Bella and Edward: Relating To Twilight Love

I have to admit that I’ve fallen under the Twilight spell.  I usually try to resist books and movies that cause cultural obsessions and extreme fanaticism.  I’ve never read a Harry Potter book, so I definitely never participated in all of the hype that goes along with the newest sequels.  I think I even scoffed at the idea of reading a children’s book at an adult age.  But this Twilight series has really snagged me!

Image: INF

I casually read the first Twilight book and thought it was pretty good, but was not obsessed.  Then last week I read the second book in the series, New Moon, and couldn’t put it down!  I ran to the book store as soon as I turned the last page and was so saddened to find that Eclipse hadn’t been released in paperback yet.  Could I force myself to wait a few weeks to find out what happens between Bella, Edward, and Jacob?  I decided that instead of spending too much money on the book that I would read once, I would spend some time thinking about the cultural obsession with the Twilight series and why it is that adults find themselves hooked on these teenage novels.

I realize that I wasn’t too interested in the Harry Potter series because I didn’t find anything relatable in it.  I wasn’t interested in keeping track of all of the new words that the author created for the fantasy world that the characters lived in.  Where Harry Potter was about fun words and complicated magic, Twilight is about a love story.  The fantasy element is important, but I think that readers keep turning pages because of the love that Bella and Edward feel for each other.  Even though the main characters are teenagers, the love that they express seems deep and permanent.

Twilight was about Bella and Edward falling in love, but New Moon was about the heart-wrenching and confusing experience of being dumped.  I think every woman who has fallen deeply in love can relate to the pain and suffering that Bella experiences as she tries to move on with her life without Edward.  The way she describes her loss and the actions that she takes to fill the hole in her life seem exaggerated, but they are actually extremely relatable.  The confusion that is caused by her relationship with her best friend Jacob is also extremely realistic.  How many times have women been confused about a guy friend…do I love him as a friend or a boyfriend?  Am I really ready to move on?

The Twilight series was written for teenagers, but the feelings that the characters experience are definitely for adults.  You don’t have to think Robert Pattison is a hottie or have an interest in Science Fiction to fall in love with the Twilight series.  You just have to know what it feels like to love and lose and you will feel that part of you is written into each novel.