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Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 225 of 246 14 September 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
This is slightly off-topic, but I know a lot of folks have read (or are reading) the Twilight series for the Super Challenge. I read the first three books (and I think part of the fourth) many *many* years ago, before I had children.
It seems like they are all the rage for young kids these days. My daughter is almost twelve, and she has read the Harry Potter series (twice), The Hunger Games, the Divergent trilogy, and lots of other stuff for that age group. She really wants to read Twilight, but I remember it having a lot of sex (and bruising) and older themes in it, especially in the last book.
Now, I have looked at it a few times and thought of re-reading it in Spanish for the SC, but I honestly have no interest in reading it again. It's just not my kind of thing. Can anyone give me a run-down of how much sex and stuff is in these books? Maybe I am remembering wrong, but I kind of feel hesitant to let my eleven year old read them this young.
Someone help! :) If you have read them (or are reading them), what are your thoughts?
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| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 226 of 246 14 September 2014 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
She can probably handle it.
But yes, there's some weird pillow-shredding sex (although implied rather than explicit) somewhere in book 3 or
4. It only happens once "on-screen", if I recall correctly (I read the book ages ago when it first came out). There's
also a really horrible birth scene in book four, where Bella's baby is - quite literally - trying to eat her way out.
Books one and two don't have anything inappropriate in them with regards to sexual content.
I think that my main complaint with Twilight (from the perspective of both a reader and a teacher) is that Bella is
such a simpering, dependent eye-flutterer. Edward is a stalker. And Jacob keeps forcing himself on her. But
they're both soooooo dreamy! (gag) Also - the overall message - basically, give up everything else in your life
(literally) in order to be with swoony boy (ie. creepy, controlling, stalker boy).
The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Divergent all had strong, three-dimensional female characters. Twilight -
not so much.
Lots of kids read Twilight, so she might feel left out if you don't let her. If you do let her read it, I'd definitely
recommend talking to her about it! (And hopefully, like my 11-year-old niece, she'll read book one and decide
that it's much too boring to read the rest of the series. Ha!)
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| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4581 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian
| Message 227 of 246 15 September 2014 at 9:04am | IP Logged |
I agree with Stelle that the first three books should be fine. I'm pretty sure there
is no reference to sex at all in the first two, then in the third book I think there
is a point where Bella suggests having sex to Edward but he wants to wait until they
are married.
Book four is more gruesome. They do have sex on their honeymoon and she ends up
bruised because of his vampire strength and pregnant with a vampire child. The birth
scene later in that book is, as Stelle said, absolutely horrible. The film was so gory
(I think it was the end of Breaking Dawn: Part 1) that I couldn't watch it. Once Bella
becomes a vampire towards the second half of Breaking Dawn they have quite a lot of
sex, although she doesn't get hurt this time and there aren't any explicit
descriptions.
If you want to refresh your memory of the storylines without rereading the books,
there are some pretty detailed chapter summaries of each book
here. I
guess they're written by crazy fans but I found them really useful when I was reading
Twilight for the SC to confirm whether I had understood each chapter correctly.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 228 of 246 15 September 2014 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
"reasoning with vampires"
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| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 229 of 246 23 September 2014 at 2:40am | IP Logged |
Serpent, I don't see anything on that site that's relevant to my question... what am I missing?
Stelle and Radioclare, thank you - that's exactly what I was looking for. I told her she could read the first two, but she has to give me a "book report" about each one, to explain to me the story, characters, plot, etc. So, she will read the first one, then decide not to do the book report and hopefully stop reading them. LOL
Hopefully that will make her think a little about what she's reading, and why she likes (or doesn't like) the story.
Stelle - you got me hooked on The Hunger Games now! My daughter insists I finish the trilogy before the last movie comes out in November. I really like that she and I can enjoy books together like that. I don't read as fast (in Spanish) as she does (in English), but I can live with that. :)
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 230 of 246 23 September 2014 at 8:06pm | IP Logged |
Refreshers, summaries, subplots, character sketches. Plenty of materials for remembering what it's like and discussing with your daughter. Or something.
Edited by Serpent on 23 September 2014 at 8:07pm
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 231 of 246 23 September 2014 at 10:54pm | IP Logged |
I accidentally saw the first movie. How could I have seen it accidentally? My then boyfriend and I went to a cinema without any previous plans. We had heard quite nothing about it back then and the programm said "romantic horror" so we tried it. He was the only guy there and we may have been among the oldest people there (like 20). It was horrible. And some of the girls were visibly offended we were laughing at the "wrong" places. :-D
People may read whatever they like to relax but some things are totally stupid. I don't know how different the books are but following the movie:Bella's character is stupid. The story is totally predictable (at least the first movie, I saw nothing more). The other characters aren't particularily interesting either. There isn't sex, there is the atmosphere sexy+dangerous+weird, which might be confusing for some types of girls, in my opinion.
I think Stelle's idea concerning her niece's approach may be the best option actually. But to make this more likely to happen, I recommend providing girls with better and cooler books before Twilight to help them find their own tastes, hopefully far from Twilight.
My sister is 11 now. She likes adventure books, just as I did (+I discovered Agatha Christie when I was that age, that's the only difference) or more clever fantasy (HP, Narnia). I think this one thing is even worse about Twilight and such books than any explicit scenes: Twilight like books get girls used to reading total crap. They give the message (supported by some stupid bookshops labeling shelves with romance not "romance" but "books for women") that girls should be interested in such books much more than in adventure, crime, high literaure, horror, sci-fi or whatever else. I wouldn't want my sister to read Twilight now or in a year. I hope she develops some immunity before reading Twilight out of interest and/or because everyone reads it. I hope she'll be able by then to get through the story, perhaps enjoy it in the simple relaxing manner, but not to let it lower her standards.
Sorry about long rant.
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 232 of 246 23 September 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
I almost forgot one question. Does she only read books meant for her age group? Remembering my reading childhood,I'd say it is more than beneficial to help children discover other genres and authors than those marketed for them. I highly doubt any child reading only what is cool and read by classmates is likely to grow up into adult confident in their own tastes and opinions. The path may begin with Twilight and leads to 50 shades.
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