Somebody, please save me ...

New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
Stephenie Meyer
Little Brown

Okay, I'll admit it. I caved. All of my friends kept going on, and on, and on about the Twilight series. "Give it another chance," they said. "It's sooo good." Um, yeah ... so good that it has taken me more than two weeks to find the motivation to write this post. Good? Are you people insane? I love a schmaltzy romance as well as the next girl, but the blatant anti-feminism almost pushed me over the edge.


For those of you smart enough not to pick up this series, let me give you a quick run down of the plot.

• Girl meets boy.
• Boy turns out to be a vampire and mires girl in all sorts of danger.
• Boy leaves girl (he wants to do the "right" thing) and girl loses her mind with grief and becomes a shell of her old self.
• With the help of her best friend (who turns out to be a werewolf), girls starts to piece her life back together.
• Boy gets into trouble and girl goes to save him which invites more trouble.
• Best friend and boy (sworn enemies because of the whole vampire/werewolf thing) compete for love of girl.
• Boy wins.
• Boy marries girl.
• Girl gets pregnant and the half-human, half-vampire foetus almost kills her.
• To save her life, boy turns girl into a vampire right after she gives birth.
• Girl becomes even more beautiful.
• Incubus baby drinks blood and eats food.
• Best friend imprints on baby girl and complicates the life of his pack.
• Boy, girl and best friend fend off threat from evil, old vampires.
• Everyone is saved and lives happily ever after. Oh barf.
  

I'm willing to give Meyer points for creative use of mythologies. She leverages just enough vampire and Native American lore to make part of the book intriguing to those of us interested in the fantastic. I cannot, however, get over the fact that every story line was resolved and presented to the reader with a pretty little bow. Yes, fairy tales are possible. I just want one where the heroine defines herself and isn't defined by her love of her man or the functions of her body. The entire series gets one drop of blood out of five.