Everyone that I know who had picked up Twilight has been captivated by the story of Bella and Edward.  It seems the books themselves carry with them an addictive quality.  Like all addictions you can never get enough of the thing you are addicted to.   Cos they are only books, there is really no harm done and once you have read them, there really isn’t any more to have except perhaps read them again. 

In the final book Breaking Dawn Stephanie Meyer explores the addiction to absolute power.  Personally I found that Meyer lost her momentum towards the end in the last book, but none the less it was a fitting conclusion.  Once again she has used fantasy to explore everyday real issues.  The vampire ruling class abuse their power under the guise of keeping everyone safe.  But in the end like some of our own real world leaders they are more interested in maintaining their position of power than anything else. 

At present our world is changing rapidly, financial structures are crumbling, the USA now has a black President, things that once upon a time would have been considered fanciful.  There are of course many who resist change and try to destroy anything that is too different or not understood.  Meyer tackled these very relevant issues in Breaking Dawn.  Maybe this is why the Twilight series has such an addictive quality, it uses metaphor and fantasy to explore and expose many of the modern issues we are all currently grappling with.  As with Bella’s father, we can no longer pretend that certain things are not happening or don’t exist.  In fact our insistence that they do not exist, robs us of much of the richness of life.

Certainly, I can relate to Bella, feeling like a fish out of water so far as main stream society is concerned.  Living a life that straddles the “normal and expected” with the world of metaphysics.  Yet, mainstream society is embracing metaphysics more and more as they seek to find the inner peace they crave.  And of course just as in Breaking Dawn there are powerful institutions and people who do not want to give up their power of absolute truth and authority. So it is in the “real” world. I am hoping that like in Breaking Dawn there is a happy ending, were in humanity can embrace and peacefully live with many possibilities of truth.  Perhaps even ultimately synthesizing a hybrid.