Last year for the 10th anniversary of Twilight, I decided to read and recap (with the help of some wonderful people) that first book. This was something that I had already done with the ENTIRE Fifty Shades series, so I was expecting Twilight to honestly present us a chance to laugh more and Hulksmash less.

A lot has been said about this series since its release and success. It was first cool to love it, then cool to hate on it, and currently in the bookish community, I seem to most often find that people find it passe to talk critically or hatefully about this book. I mean, honestly. It's been done. Additionally, lots of people will roll their eyes and say that sure, it isn't the most well-written book series in the world, but it was fast-paced and it got them to read! YAY READING! etc.

Enter New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series. I'm almost 30 years old and I'm reading this all for the first time, though I have seen all of the movies and I've absorbed a lot from pop-culture. From all that, however, I don't think I was fully prepared to encounter what I did in New Moon. I was expecting badly written and kind of silly and all of that, but from the reactions that this book got (and still gets! Scrolling through Goodreads is enough to show that many 4 and 5 star ratings still exist...) I wasn't expecting it to promote racism, abuse and neuronormative ideas.

The entire plot of this book can be summarized this way: after months of dating, a controlling and manipulative boyfriend dumps his girlfriend and relocates his entire family. The girl spends the next few months in something close to a break-up coma. She spends the months after that unable to function because she doesn't have a boyfriend. She finds a boyfriend stand-in and uses him to induce auditory hallucinations of her ex. She tries to commit suicide. Her ex tries to commit suicide. They are reunited and all of their mental health issues are forgotten.

Packaged and sold as romance to my generation when we were teenagers! Wonderful.

1. I don't know Stephenie Meyer and I don't want to presume anything about her, but her book makes her seem like a racist. Let's step past even the crap of her appropriating Quileute legend to make Native Americans the never-good-enough-supporting-characters in her series, okay? We're looking simply at how she describes and presents the Native people in her story. It dripping with racism in a way that comes off as if she didn't mean to include it. It ranges from making sure to describe any Native as NOT WHITE! the second they appear in the scene, characters (including a teenaged Bella...) calling Native teenagers "boy" (probably Google it if you don't know why you shouldn't call any minority "boy"), the entire fact that she has her group of nonwhite characters TURN INTO LITERAL ANIMALS, how she describes the Natives as ALL LOOKING THE SAME and I could go on.

We meet Emily in this book. Let me remind you that vampires, while being described as beautiful over and over and over and over and over again, walk around with purple bags under their eyes and onion-skin and red eyes. But they are white and beautiful, okay? Enter Emily who has scars on her face. Bella describes her as basically ruined, once-beautiful, and calls her scars a deformity. NO. Stop.

Vampires and werewolves smell bad to each other. Alice says the dogs (you know, the nonwhite characters) smell "awful." The vampires? Jacob says they smell "sickly sweet." Hokay.

She describes Natives using every damn stereotype in the book, including having "ancient eyes" and comparing them to crows.

It's awful. It deserves to be called awful.

2. Bella is a terrible, terrible main character. It’s always rough in these situations where bad boys are being emotionally or physically abusive because the last thing we want to do is victim blame, right? Plus, she’s obviously unwell and her mental health is a serious point that should be considered when we look at her behavior. But just apart from anything having to do with Edward, Bella is THE WORST. If she was clueless and kind of bitchy in the first book, she’s genuinely mean-hearted in this book. Cursory worries for Charlie don’t make up for a book in which she gives 0 active craps about anyone except herself and her boy. She’s a useless narrator, either noticing nothing at all or way too much for her limited point of view. And I don’t GET her as a main character or a heroine of a story. She has nothing to offer. This entire book was basically, “my boyfriend is gone so I am literally not even a person any more.” SHE GOES INTO THE WOODS TO DIE AFTER SHE'S BROKEN UP WITH.

WHO WANTS TO READ THAT?

3. Stephenie Meyer wrote the story of someone with mental health issues and I don’t think she meant to. I feel like Meyer might be one of those people who thinks that depression is when you are extra sad. Again, that’s supposing a lot, but that’s the impression I got from her book. It makes me sick to think of the really serious warning signs in all of Bella’s behaviors that are not at all acknowledge beyond “heartbroken” and are immediately FORGOTTEN and brushed away the second Edward is back in the picture. Bella is depressed, inducing hallucinations, she’s got crippling low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts and she’s caught in a controlling and abusive behavior.

Not only is it uncomfortable to see this portrayed but not named or acknowledged, but Bella belittles her own mental health and mental health professionals more than once throughout the book. Plus, the entire idea is that this is TRUE LOVE, so it's okay. The idea is that we see the seriousness and strength of Bella's love for Edward because she wants to die. Because she is nothing without him. Because she doesn't care about another human being on the face of the Earth. Because she will literally support him being a MURDERER because she loves him that much. This is garbage of the worst kind and I truly resent the message that true love is crippling in this way.

I'm not reading into anything here, either. Meyer has written specifically about Bella being a damsel-in-distress:

“Side note: there are those who think Bella is a wuss. There are those who think my stories are misogynistic—the damsel in distress must be rescued by strong hero.

To the first accusation, I can only say that we all handle grief in our own way. Bella’s way is no less valid than any other to my mind. Detractors of her reaction don’t always take into account that I’m talking about true love here, rather than high school infatuation.

I emphatically reject the second accusation. I am all about girl power—look at Alice and Jane if you doubt that. I am not anti-female, I am anti-human.”

DETRACTORS OF HER REACTION DON'T ALWAYS TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT I'M TALKING ABOUT TRUE LOVE HERE, RATHER THAN HIGH SCHOOL INFATUATION.

So, if you've never wanted to commit suicide over a break-up, sorry about your high school love!

I AM ANTI-HUMAN.

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.

STEPHENIE, HONEY, YOU ARE A HUMAN? I THINK? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

I don't know. I don't even know what this is. I mean, that's just talking about the problematic messages BEHIND the story. It's overlong for a feather-light plot. It's ridiculous and nonsensical. It's written poorly and we actually took to counting em dashes PER CHAPTER, and it was usually in the high 30s and 40s. The entire climax, from emergency flight to Italy and beyond is so stupid. Edward goes from casually thinking about murdering a bunch of innocent humans in order to get killed by the Volturi to deciding TO SPARKLE IN THE SUN INSTEAD.

Bella is later crying over an actual mass murder and doesn't want to have those emotions anymore because THE TEARS ARE PREVENTING HER FROM GAZING ON EDWARD'S FACE.

Okay, Stephenie. You are anti-human.


Full recaps here.