An Open Letter to Stephenie Meyer
By Alicia Guy

I normally don’t write these things but circumstance calls that I raise my pen and address what I feel is an important and disturbing issue. Now why is an open letter to an author of a ridiculously popular young adult series so important? Why am I so distressed? The answer dear reader is in the letter. Whether you are Pro-Twilight or Anti-Twilight; whether you are Team Edward, Team Jacob or Team Tyler’s Van; if by some chance you have been living under a rock these past few months and never even heard of Twilight, or if you are Stephenie Meyer yourself, I ask that you please take the time to read this. Now, on to the letter.

Dear Mrs. Meyer,

Congratulations on the wild success of your book series, Twilight. It’s not every day that a new author reaches that kind of monumental success. But with success come the naysayers and the critics. I am one such critic.

You say that Twilight isn’t so much a story about vampires and werewolves, but that it is a story about true love. You see, I have a problem with that assertion. What Bella and Edward have is not true love. It can be argued that true love doesn’t exist but that’s all perspective and I won’t get into that. What I do want to address however is the apparent abusive tendencies of your male protagonist Edward Cullen. Young girls everywhere are proclaiming that they want to meet a man like Edward, that Edward is the perfect boy. “When will I find my Edward?” I’ve heard guys lament that their girlfriends broke up with them because they weren’t Edward.

Now admittedly young girls will be young girls. It’s like a fascination with a movie star, though the disturbing part is they fail to see that Edward is a controlling, manipulative, and abusive jerk. Now had this book series been geared towards adults, this wouldn’t really be so much of a problem; but this is geared towards young impressionable teenaged girls.  The problem arises in the fact that even though some of Edward’s abusive tendencies are blatant to more level headed readers, these young girls fail to see it and it warps their perceptions of what a healthy relationship is. The fact that even Bella is blind to his obvious abuse is even worse. If Bella still thinks the dazzling, Adonis –like Edward is still perfect after he removed the engine from her truck to keep her from seeing Jacob, then that’s a very big problem. You wrote the series from Bella’s perspective so if Bella thinks that this is all totally acceptable, then most likely, the young teens reading this will too.

My little sister is 17 and she has read all of your books. I’m not as concerned about her reading it because my sister is a very smart girl. She knows that Edward is abusive. She realizes that even though he tells Bella over and over again that what he does is for her protection, it doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact abusive behavior. The problem is, my sister is in the minority when it comes to Twilight fans. I am not saying that Twilight fans are a bunch of stupid girls, but what I am saying is that they are at an impressionable age and the concepts in your book, whether you intended them or not, are warping their concepts. These girls are going to start thinking that it’s okay if their boyfriends tell them what they can and cannot do. I mean this is normal right? Wrong.

You should know better Meyer. You are a married woman in your 30’s with 3 children. You should be mature enough to realize that Edward’s behavior is wrong and that Bella’s acceptance of his behavior is even worse. You are perpetuating a concept of a dangerous infatuation between two people as true love and these girls are just eating this concept right up. Whether or not you intended to make Edward’s behavior stalker-like and abusive is beside the point. You did it and it can be damaging to young minds.

What perhaps appalls me more than the general acceptance that Edward’s abusive tendencies is okay, is the fact that you glorify SUICIDE in the name of love as perfectly fine. That is unacceptable. But what about Shakespeare, you may ask. The two main heroes in Romeo and Juliet killed themselves for true love. Why is that different? Well, I am glad you asked. The difference is that Shakespeare also wrote about infatuation, not true love. Romeo and Juliet, believe it or not, was actually intended as a comedy on the concept of young love. Most people today do not realize that Romeo and Juliet was a farcical look on the subject. The writing was geared at the times and while it’s generally revered as a love story for the ages, I think that Shakespeare would laugh at how serious we take the story today. The language makes it hard to see that for all the deep and poetic mutterings of Romeo, he was creating a caricature of the young, romantic mind. You, however, remind the reader constantly that what Edward and young Bella have is true love that will last the ages. So, of course, not wanting to live without the other makes suicide perfectly acceptable in your mind. You were being serious and dramatic in your portrayal while Shakespeare used suicide to show the ridiculousness of obsession and fascination. Where Shakespeare soared brilliantly in showing the absurdity of Romeo and Juliet’s “love” for one another, you fail and turn something that was already dangerous into something so close to a catastrophic acceptance of the lack of importance of anything outside of the relationship that it actually makes me feel sick to my stomach.

When you live only for your lover, you are not truly living. Allow me to share a little story with you Mrs. Meyer. I met my husband in the 8th grade, that would make the year 1996. It was the first day of school and he had just moved to my small town (not Forks, WA small, a bit bigger than that) from a suburban area a bit outside of DC. He was awkward and shy because he didn’t know anyone here. I had my art pad on my desk and it was open. He was looking at my comic book art and I came up behind him asking if he liked my art. He turned around surprised to see the artist was a girl and simply stammered “You’re a girl!” I laughed telling him how observant he was and we became fast friends. I was the first friend he made here and I have been his best friend since. I developed a crush on him pretty much as soon as I met him. I do believe in love at first sight. Now I have learned to love life to its fullest and to realize that you can’t just live for your lover. I know what its like to know the fear of losing your lover. In 2003 my husband was diagnosed with cancer. Everyday I lived with the fear that he would die. It was the worst time of my life and I believed through and through that without him, I would just die. He showed me that there is more to life than just him, he told me that if I spend every moment of my life worrying for him, that I’m already dead. He showed me how to live. That, Mrs. Meyer, is love. What Edward and Bella have is not. It is dangerous infatuation.

Why am I writing you such a long letter over a series of books? It is because it has risen to such heights of popularity and hysteria that it is becoming dangerous. If it wasn’t such a cultural phenomenon I probably wouldn’t care. But it’s huge. It’s Harry Potter huge. But the principle difference is that Harry Potter never toted dangerous behaviors as acceptable and normal. Mrs. Meyer, as the author of the monster you have created, you need to take responsibility for the misconceptions your books promote. Otherwise a whole lot of girls are going to grow up with a terribly dangerous misconception of what love really is.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,
Alicia Guy