The Twilight Craze

I have lots of things I should write about. Thanksgiving. How James said Karrie's bowels smelled worse than dead people. How in the Christmas spirit I am.

But no, I have been taking some Kim-time and reading fiction and I have been reading Twilight. ALL of my girls are or have read it. ALL of them. I find that a little strange. One because they are big fat five hundred plus page books. Two - all of them - crosses a wide range of likes, dislikes, and interests. Three- this book is not in the library. So for all of them to have read it they must be buying them and passing them around. I talked to Sunhsine over the weekend and she had read the whole series and assured me that they were good books. So I figured if Sun liked them, they couldnt be too bad.

So I asked one of my girls if she would have the first one done by Thanksgiving and if so, could I borrow it. She did. Pretty much that is what I spent my Saturday doing. I do not read a whole lot of fiction - mostly because I am finding it harder to capture my interest, it costs money to buy books (and somehow i am too incompetent to go to the library), and when I read fiction, if I like it, I get sucked in and I am pretty useless to do other things - things that I need to be doing.

On Monday I got the second book in the series because the preview in the first book for the second book was a perfect cliffhanger. I had to know if Bella got eaten by the entire Cullen family. I finished the book on Wednesday - even though I had a million things to do and plan for. I squeezed in time while I was eating dinner, eating lunch, and during directed study (which is when the kids read - I actually read this time too - most of the time I am tutoring).

I am not one hundred percent sure I like these books. They are interesting and I want to know what happens. I love the detail of locations and how the author describes exactly how people are behaving and acting, and I like the detail that expresses the differences between vampires and werewolves and humans. I DO NOT like Bella. I think she is too whiny. "Don't leave me" is my least favorite phrase and her most favorite. I havent decided if I like Edward. I am not in love with him. I do like Jacob. I like Alice. I like all of the other Cullens actually, even Rosalie (that b**). But Bella - I liked her when she rode motorcyles and got all independent. BUT.

SPOILER. I am so mad that when Edward came back she immediately got back together with him and went back to her old habits. Maybe they do other things... but it seems liek a whole lot of sitting around and hanging out. I guess that is not how I see myself. Kelley and others have told me that maybe the middle schoolers like her because they see similarities between her insecurities and theirs.

I think that the middleschoolers like it for its sappy happy ending route and the fact that the boys are gorgeous and now there is a movie so they exactly picture this gorgeous boy and print out his picture, and wear him on a tshirt, and have a bag and lalalalala. Although most of the ones that I know that read it, loved it before there was a movie out - though they probably paid attention to the sort of thing that the movie was coming out.

Anyway. A third girl is bringing me the third book tomorrow. I will admit I was disappointed that she did not finish it today (she only has twenty pages left), but probably that is better because I have things that need to be graded and some planning to do. And maybe I can find someone to loan me the fourth.

Another girl (realize that all these comments from girls are from different girls because like I said - they have ALL read them or are reading them) told me I needed to go see the movie because the boys were sooooo hot. And I said, " and they are so your age." "No they are not - they're 16!" she muttered indignantly. Well 16. I forget that I work with 13 year olds (don't remind me). I pointed out to her that 16 was still nowhere close to my age seeing as I am an old lady. Haha.

Kelley is reading the series too - and apparently so are her coworkers - and she has already read the third book and we giggled as we discussed the books. We might go see the movie. The movie is probably totally worthless. However I think it will be funny to see and I will enjoy seeing it with Kelley. Plus, as Kelley pointed out, it lets Aaron off the hook.

So yes, if you want an opinion, I think the Twilight series may be worth reading. They are surely keeping me interested enough to keep reading them. I suppose you cant always like all the characters. I wonder if I could get my kids to read Marillier. Now there are some series worth reading.