Anyone else tired of romantic vampires in young adult fiction?

[Bittybye]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t76YW7cTaHw

Well, that was different. Espcally since in the books Edward was the one that was trying to protect his 'flower' from Bella.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I'm tired of vampires... period. The oh-so-obvious theme of the good and vulnerable human trying to use love to "save" the vampire, essentially an immortal serial killer, was passe decades ago.

Can we please move on to robots, or ghosts, or something?

You know, for some strange reason, I have never thought of Vampires as serial killers but you are right. Actually, some modern vampire novels might be more interesting if they treated them more like serial killers and less like either the romantic hero figure ala Twilight or the tragic anti-hero ala Interview with a Vampire...

Mmm... So vampire as Hannible Lector or for the anti-hero variant... as Dexter (i.e., not really good, just taking out the bad guys to protect himself...).

--
Bill

[C.I.Bond]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

Honestly I think Bella and Edward ran neck in neck for obsessive twits. But Edward wins in the creep department. He has all the markers for a abusive boyfriend.

Historical romances are different, I've read a few that turned by stomach, but let's not forget that this is adult fiction an adult would read the book, know it's wrong.

I have a little trouble with the whole idea that adults are some how more elevated that children. The problem with Twilight is that it was so wide spread and so you have plenty of less “grounded” girls reading it so, statistically speaking you will have a few idiots in the mix. As for the biting… well… stupid but I believe there were a rash of adults throwing themselves off the side of cruise ships when the movie Titanic came out. No one suggested that clearly the movie had too much impact for them and they should have better parental supervision. The mental image of a 60 year old woman going to the movie with her 30 year daughter-in-law saying something like “remember dear, this is just a movie. Freezing to death isn’t really that much fun,” does make me smile.

Originally Posted by Bittybye

If this is what they think is romantic, I worry for them. I'm not even going to touch the whole "You're not complete unless you get married and have babies." thing that Myers does.

Yup, that one’s a lost cause. The author is Mormon, and procreating and marriage are very central to a woman’s role in the religion. I think this is the price you pay for the fantasy, like reading a Christian Romance and having to tolerate the whole “come to Jesus” bit.

[Bittybye]

Originally Posted by C.I.Bond

I have a little trouble with the whole idea that adults are some how more elevated that children. The problem with Twilight is that it was so wide spread and so you have plenty of less “grounded” girls reading it so, statistically speaking you will have a few idiots in the mix. As for the biting… well… stupid but I believe there were a rash of adults throwing themselves off the side of cruise ships when the movie Titanic came out. No one suggested that clearly the movie had too much impact for them and they should have better parental supervision. The mental image of a 60 year old woman going to the movie with her 30 year daughter-in-law saying something like “remember dear, this is just a movie. Freezing to death isn’t really that much fun,” does make me smile.

It's just a fact that adults have fully formed personalities, while children and young adults are still forming their personality. Which is why childhood trauma can affect a person's whole life. There are of course the unstable, or more malleable personalities at all ages, which is why cults work on some people (and yes I do think of Twilight as a sort of cult) and not others.

Originally Posted by C.I.Bond

Yep, that one’s a lost cause. The author is Mormon, and procreating and marriage are very central to a woman’s role in the religion. I think this is the price you pay for the fantasy, like reading a Christian Romance and having to tolerate the whole “come to Jesus” bit.

As a woman who doesn't want, nor can have children I find it offense and as an agnostic I avoid Christian anything. I was just saying it's one of things that irritated me.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Maybe some Twilight fan can explain this to me:

Well. I am definitely not a fan, I couldn't finish the first book. At the beginning it was interesting, because the book describes life on a typical American High school. I come from a very different background and High schools here are quite different, so it was interesting. Then it got insufferably romantic and I lost interest.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Why is a century-old vampire posing as a high school student, and why does he fall in love with a teenager?

Well, I can relate to *that*.
If I was given a chance do don a new, *much* younger body and could return to any period of my life (with knowledge and resources I have now) I wouldn't hesitate to return to my High school years. I suspect that it would be entirely different now, but still, the longing after "good, old", careless times remains.

[bjones6416]

Honestly, although I may be the only one in this thread who actually read all 4 of the Twilight books , the bottom line is that really they ARE just fluff. Whether or not we're tired of the genre, I personally don't believe the books were particularly traumatic to young girls.

[Penforhire]

So when another poster writes,

"I was watching this documentary about the allure of vampires in fiction, they filmed girls outside the premiere of one of the Twilight movies and the girls were screaming. One even said that she believed in vampires and was waiting for her own Edward.

Also I read an article that teens were biting each other and drinking a bit of blood. While it was never explicitly said it was pretty obvious why."

you dismiss this report? I'm not suggesting I blame the books, as I did not blame the book in the Amazon-pedophile-book thread. But I can see the viewpoint of people who do and, from that perspective, Meyers provides poor role models.

Oh, and I read the first three books. Does that count, lol?

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

So when another poster writes,

"I was watching this documentary about the allure of vampires in fiction, they filmed girls outside the premiere of one of the Twilight movies and the girls were screaming. One even said that she believed in vampires and was waiting for her own Edward.

Also I read an article that teens were biting each other and drinking a bit of blood. While it was never explicitly said it was pretty obvious why."

you dismiss this report? I'm not suggesting I blame the books, as I did not blame the book in the Amazon-pedophile-book thread. But I can see the viewpoint of people who do and, from that perspective, Meyers provides poor role models.

Oh, and I read the first three books. Does that count, lol?

Yeah, I guess I kind of do dismiss that report -- there was so much hype! As for the bit (no pun intended!) about teens biting each other -- well, they did do a storyline on Private Practice about it, so maybe it happened once or twice. I do NOT believe that was any kind of common thing happening.

I guess my viewpoint is that it IS very common for teen girls to get obsessed over stuff, and it generally passes as they grow up. Did you ever see those films of the girls outside the early Beatles concerts? Sure, a few of them ended up with some sort of unhealthy mindset later in life, but I'll bet most of them are just regular people now. It's just that every little thing that happens now is so in-our-face and immediate that it all seems to be a crisis. I blame the internet.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by Bittybye

I was watching this documentary about the allure of vampires in fiction, they filmed girls outside the premiere of one of the Twilight movies and the girls were screaming. One even said that she believed in vampires and was waiting for her own Edward.

Also I read an article that teens were biting each other and drinking a bit of blood. While it was never explicitly said it was pretty obvious why.
.

Originally Posted by Penforhire

So when another poster writes,
<snipped quote above>
you dismiss this report?

People believing in vampires, biting each other and drinking each other's blood was going on when I was a teen, which predates Twilight by a fair few years. It seems to have that allure of being "cool", "edgy" and provoking parental disapproval that some teens love.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Did you ever see those films of the girls outside the early Beatles concerts? Sure, a few of them ended up with some sort of unhealthy mindset later in life, but I'll bet most of them are just regular people now.

They grew up to become the Crazy Snape Ladies!

[C.I.Bond]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Honestly, although I may be the only one in this thread who actually read all 4 of the Twilight books , the bottom line is that really they ARE just fluff. Whether or not we're tired of the genre, I personally don't believe the books were particularly traumatic to young girls.

I read 3 and lost interest, sorry.

I suspect that girls don’t read too carefully and the whole male dominated family structure where a woman’s highest calling it is to sacrifice herself for her family while men get to make the decisions for the family didn’t penetrate at all. The chastity angle certainly missed the mark according to an interview with the actor who played Edward (this was second hand info from a friend). Yes, there are lots of pro-family and anti-girl messages in the book – at least if you are of a feminist bend but I suspect very few of them got absorbed by the average teen reader. I asked a girl why she liked the book… “Oh, Edward is so cute and he loves Bella.” I asked about anti-feminist rhetoric and she just blinked. Oh, well.

[Pookeysgirl]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Honestly, although I may be the only one in this thread who actually read all 4 of the Twilight books , the bottom line is that really they ARE just fluff. Whether or not we're tired of the genre, I personally don't believe the books were particularly traumatic to young girls.

You're not the only that read all of them . I think that these girls will get over their obsession of Edward. I've been a fan of vampire books and movies since I was around 11. I don't drink other peoples blood...but I do bite sometimes I'm more worried about the 12 year olds getting pregnant and having babies than I am about vampirism amongst youth.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

I guess my viewpoint is that it IS very common for teen girls to get obsessed over stuff...

Just girls? Boys can get just as obsessed at that age, they just show it differently, of course. Hey, I had a Yoda poster on my wall for years. Of course, I was a Muppets fan from way back before Star Wars...

(Did I just say that out loud?...)

Anyway, yes, kids can get obsessed as teens and under. I'm not going to say that the kids are going to somehow be emotionally damaged from reading or watching the Twilight material, any more than they might reading and watching Harry Potter, Star Wars, Avatar, Dragonball Z, etc, etc... most of them get over it fine. So it's really just a personal wish that they got into something else, as I don't get the attraction of Vampire stories.

My wife (who loves her Vampire Diaries) recently compared the attraction of Vampire fiction to the allure of Superhero fiction (of which I am a fan). Of course, she's mostly familiar with the soap-superhero stuff like Smallville, so from her perspective, relationships with people with "special powers," admittedly there are a lot of similarities. But to me, Vampires' are a very different type of character, diametrically opposite to the superhero character, not really human, and not really deserving of sympathy or pathos in their drives.

I should probably say that I remember the Forever Knight series... that probably came closest to my impression of a Vampire deserving of pathos. But he generally avoided relationships because of his basic nature.

[Billjr13]

Back to the original post: No, because I haven't read them...
To be truethful though my wife read the Twilight series and enjoyed them. We both read the Charlaine Harris books and we both liked them but I don't think they real fall in the teen genre. As long as a parent doesn't mind their kids reading the books, I am just happy they are reading. The market will keep making what the readers demand. If they are buying it someone will keep writing it. It seems like right now this is what the YA audience wants.

[Bittybye]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Honestly, although I may be the only one in this thread who actually read all 4 of the Twilight books , the bottom line is that really they ARE just fluff. Whether or not we're tired of the genre, I personally don't believe the books were particularly traumatic to young girls.

I read every one of them I even read the chapters from Midnight Sun. I even managed to get though the 'training' chapters without slipping into a coma from sheer boredom. Katie MacAlister if fluff (stupid fluff at that), Twilight is garbage.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Maybe some Twilight fan can explain this to me:

Why is a century-old vampire posing as a high school student, and why does he fall in love with a teenager? I can have a hard time relating to people who think we've always had cell phones. What would someone like that have in common with a guy who's not only older than cell phones but computers, movies, TV, radio, space travel, airplanes, comic books, T-shirts, women voting, integration, and paved roads? To put it in perspective, he's six years older than Robert A. Heinlein, who died at the age of 80 several years before Bella was born. When Edward was Bella's age, Isaac Asimov hadn't been born yet. This isn't romantic, it's creepy.

Well he loves her because she smells so darned edible. Literally there is a scene from Midnight Sun (Twilight from Edward's POV) where he plots to kill every student in the room, then Bella then he plans to bury her in the woods. There's true love, kids!

Oh and he can't read her thoughts. Don't worry there Eddiekins, I've read them, you're not missing much.