Obsession

I started reading Twilight last Wednesday evening, and - oh no!! - I am obsessed. I have been hearing from people for a long time now how good they are, how you can't put them down once you get started, and now I'm living that reality. My friend let me borrow it Wednesday. I took it with me while I worked out and got about 40 pages in. When I entered the exercise room there was a girl on the elliptical. As I sat down on a bike, she noticed the book and exclaimed, "Oh! You're going to love that!" So, maybe the book's not that evil because it helped me make a friend.

I couldn't read Thursday because my little brother and sister moved to town (Yea!! Welcome, you two!). Friday night I just wanted to read, and I was up way later than I should have been getting a couple hundred pages in. Saturday morning (okay, so late Saturday morning - when I finally got up) I told my roommates that I HAD to finish that night. I knew I had to because I knew that if I didn't finish I wouldn't be able to think about anything else on Sunday, and Sunday is not a day to be thinking about vampire romances.

I went to a birthday party and a couple of friends had me over for dinner, but the time surrounding these activities was spent engrossed in the novel. Fortunately, I did finish last night, but man oh man, I feel like I'm going to be no good until I just get it over with and get the rest of the series read. I don't see myself being able to do more than one a week, due to a full-time job and various other responsibilities/activities, so I feel like life will be a meaningless blur to me for the next three weeks, outside of the time I am able to read. I will be like Bella, who hazes her way through moments without Edward, always waiting for the next opportunity to be with him.

Uggh!! It's not like the book was a brilliant work of literature. It's just a teen romance. It reminded me of A Long Fatal Love Chase, by Louisa May Alcott, which is one of her not-so-great novels. You just love it because it pulls you through an adventure, with exciting happenings in every chapter. And, like my friend Lu told me, "I know why girls like it!" It's every girl's dream to have a gorgeous, dangerous dude who loves you and just wants to protect you, even though you're just a normal girl, with nothing special to offer. So it feeds into our fantasies.

It doesn't help that I've had a secret crush on vampires for a long time now, either. I think it started with seeing my high school's production of Dracula. I even used to dream about vampires occasionally. So, though I have never read a vampire book before, I was fairly certain that I would enjoy Twilight. I just didn't bargain on getting so sucked in.

I feel kind of guilty spending my whole weekend reading a book, but I do have to say that it was a relaxing way to spend it after the first week with my students. So, way to go, Stephanie Meyer! You've got me hooked.

And, p.s. Lu - anytime you want to have that chat just let me know - only I might not be available for awhile, for obvious reasons (for you, though, I think I could make an exception).