Okay. So I finally get around to reading the one book that everyone in the world (at least, every female in the world) has read except me: Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Students of mine have raved, friends of mine have raved. I’ve resisted. I did the same with poor Harry Potter. I ignored the siren’s song until Goblet of Fire, then cracked the cover of Sorcerer’s Stone–and got hooked. Damn books are like crack. Given all the hype, I expected to feel the same about Twilight. I cracked the cover and…

Meh.

Okay. I have to give Meyer her props. The world-building she’s done is damned good, especially the way she works in plausible explanations for all the vampire conventions we’ve come to know and love, thanks to Bram Stoker and Hollywood’s affinity for beautiful women and bloodsucking men. The bat thing. The sleep-in-a-coffin thing. The can’t-be-out-in-daylight thing. Well done. But Bella, our heroine? Frankly, she’s bordering on romance’s dreaded TSTL line. Too Stupid to Live.

I know, I know. She’s a teenager. She’s obsessive. She’s got a thing for doomed love (favorite Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet, according to the preview chapter of New Moon bundled in the back of the Twilight paperback I was reading). But still…I love you, I want to be with you forever, bite me? This from the same girl who loves her mother enough to face death to help her? I can hear the conversation now: “Mom, I love Edward. I want him to bite me so I can be his eternal bride.” “What?” “I know you want what makes me happy, so, later!” Maybe that’s the problem. She’s such a teenager. I want to slap some sense into, not pine alongside her.

Will I read the other books? Maybe. I’m curious to see what Meyer does with her vampire universe. But it’ll be awhile. My teen whinemeter has pegged for the time being.