According to bookninja.com Stephanie Meyer has three of the four Twilight series books in the top ten bestseller list of 2008. This is disturbing for multiple reasons:
1) While amusing the books are poorly written. Bella Swan? Practically the first entry under character development (also lacking in the books) is not to give your character an obvious name. i.e. bella swan= beautiful swan, pretty sneaky eh?
2) The books are disturbing in the the way they portray females. Bella gives up everything (literally, she dies) for her Edward. The point at which I stopped reading the books (anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a sucker for urban fantasy) was when Bella decided against college because she wouldn't be able to be with Edward.
3) All of the above makes a lot more sense when I found out that Meyer is Mormon. At the risk of offending the people (maybe?) who read this blog, I strongly, strongly disagree with the Mormon church and their ideals. Knowing from what religious background Meyer is writing it is easy to see the parallels between Bella's story and the female ideal in the Mormon church. It also makes it a lot easier to see why Bella's character infuriated me to the point of putting the books down.
Anyway, what all my rambling was meant to say was this: I can't believe that the Twilight series occupies three out of ten slots on the bestsellers list for 2008. I know the publishing world needs all the help it can get right now (and I really do, I work at a bookstore) but I wish it didn't have to come from such a deplorable piece of fiction.
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