Blog Tour: Touched By A Vampire - Discovering the Hidden Messages in the Twilight Saga

I had been hoping to avoid admitting this in public, but, well, I own all the Twilight books. And I've read them each twice. They are a compelling and reasonably well written series (no, they're not winning any Nobel prizes for Literature soon and they're not replacing the classics, but they're a fun, light read.) When my mom heard that I'd read them (and even worse, liked them) she was less than thrilled and started in on some of the same points that Beth Felker Jones develops in this book.

And they're valid points - I don't dispute that. The Twilight books should not be used as anything other than a fun afternoon's reading (well, maybe weekend's reading as they're all so thick) - they don't reflect the real world, they don't provide a good example of a healthy relationship, they don't have a Christian world view... the list can go on. And that's why this book is a good thing - because there are people out there who can't read engrossing fairy tales and see them as just that: fairy tales. For those people (or for the mothers of those people who are worried that their daughters aren't applying the right amount of discernment when they read) this book is an invaluable resource.

Felker Jones addresses the themes of dangerous romance, love, abstinence and sex, gender roles, family, marriage, children, desire, and the search for purpose both from the standpoint of how they are covered in the Twilight saga as well as from a Biblical perspective. It's a fantastic comparison that will be incredibly useful if you're having difficulty engaging your teen in a discussion of the books - and there are discussion questions at the end of each chapter if you wanted to do a group study.

As I assured my mother when we first discussed it, I was raised to know the difference between reality and fiction and to use a discerning eye when taking in the cultural products of the world. However, I know that there are many who are not raised with an emphasis on developing these skills, so I think it's great that resources like this are available.

Find out more here.

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.