered in bruises and actually is kind of hurt by it. But still LOVED it… yeah, that’s great.
Any of those couples worshiped by tweens and their moms and held up as ideal relationships? That’s the difference. The Buffy/Angel thing really went horribly, nightmarishly awry, and was nothing any teenage girl would ever want to emulate. Worf and Dax don’t really seem comparable to me, considering all parties involved were very much adults.
