I'm Obsessed!

My last post was a scant 6 days ago, and in that time I have polished off another 1,100 pages of the Twilight series!!!! I am absolutely crazy about this story and the characters... every time some character does something I hate, they totally redeem themselves. Reading these books is almost surreal... I can FEEL what the characters feel... its nuts! This author is so DAMN good that I CANNOT put her books down even to eat or sleep!

And anyone who knows me (and since only people who know me read this, that would be all of you) I am not a good reader. It took me like 6 months to read The Lord of the Rings, and that was also a damn good book. But this Twilight thing is different... Its a total compulsion! I don't read cause I want to I read cause I HAVE to! When I'm not reading (like right now!) I envy the time my future and past self will have/had with the books... I know that sounds kinda sick, but I'm sorry, I'm not one for sugar coating my thoughts (though it might pay off to work on that)

I have had only one other experience like this (Of course, my memory sucks so much maybe I'm forgetting another insane addiction, though I doubt it)... I am speaking, of course, of the best Fantasy comic ever to grace the shelves of the independent publisher section in comic shops... Elfquest. This was a comic I started reading in graphic novel format when I was in middle school. Though it began publication in 1978 its still a wonderfully modern story with amazing characters and beautiful art. Unfortunately, like all things it has come to a near stand still, if not an end. Though there is still a chance for a revival, I am happy with my memories.

I used to read that comic over and over and over (all 10+ graphic novels!) It was to the point that my friends (who were also hopelessly addicted for a while) could read one sentence from any page in any book and I could tell them exactly what was happening, what it looked like, to such an extreme detail its almost embarrassing... My mom would thought if I put as much effort into my school work as I put into the world of EQ that I would get much better grades! ;) She also thought it was some crazy D&D obsession and I would end up jumping from tree to tree in tights with a long bow hunting deer... Neither of those things happen... mothers have to worry thought right? Or they wouldn't be mothers :)

Anyway, My obsession with EQ lasted many years and faded when I entered college with only 2 graphic novels to call my own (bk. 4 and hidden years) and no friends who like EQ like I did, and only one who knew anything about it. So my addictive personality laid dormant for 10 years until I was wandering aimlessly though an airport in NJ waiting to catch a flight back to Korea... I found my favorite place, a bookstore... any bookstore, and walked around. I saw the display for the Twilight books and remembered that some of my students had mentioned it and that it was going to be a movie. All I knew is that it was about vampires in high school... boy was I wrong. But I picked up the book anyway. It was the movie edition so it tried to give me some impression of what the characters looked like on the front... and after reading the book I can say that the characters in the movie look like a poor imitation of the ones in the book... but the actors are only human... what more could they do? Movie magic can only do so much.... GOD I sound like a freak.

So, I sat in the bookstore reading the first book and I couldn't leave... I was so engross that I stayed there for two hours and read the first four chapters... I was in such an uncomfortable position but I didn't care. I had no idea if my plane had landed or even taken off, so I bought the book and continued on my journey. Unfortunately I was in the middle of like 2 other books at the time so I didn't let myself continue with Twilight at that time. I finished the other two books and went into my closet to choose my next book and in the back I found Twilight... honestly I said to myself "lets get this silly teen book over with" Boy did I underestimate how I would feel about this story.

I had already read the first 4 chapters, but ... its me people... I couldn't really remember them... I bought it like two months ago... that's like decades for my goldfish brain. So I skimmed through the first few confusing chapters and continued on... and then I was HOOKED! OMG, the way this author can write intense emotions and really intimate situations is just mind boggling... maybe I just don't read enough books with any kind of emotion... guess that happens when your an SF girl, but wow... this was great.

I just want to get something straight... when it all comes down to it, this is not a book about vampires... its a book about so much more. That's really what I love about it. Reading this book gives me adventure, love, hate, confusion, violence, peace, and moments of all kinds that actually cause my temperature to rise and my head to get dizzy! Now, I just need someone else to read this so they can tell my I'm insane. There has to be something wrong with me that I love this story so much. I've read 3 out of 4 books and I'm eager for the 4th and even more eager to start reading them all over again! Especially the first!

I've never been able to concentrate on a novel like this for such an extended period of time... just to provide some perspective here... the first three books are about 1,600 pages and I have read that in about 2 weeks... now I know these are teen books, but the only other really long book I've read was TLOTRs and that was 1,200 pages... of course much harder... totally an adult book, lots more big words and a lot less dialogue... but still... like I said, that took me 6 mths! Maybe I should stick to teen books for a while!

Ok, time to write formal reviews on my book reviews page and then move on to the final book. It looks like its written in the style of Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I really enjoyed in HS... I borrowed these books from my student, and I REALLY don't want to give them back... I also really don't want to sleep at all tonight... I might be up late tomorrow mom... but I'll try to wake up in time to vid chat with you!!! call me if I don't and wake me up! Night!