The Twilight saga is series is a young adult vampire-romance novels that are quickly becoming the most popular teen-girl novels of all time. Dr. Richard Stuckwisch was recently interviewed on the Issues Etc radio program about his reactions to the book. You can listen to or download the interview in MP3 format by clicking HERE.
I found the first book quite dull, but most people I have talked to have really liked it. Given that so many young people are reading the books and have seen the movie, it’s a good idea for parents to take 25 minutes and listen to the interview.
I also encourage you to read a recent Atlantic magazine article entitled What Girls Want by Caitlin Flanagan. Here the author suggests an underlying motive driving the teen-girl love affair with this kind of literature:
The salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life—one that she slips into during her sulks and silences, during her endless hours alone in her room, or even just when she’s gazing out the classroom window while all of Modern European History, or the niceties of the passé composé, sluice past her. This means that she is a creature designed for reading in a way no boy or man, or even grown woman, could ever be so exactly designed, because she is a creature whose most elemental psychological needs—to be undisturbed while she works out the big questions of her life, to be hidden from view while still in plain sight, to enter profoundly into the emotional lives of others—are met precisely by the act of reading.
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
I also encourage you to click HERE to read a recent Christianity Today magazine review of the Twilight movie. This review has some excellent discussion questions tied to biblical teaching about the nature of desire.
