If you prick me, do I not NOT bleed? If the sun warms my flesh, do I not sparkle like The David sprinkled with pixie dust?

See that, up ahead? Great Merlin's beard!...it would appear to be an opportunity to spew venom and ire all over the Twilight series! Racers, start your ridicule engines.

Poor Edward Cullen. Women are smitten to pieces should he level upon them the "full force of his eyes", the unfortunate fellow just wants to be understood. If his omnipresent form-fitting deep cut v-neck t-shirt were to be lifted, all hope for coherent conversation is lost. Poor, poor Edward Cullen, arrested by his own beauty in his tireless quest for true human connection. He cannot gently caress his lovers features without risking a cranial fracture. Edward "literally too cool for school" Cullen skulks, wraithlike, back to his tastefully appointed quarters to gloomily ruminate on The Ethical Treatment of Humans, and pout. What a baby, go swim across the Atlantic Ocean, dive down and ride an orca to the Hebrides...something.

Only an eternity of immortally traversing the far-flung corners of Planet Earth can afford enough room for the vanity of Edward Cullen. In my dictionary, "humble" is not spelled with emotive, woman-wooing recitals of Debussy and rescue missions performed within the plush leather interior of European luxury sedans driven at 90 m.p.h

Now that I've indulged in the requisite amount of easy jabs against Twilight (one could pass weeks at it), let's strike a more surgical blow.

Edward and his timid, episodically depressed companion Bella are not real people. Real people are tangled, knotted, nonsensical, baffling webs of emotion and vast plains of life. No section of Twilight dares approach substantive emotional wrestling. The internal dialogue of each "character" is a reflection of the pubescent, under-construction emotions of the teenage girl.

Fear? Of rejection.
Love? With the vigor of virginal youth.
Hate? With the blinding fire of romantic jealousy.

People's emotions are dense wildernesses of horrors, and Meyer lovingly ignores exploring the deeper motivations, questions, injunctions and imperatives that would likely arise from say, I don't know, dating a 200 year old vampire. Only the surface tensions, and even then, only the simplest forms of fear, love and hate. Which are, coincidentally, the only emotional themes explored.  None of the emotions presented are tempered with the resultant indecision of a life lived. Edward and Bella operate on the emotional level of Justin Bieber.

As a cultural phenomenon, Twilight is all-day-interesting. But, at the end of that day, Twilight is a tome of teenage emotion, which is as complex and unpleasant for the subject as it is the observer. Any aid in the plight, be it Twilight or otherwise, should be published in the millions.