I finally decided that it was time to read this book, since it seems that everyone else has.  My tastes generally veer toward "classic" literature - with the exception of the Harry Potter series, which provided excellent distraction during my first semester of law school. :)  Now that it's summer I'd had more time for pleasure reading, but my last pick - "A Soldier of the Great War" while beautiful was also extremely heavy.  So I decided, despite my aversion to anything involving the circulatory system or gothy poserdom, to pick up Twilight.

Exactly what I expected - a light diversion.  The book certainly appeals to the modern female's weaknesses: our Byronic hero of a love interest is brooding, mysterious, dangerous, seductively gorgeous (the "bad boy") but he's also utterly devoted and über protective.  A bit silly, but whatever, this is fantasy.  The thing about the book that made me think was that I didn't feel like our author identifies how screwed-up her characters are.  It's painted as a romance, but I never noticed any truly meaningful interaction between the characters to justify how "in love" they are... it's more like creepy desperate obsession.  Here's why:

Bella:  She has NO FRIENDS back in Phoenix, zero.  She's parentified by her mother, and calls her father by his given name.  Her constant references to how blazingly hot and perfect Edward is indicate that she's got an extreme fixation, especially because once they start dating she essentially ignores all other burgeoning friendships.  She deliberately makes sure that no one knows when they're together despite his warnings, and though he tells her repeatedly that he might freak out and kill her, she doesn't seem to care.  I don't think it's that she trusts him so very much... she hardly knows him, so why should she?  I think she's just passively suicidal, suffering from an extreme case of ennui.  She also doesn't find it strange that he lurks in her closet.

Edward:  He's 100 years old, and is suddenly "in love" with a for-real 17 year old.  Examples of her "fascinating" conversation are when she tells him what her parents do for a living, and how many pets she had growing up (Bella's really not a very interesting character).  He's intensely self-loathing and struggles not to eat his teenage girlfriend, but he's also very "protective" which includes STALKING HER AND LURKING IN HER BEDROOM WHILE SHE SLEEPS (I'm pretty sure that he started in with that before they even started dating).

Neither of them have ever dated before and...

Ok I need to stop.  I wonder if other readers are also confused by the tone of the book and its seeming disregard for how royally twisted this whole situation is.  I also wonder if my perception of the book is influenced by my knowledge that Stephenie Meyer is mormon.  It feels like there's moral judgment about things like taking extra cold medicine to get to sleep ("gratuitous drug use") but not really about lying constantly to your father or dating someone 80 years younger.

/rant