One of my high school students asked me to read the books, so I did. I think they simply feed into teenage fantasies about love. Here’s a brief summary (SPOILER ALERT! Stop reading here if you don’t want to know!):
Bella falls in love with unattainable vampire Edward. They just can’t help their feelings for each other despite personal danger. Both of them are gorgeous. They struggle to stay apart but can’t live without each other. In the end, Bella gives up everything to become a vampire so that she can be with Edward for eternity. They are very happy. It’s nicely written but rather sophomoric.
My biggest concern with it is that Bella gives up her humanity so easily and doesn’t spend much time worrying about what it will do to her parents. She is not very connected to either of them, despite loving them. I think part of the popularity of this book series is that lots of children of divorce relate to Bella.
I think part of the popularity to this book series and the movie and upcoming movies is pure entertainment value.
Back in the late 70s/early 80s, I read a book called Sweet Savage Love (can’t recall the author, Rosemary?). Most of my friends were reading this same book. We were 14 or so, 9th graders. At the time, quite a few of the book’s passages were completely lost on me. Then I read it again in the early 90s when I had two kids. It was a WTH moment for me. No wonder I couldn’t understand it when I was 14 or 15.
But it didn’t damage me since I knew at 14/15 that it was fiction! Just like I knew tv shows and movies were fiction.