toxic relationships

1. Twilight Saga - Stephenie Meyer.

The good thing about talking about such a popular saga, both in film and in literature, is that we can spare a bit the summary of the story, in which we basically have a vampire in love with a human with a werewolf in the middle to complete the romantic tension and a rather strange threesome.

Outside of the literary style or the somewhat strange vampires that this author presents us - because of course, they shine in the sunlight instead of dying - it is to analyze the relationship between Bella and Edward: was it really love?

I don't know, at twenty-seven, I'd say no. But hey! When I read it at 15, I died to every word and in every book without thinking more than the fact that it was a romantic story with obstacles and problems to bring them to the inevitable happy ending, but what had to happen for that happiness to come? ?

Well, here we have everything from control of friendships and family visits, to emotional dependence - on both sides -, blackmail, superiority and inferiority that change from character to character as the plot unfolds, behavioral conditioning, jealousy, two tremendously possessive men and other dominants ... where the heck is love? Or are they telling us that this is the love to aspire to? Do you have to lose your personality and personal goals to be with someone?

Go back a few years in time and think about it, surely things don't seem as romantic as it did almost fifteen years ago.

2. Fifty Shades Trilogy - E.L. James.

books like 50 shades of gray

Let's put it like this: an innocent and naive girl, a billionaire and mysterious man. That does sound like the couple of the year, right? Well, Anastasia Steele and Christian Gray with the protagonists of this story.

Here the point is not only the sexual and erotic issue - I don't know if it is still controversial, but in its time it was about the BDSM behaviors that the book addresses - but that this is presented to us as a love story. In other words, a man, due to his condition and sexual behavior, enjoys subduing and controlling the life of another person - that is, the master and the submissive - with the twist of the screw that the enigmatic billionaire decides to change his life to be next to him. In Anastasia, however, jealousy and control are constantly ingredients within the story, as well as the other situations that she must accept in order to be with him — and that deep down, she always knew they were not correct.

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Yes, I also got excited and devoured all five books in the series (the original trilogy and the two books published from Christian's perspective) however this is not a healthy relationship! Who, in their right mind, would transform their entire life and accept things that make them feel bad in favor of being with a man?

As an exciting read — and maybe even exciting — I agree with her but… romance novel? No, gentlemen.

We must not be confused.

3. After Saga - Anna Todd.

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She tells the story of Tessa, a girl about to enter college whom we could call "a good girl": good family, studious, responsible and calm ... until she meets Hardin - you know: the typical rebel without a cause , tremendously handsome and otherwise problematic in all circles of his life — with whom he begins a romantic relationship for a bet in order to be the first to take her to bed. Yes, a bet (is it net?). And the problem lies precisely in that: Tessa is tremendously in love and Harding ... maybe not so much (although of course, we later found out that it is (oh, yes spoiler), and that the ingredient that holds them together is the rather peculiar dose of adrenaline. That, the question boils down to: what does a person have to endure to discover that another person is in love with them?

Because sure, Hardin changes in the end, but at what cost? Since, to retain it, she uses sex as bait and evidently generates a bond of unhealthy emotional codependency.

Also, god! The fact that someone comes into our life to limit our dreams and aspirations - because Tessa knows where she wants to go and what her goals are - but Harvin is constantly her brake with jealousy, blackmail and the famous "without you I am nothing" or "I can't live without you." And who, by the way, limits her friendships, besides that we constantly immerse ourselves in the protagonist's pain for all the actions of her "boyfriend" and her life goes by trying to solve all her issues.

The abuse in this novel is not physical, it is through control, the fact that they make you feel inferior or little special, they are reduced to the fact that they also hurt and yes, whatever they say, that is violence. How far is it worth "holding on" —if love is about holding on — to be with someone?

The mess is that, as the story has the happy ending in which Hardi