Thoughts.

Dear Stephenie Meyer, 

Look. Let’s just get this straight before we start: I love your books. No, I’m not a 14 year old girl with only a pillow to keep warm at night. No, I don’t fantasise about one day being rescued by a beautiful man who will find all of me and my (many) flaws so irresistible that he might save me from myself (monster that I am). No, I don’t wake up every morning and wonder, What can I do to make a boy like me today?

And thank God.

Because if I was said fourteen year old then I’d be in danger of thinking that all it takes in this life to be happy is a teenage wedding to get that which (of course) we all dream of: a husband and a baby and a cottage in the woods.

Seriously Stephanie? This is the message you are going to send to the post-Spice Girl generation?  

Thank goodness Edward Cullen was a great shag is all I can say- even my own mother told me not to wait until my wedding night because I’d only be disappointed. Can you imagine if he couldn’t get it up? If he was simply so very, very bad that no amount of gentle guidance could have him find what he was there to find? Nobody wants a bad fuck for the rest of all eternity, let alone on the first night. You are supposed to try on a pair of sling-backs before you buy them. Bella could spend the rest of her marriage (i.e. FOREVER) locked in the family bathroom frigging herself off in frustration. I know I would.

In a study I just made up, statistics prove that with any marriage wherein the bride is 32 or younger divorce is almost guaranteed within ten years. Statistically speaking then, Edward Cullen is most definitely going to find somebody younger, with better smelling blood, and Bella Cullen is going to be left as a single mum with no education and no discernable skills other than first-hand experience on how to monumentally screw up your future FOR THE REST OF ALL TIME.

She might find another Vampire to take her and her ridiculously named kid on (I’m sorry. I know what it is like for somebody to insult your baby name and it’s not normally cricket, but RENESME? Fuck right off) and then she’ll just be at another man’s mercy. Because Bella will have no way to support herself and won’t know her new adult-self well enough to navigate these tricky times. Last time Edward left she jumped off a cliff. Mentally healthy much?

Because don’t forget- Bella doesn’t even have her own kinship in your story. Edward’s family become her family, Edward’s friends her own. She doesn’t have her own community of friends and neighbours and you make that seem okay. Who will she turn to when it doesn’t work out? A cliff top, apparently.

I’m sorry to be so blunt Stephanie, but honey: you’ve done your teenage readers a huge disservice. Next time, keep it real and ask yourself: what would Lady GaGa do?

Best,

Laura Jane Williams 

(Cynic)