I know I’m a bit late to the party on this one. That’s because I’ve been trying to hold in the frustration. Can’t.

First of all, let me start by listing the NON-REASONS, just to fend off any foreseeable accusations from squealing fangirls.

1. It’s NOT because I haven’t read the books and am criticising something I’m not even familiar with, like print journalists who moan about Twitter when it’s quite obvious they’ve never used it, are only abstractly familiar with the world of the interwebz and still file their pieces on slate tablet.

I have actually read Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse. After glowing reviews from friends and strangers, I bought all three of them at once to read on a 28-hour flight from London to Brisbane. I didn’t read Breaking Dawn, because judging by what I could glean from the army of 14-year-old girls who apparently ALL have their own channels on YouTube, Breaking Dawn was a whopping great disappointment to even the most hardcore Twilight fans.

That’s right, according to some people the last Twilight book was just TOO crap. (In my view this is akin to saying the latest episode of Lost is just TOO cryptic, the latest Marian Keyes book is just TOO female-centric, the latest Paris Hilton reality series/album/cosmetics line/cameo film appearance smacks just TOO much of her desperation to find a market in which people will finally see her as more than an embarrassing waste of the planet’s dwindling resources… and so forth.)

In the interest of total fairness, I probably will read Breaking Dawn at some point, but it’s something I’m going to have to work myself up to, like an MMR needle or the apocalypse.

2. It’s NOT because I am just a hater. I’m not. I’m a lover. See these insanely gushy blog posts: here, here, here, here and here.

(In fact, it actually pains me to write a diatribe about the lovingly crafted wordbaby of a hard-working author – especially a YA author, because I think it’s bloody marvellous that YA fiction is such a pumping genre these days. I love that it’s being taken seriously, and I love that kids and teenagers are reading perhaps more than they ever have, what with Harry Potter and Twilight and Zac Efron’s Twitter account and everything. Let me say it again so there can be no misunderstanding: I LOVE young adult fiction, and I’m not ashamed to say that when I walk into a bookstore I always make a beeline for the YA shelves. There is some seriously good, exciting stuff out there.)

3. It’s NOT because I think all vampire stories suck (terrible pun absolutely intended). I happen to be an old school Buffy and Angel fan. I also quite like what I’ve seen of True Blood. I liked Anne Rice books when I was younger, and Interview With the Vampire was the only film in which I ever found Tom Cruise attractive. Belieeeeeve me, I get the sexy vampire thing. (Who doesn’t like pale, wealthy older men with cardiac vulnerabilities?)

4. It’s not because I’m a literary snob. So not. My favourite book in the whole world is Little Women, ferchrissakes. It’s (essentially, and if we’re talking absolute-bare-bones) about a bunch of teenage girls mooning over boys, fighting with their siblings and wishing they could update their wardrobes more often. I’m currently reading Six Months in Sudan, about a young doctor who spends – that’s right – six months in Sudan, with Medecins Sans Frontieres. I’m also reading The Girl Who Could Fly. It’s about a girl who can fly. I am a book whore and I will read almost anything.

So now that I’ve laid my caveats on the table, here are my main issues with the series.

Bella undoes a lot of fine work

Maybe it’s because I’m a child of the nineties, and we were spoiled for strong female role models in entertainment (Buffy, Willow, Xena, Scully, Ripley, Sarah Connor, Ellie Linton, Hermione Granger, etc), but I actually find Bella Swan so repulsive as a female protagonist that I want to punch myself for having a vagina.

I’m not even going to talk about the fact that Bella is a Mary Sue. (Although if I were to mention it, I would mostly discuss the multiple boys who fall in love with her on her first day at her new school. I might also mention the girls she unwittingly enrages merely by being the object of said boys’ affections (the same girls who OMG totally want to be her BFF because, like, she’s so new and interesting). And the fact that her only discernable flaw is that she’s clumsy and seems to “attract trouble” (which only serves to further endear her to the LEGION of overprotective males in her life). And that she is apparently wildly attractive and fascinating to all the good people of Forks and yet has zero self-regard and is the most infuriatingly modest, self-effacing character ever written. Oh, and to round things off I might mention all the attempts to align her character and Edward’s with Cathy and Heathcliff, and with Romeo and Juliet, in what could possibly be the most facepalmingly unsubtle literary allusions in history. But I’m not going to talk about that, and you can’t make me.)

No. These are the things that really irk me about Bella Swan:

1. When Edward leaves her in New Moon (for “her own good”… *gag*), she goes mental. Not the good kind, either. It would be absolutely cool with me if she flipped out, tore up his photographs, scratched his CDs, cut up his t-shirts or whatever girls do when boys break up with them. Or even if she decided to really have at it and wallow… like, proper wallow, for a week or two weeks or you know, three or four weeks if she wanted to do a good job. But to totally break down, stop talking to your friends and family, stop going out and generally have the world’s biggest meltdown because your boyfriend has left you and therefore your life is no longer worth living… seriously, WTF? (Just to indulge my inner Whedon geek for a moment: Buffy had to kill her boyfriend and send him to hell in order to save the world. She took a couple of months to get over it and then got back on the motherloving Hellmouth to kill some demons. Get it together, Swan.)
2. Then, when she finally gets a grip and starts behaving like a normal teenage girl again, she decides to endanger her life by doing things like speeding on a motorcycle without a helmet and jumping off a cliff into the ocean. Not because she has discovered an interest in extreme sports (which would at least have meant she’d gotten a HOBBY), but because… wait for it… it makes her hear the sparkly boyfriend’s voice inside her head, telling her what a fucking moron she is. That’s right, girls… when your boyfriend dumps you and life is no longer worth living, try to get his attention by doing some REALLY FUCKED-UP SHIT.
3. She blames herself for everything that goes wrong.
4. She is constantly questioning how anyone as fabulously shiny as Edward could possibly fall for plain old her who apparently has nothing to offer. Her self-flagellation actually gets to the point of absurdity. Any concept of her own self worth is completely tied up in her relationship with Edward and how he feels about her.
5. This is more of a book irk than a Bella irk. The “love” between Bella and Edward that is shoved down the reader’s throat ad nauseum is told, not shown (my pet peeve in fiction), and actually bears no real resemblance to love. What it does look like is obsession. SO not the same thing.

Edward is one misdemeanour short of a restraining order

I hate to sound like a Middle American conservative librarian soccer “mom”, but if I had a teenage daughter I would be H-O-R-R-I-F-I-E-D to learn that her fictional crush was Edward “Emotional Abuser” Cullen. And yet I have learned there are mothers (plural! Lots of ‘em!) in the world who not only encourage their daughters to read the Twilight series and coo over their precocious spawn developing sweet little literary crushes; they actually read the series themselves and, creepily, share their teenagers’ love of the Sparkly One. This is such a widespread phenomenon that there is actually a name for these women – they call themselves ‘Twimoms’.

Let’s tally up Edward’s transgressions.

1. He sneaks into Bella’s room and watches her sleep. All the time. Even in the beginning, when he barely knows her. That’s creepy even if you aren’t a sparkly vampire lusting after your stalkee’s blood. It’s just creepy, okay? It’s creepy.
2. He follows her around EVERYWHERE and watches her CONSTANTLY. He can also read minds, conveniently, which helps him to monitor what Bella’s up to through the thoughts of her family and friends (since he’s unable read the thoughts of Bella herself… although he totally would if he could). Slight invasion of privacy, really.
3. He has his family keep tabs on her also. Since he has a psychic sister, he can even keep an eye on what she might do in the future. So that’s a pretty comprehensive stalker file he’s compiling.
4. He is possessive and controlling in really overt ways. He slashes her tyres so that she can’t go visit her shirtless wolfy friend. Of course, it’s all done under the banner of boyfriendly protectiveness, so that somehow makes it acceptable. Except that it’s bad and icky and TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.
5. He tells her who she’s allowed to be friends with, going so far as to forbid her from seeing Jacob. Are we starting to form a realistic picture of this relationship? Edward is a BAD BOYFRIEND.
6. This last one is probably a bit picky, since we are in fact talking about a vampire story, but… he’s so old. He’s like 108 years old. This wouldn’t be a problem except that he acts it. I mean he doesn’t clutch his back when he walks or keep his teeth in a glass of water on the bedside table, but he has very old-fashioned ideas and can be quite condescending toward Bella. I am totally into older men, but my limit is like a decade, a decade and a half, maybe two at a push… not ninety of them.

If I don’t stop here, I’ll go on forever, and this is already a hell of a long post. Congrats if you made it to the end.

So, I’ve had my rant. Over to you. Is it love? Obsession? Creepy, weird and setting  the foundations for the world’s first domestic abuse charges laid against a 108-year-old non-human? Or am I missing some vital message?

Flickr image from Shutterpillar‘s photostream.

The Declaration is a YA novel set in a dystopian future England. It’s 2140 and years ago, scientists found a ‘cure’ for old age (as though it was a disease or something, which interestingly is how a lot of people seem to talk about it when they promote anti-ageing products and scientific developments. Scary). They created a drug that could completely halt the aging process and actually prevent death. Naturally this led to a massive increase in population that the planet and its resources could no longer sustain, so laws were introduced to inhibit reproduction. Which always works out for the best. It’s an interesting and very quick read.

Incidently, I think I am addicted to buying books, and actually to bookstores in general. My mother and sisters started refusing to enter a bookstore with me by the time I was around 12 or 13, because it would take them hours to get me out.

A very shiny manouvre of fate has me working very near the biggest bookstore in London – the seven-storey Waterstones on Piccadilly. Or as I like to call it, The Place Where Awesome is Made. So whenever I am feeling like a social zombie (which is increasingly often), I drop in and pick up some paper happiness that I can take home and use as an imaginary buffer between me and the rest of the world.

Lemonia, Primrose Hill

Fabulous and hugely popular Greek restaurant on Regent’s Park Road that I’ve been meaning to try for ages. Finally went with LC Hammer in tow this weekend, and was not disappointed. Really good food, really great atmosphere. I recommend the moussaka and halloumi.

Burn After Reading

Coen Brothers + Frances McDormand + John Malkovich + Brad Pitt + clever and highly original screenplay = super good times.

Trojka, Primrose Hill

While I was in the trying-new-things-in-my-neighbourhood mode, I did lunch at Trojka on Sunday, a Russian Tea House on Regent’s Park Road that, again, I’ve been saying I’ll try forever. It was great – not the food so much (the food was fine – although the borsch was a little lukewarmish), but the always fantastic experience of Eastern European customer service. You come for the latke, but you stay to be scowled at and ignored by an eye-rolling, out-of-work Russian model slash waitress.

I felt the one unacceptable part of the Trojka experience was that they were playing the soundtrack to The Bodyguard on a loop.

Rain Man

Usually the thought of seeing Josh Hartnett act in anything makes me want to punch myself in the face until I cry, but this was getting some great reviews so I thought it might be okay. It was actually great. Adam Godley was brilliant as Raymond, the autistic brother, and – surprisingly (to me anyway) – Josh Hartnett was pretty terrific. It’s playing at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Ave in Soho until 20 December, and I recommend getting a ticket.