Twilight - Stephenie Meyer

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Category: Girl meets vampire. Acquired: Snohomish County Library. Read: November, 2008 Briefly: Sometimes you just gotta read a book to see what all the buzz is about. This was one of those times.

Prologue: While I was waiting for this book to arrive at our local library branch, I saw a couple episodes of an HBO series based on a similar premise - vampires living among humans, with romantic attachments. The show was nasty and violent, and ultimately pretty frightening - not in an Alfred Hitchcock sense, but more in a Sodom and Gomorrah sense, illustrating just how far the desensitization of Western culture has progressed. All that was in the back of my mind as I approached this book. Was it going to be depressing to think about 20 million teenagers reading this? Was it going to be the final proof that we've totally lost our minds?

Summary: Lo and behold, I found the exact opposite. Not only would I not mind my teenagers reading it, I found reasons why I might even encourage them to do so. Here's a couple:

• First of all, the characters are actually virtuous. Bella (love that name) works hard at school, cares about other people, respects her parents and tends to think before she acts. This was all portrayed matter-of-factly, as if it's just how normal kids act. No preaching, just good examples. Even vampire-guy Edward has his head screwed on reasonably right - he understands that evil lives within him, and is decidedly not OK with it. He resists it constantly. He wrestles with his temptations, and celebrates when he's able to conquer them. He grieves over his failures. Why would you not want your kids exposed to that?

• Secondly, the boundary between good and evil is crisp and unambiguous. There's plenty of evil around (just as in real life), but the author doesn't candy-coat it. There's no moral relativism - no attempt to excuse the larger vampire community for 'just being themselves'. They eventually earn some praise in the story, but it's by overcoming their natural tendencies and conforming to a higher moral standard. Just like you and I try to do.
  

I was also half-expecting the story to be, at some level, a sermon about tolerance. You know, about how we just need to look beyond our prejudices and accept that we're all the same (happy sigh). Again I was pleasantly surprised at the author's unwillingness to go there. Yes, Bella exercises some laudable open-mindedness - hormone-assisted, to be sure - in getting to know Edward. But there's never any side-stepping of the fact that he comes with baggage, some of which is personal, some cultural and some, uhh... genetic. Confronting and dealing with that baggage is a big part of their story. Confronting and dealing with baggage ought to be a big part of our own stories as well.

Yeah, I haven't said much about actual plots and themes here, and I don't really plan to. Ask any female over the age of 6. Nor am I planning to see the movie, or read the rest of the trilogy, or buy the T-shirt. It was a fun diversion while it lasted, but now I could really use a dose of Tom Clancy.