I'm visiting my sibling's family, and one of the kids is a fan of that recent book series, the one you know of. No, the other one. So I just read it.
And can I say, what a load of patriarchal twaddle.
Look, a girl-child who's clumsy and horny and constantly needs a boy-man to guide her to her new life, take care of her.
She's clumsy, feels unappealing, etc etc. He's a physical speciman, strong, fast, older, experienced, dangerous but not to her. And rich, of course.
He'll introduce her to her sexuality so she's not really responsible and sure as heck won't get pregnant. Immortal love and all that.
It's easy to see why the set up is so appealing to young women and girls in our patriarchy, but it's disheartening, too. It's so effing conservative, but when times are scary, conservative seems comforting, I guess.
I can't believe this, but I have a couple specific problems with the book.
1. If you could pass as an adult, would there be any way in hell you'd go back to high school? ANY WAY IN HELL? But there are what, four, five of these "family members" sitting through the hell of high school again, not because they have to, but because? Well, it's not clear why.
2. Why are they rich? There's one earning an income, supporting five (or have I lost count), as a rural doctor, while they drive around in endless sports cars. Yeah. And even the main female character doesn't seem to have money worries. She gets in a cab and pulls out four $20s. Really? Most high school kids carry that sort of money?
3. Predators. In the real world, most predators are actually at a disadvantage getting animal/insect prey. If you look at something like wolves, they give chase a LOT more than they actually catch their prey. That's because they've co-evolved, and if they were able to get their prey every single time, they'd have killed off all the prey, and then they'd either have to find another prey or starve themselves.
It's NOT because predators are smart enough to avoid killing off their prey, but because if things weren't sort of in balance through co-evolution, they'd have died off.
Now think of this predator group: they're FAR superior to their prey. In fact, they're so far superior that just about no prey would survive a predation attempt. (And if it did, it would become a predator, too?)
You don't think a predator that effective would kill off its prey pretty darned quickly? (Think of the flightless birds and how quickly they died off when effective predators got into their previously safish environment.)
Here's the thing: you can imagine a given individual predator choosing not to kill off his/her prey. But the predator next door is at a huge advantage at a given moment if it does take the prey, so long as taking the prey helps its reproductive success. How does that work with a group that doesn't reproduce like mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, fish, or whatever?
4. And finally, how does this sort of group evolve? Yeah, there's that.
But, I talk to my niece and other kids, and it's clear to me that the patriarchal narrative is really attractive, and critical thinking doesn't let you embrace the fantasy nearly as comfortingly.
And I despair.
We need a narrative that's not patriarchal twaddle, or we need to get rid of narrative.