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Twilight Causing Seizures?
The graphic and gruesome birth scene from the Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn 1 has freaked out many a movie-goer.
In the scene, Kristen Stewart’s character Bella gives birth to her and Edward’s vampire baby. There is blood, there is guts, culminating in a gross-out scene where Edward is forced to rip open Bella’s stomach with his teeth. Yeah, not something you’d find in your average, everyday birth plan.
During the bloody show, many viewers had to cover their eyes, while others sat transfixed by the shocking scene unfolding before them. But an unlucky few? They had seizures. Continue reading »
Is Bella's Birth Scaring the Youth of Today?
When you are young and impressionable there are certain books, movies and media that will make an indelible imprint on your mind. Their images — especially when creepy — will stick with you forever. For example, static will always reminds me of Poltergeist, pea soup will always remind me of The Exorcist and the name Ralph will always remind me of Judy Blume’s Forever.
And the younger generation will have their own unsettling touchstones. Take the Twilight Saga installment Breaking Dawn and the impact it may make in their thinking of the act of childbirth. Continue reading »
With the Twilight craze raging, some teens have apparently started emulating their heartthrob heroes by biting each other. We’re not talking about an old school hickey here, either. These kids are drawing blood.
Since I occasionally get comments from teen girls, let me address these remarks straight to them.
Listen up, ladies: those boys who want to bite your neck till you bleed are losers. Do not waste your time on them. Trust me. I know whereof I speak. I’ve spent many a cold night shivering through a vampire roleplaying game on some college campus or other. Let’s not talk about all the hours spent writhing on a the dance floor at goth clubs up and down the East Coast. I’ve worn corsets to English class just because it’s a Tuesday.
That’s all well and good. There’s a lot of fun to be had dressing up like Bela Lugosi’s ghost and getting your goth groove on. And I understand that Twilight is the biggest thing since the Beatles in your little teenage hearts.
But vampires are fictional characters, and it’s really best to leave the actual blood-drinking to them, on the big screen or between the pages of a book.
Are you squabbling with your tween daughter over which Twilight star is cuter? Or mooning together over Zac Efron or Justin Bieber?
You are not alone. According to an article published this week in the Boston Globe, moms and daughters around the country are currently going through a shared infatuation with young male pin-ups. Continue reading »
Late last week came this shocking news: Isabella unseated Emma as the No. 1 name for new baby girls.
Emma and her cohorts, Sophia, Ava, Olivia and Emily, were pushed aside by the new girl in town, Isabella. (Or shall we say “Bella”?)
With Jacob holding tight to his No. 1 spot, Edward inching up in ranks and Cullen clawing his way up nearly 300 spots, all signs pointed to suburban mom vampire literature for unseating the romantic, Jane Austen-inspired name.
But don’t be so quick to blame Stephanie Meyer and her “Twilight” series for the Isabella issue. Continue reading »
![twi hard inside vinyl decal 150x150 Peter Facinelli Launches Twihards4Charity [Morning News]](http://cdn.babble.com/strollerderby/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/twi-hard-inside-vinyl-decal-150x150.jpg "Peter Facinelli Launches Twihards4Charity [Morning News]")
Three words — Twihards4Charity. Or is that one word? Or two words and a number? I don’t know. Heck, I only just found out that the Twilight vampires sparkled in daylight. Anyway, actor Peter Facinelli is trying to harness the power of the Twilight-obsessed to help raise money for Haiti. Continue reading »
I was always quick to take book suggestions from my son’s 3rd grade reading teacher, Kami Garcia. A passionate reader and the perfect matchmaker of kid to book (“The Benedict Society is great, but Owen needs FUNNY like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid“) I never hesitated to heed her advice. But in our last meeting she really surprised me — I discovered she was not only an advocate for authors, in between teaching and raising her two kids, she’d managed to become one herself. Along with the Margaret Peterson (or as I knew her from our third grade class, Kate Peterson’s mom) she’d written a novel, Beautiful Creatures, and it just debuted at #3 on the New York Times Best Seller List, with film rights snapped up by Warner Bros.
Kami and Margaret became close friends when Kami taught Margie’s older girls, Emma and May, at Carlthorp Elementary school in Los Angeles. The girls encouraged these two closet writers (and die hard science fiction and fantasy fans) to collaborate when they dared them to actually write (and finish) a book together. The moms took the challenge, sat down at a local Mexican restaurant and Beautiful Creatures, the first of The Caster Chronicles series was conceived. Twelve weeks later the manuscript was written, and Kami and Margaret considered their task done. But Margie’s friend, only known as Pseudonymous Bosch, a well known author of The Secret series, snapped the manuscript up, delivered it to his agent and shortly thereafter a two book deal was made with Little Brown. The rest is best seller book history.
I just finished the book and all I can say is move over Edward, Jacob and Bella — Lena and Ethan are coming to town.
Like Twilight, Beautiful Creatures captures the essence and angst of high school life. But what this mother of two girls loves is that the new series is no ordinary girl-falls-and pines-relentlessly-for-supernatural-boy tale. In this book, it’s sixteen year-old Lena Duchannes who wields the supernatural power and is the object of mystery and affection of the bewitched mortal Ethan Wate. Hailing from a long line of super naturals called Casters, Lena bears the blessing and burden of her other-worldly abilities and must do battle against the family curse that might be her undoing — all the while enduring the standard struggles of first love, dating, conformity, friendships and family.
Ethan loves Lena for the same reasons I loved her; she’s a smart, quirky, viola playing, poetry composing deep thinker. But as anyone who’s navigated the treacherous hallways of high school knows, these are not easy traits to boast as a girl, or to admire as a boy in a world favoring perky cheerleaders.Not only did Kami and Margie want to create a character “worthy of the girls they were writing for,” says Kami, but also with six brothers between them, they wanted to create a realistic teenage boy.
“We wanted girls, especially those who didn’t grow up with brothers, to see that boys agonize as much as they do,” says Kami, age 37, still working as a teacher. “When they like a girl, they wait by the phone hoping it will ring too.”
If Kami and Margie ever doubted whether the voice of Ethan was authentic or if the machinations of high school politics rang true, they turned back to the instigators of the project, Emma and May, along with Kami’s sister, Hannah, and a small but devoted group of girls ranging from 12 to 25 who edited and critiqued the manuscript, then begged for more pages each week. The writing team knew they were onto something when they were getting texts in the middle of the night from girls asking probing questions about the characters, but also asking insistently for more. The girls – Kami and Margie’s Greek editorial chorus, remain an active part of the Beautiful Creatures world as the founders of their own website, (and now the book’s US fan site, thecastersgirls.com).
A word of warning: you will feel a sense of loss when you finish that last page of Beautiful Creatures. The final chapter is satisfying but leaves you longing for more. And there will be more: Part II (the title is top secret) was just finished. We just have to wait until this time next year to read it. — Romi Lassally
Romi Lassally is the founder of truuconfessions.com and the author of True Mom Confessions: Real Moms Get Real. She is also lucky enough to have Kami Garcia as her son’s reading teacher!
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