Twilight. What does this name mean to you? The setting of the sun, or a hugely popular teen romance novel? Chances are, you probably thought the latter. There have been over 85,000,000,000 copies of books from the Twilight series sold, in over 50 countries and 37 languages! That is ridiculous! So, what is all the hype about Twilight?!
Twilight is about a girl, Bella, who falls in love with a guy, Edward. Innocent enough, right? Not so. Edward is actually a 106 year old vampire who thinks Bella smells good, and therefore wants to kill her. And Bella is only 17! He’s way too old for her. For some reason, teen girls think this is deeply romantic, possibly because in the movie, Edward is portrayed by Robert Pattinson, who is apparently “one hot vamp!” Bella falls madly in love with Edward, but he doesn’t care for her (except her smell), but, eventually Edward is swayed by the aroma of her blood, and they fall in love.

Why this all seems wrong to me: First, the sexism in this book is extreme. Bella is NOTHING without Edward. Her mind is like a blank slate, and the movie only more painfully highlights this. For example, she will die without Edward, and has time for nothing else but, you guessed it: Edward, the man who is 100 years older than her and wants her blood. If you still think having a lover who doesn’t kill you for your blood because he loves you is romantic, fine. But that is domestic violence, which is NOT fine
According to the Domestic Violence hotline, these are some signs that you might be in an abusive relationship.
Does your partner:
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Make all decisions?
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Has your partner pushed, slapped, bitten or choked you? Does pushed through a glass table count?
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Look at you intimidatingly?
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Threaten to harm you? On Edward & Bella’s first date.
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Threaten to commit suicide? “I just can’t live without you. In fact, I’ll run to Italy and try suicide by vampire if anything happens to you” -Edward-
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Accuse you of cheating/ jealous of other relationships? “Stay away from wolves, or else. I love you” -Edward-

That was five things. According to the hotline, just one of these things almost always means that your relationship is a bad one. And I just listed main ones. All in all, there are 15!

That’s just not right. And all the while, people devour this book, getting the impression that domestic violence is okay, and that as long as the guy is “cute,” you can listen to every little thing he says, and that’s just not the case. So if you do read Twilight, keep in mind that this book is not nearly as innocent as it seems.