Reading Twilight

Well, it’s bedtime, but I don’t feel like going to bed. Dave’s doing the taxes and I’ve been reading Breaking Dawn, the last book in the Twilight series. My friend Emily started this by passing around the first book. I was thinking about reading it anyway, because everybody on the bus has been reading it and I like to keep up with the book of the moment. I won’t say too much, because my friend Stu has written a delightfully incisive post about the whole series on his blog, here.

But I’m halfway through the fourth installment: it’s even broken into books, and I’m staring down Book Three. And now I know why Emily grinned superciliously this morning after church, when I ranted about what I thought was going to happen. I was SO wrong. And what seems to be happening is perfect! It’s the only way to solve the problem without making me feel betrayed. How in heaven’s name do people come up with this stuff? Why, why, why do I not wake up having dreamed about vampires and werewolves and write a series that makes us millions? My imagination is rusty. And, quite frankly, I’m not sure I can write the grown-up, slightly misogynistic, sexually-charged conversations this book relied upon. And what’s up with the titles? They relate to each other, but not to the content of the books. Weird.

These things are candy for the brain. They give Nora Roberts (my favorite vacationing-with-Elaina author) a run for her money. A serious, Leah-fast run for her money. The guilty pleasures are the most fun, aren’t they?