Something Funny. . .

I read the Twilight series.

Ha ha! If you're not laughing right now, you probably don't know me. But, believe me, it's funny. I laugh every time I think about it. I read the Twilight series! Ha ha ha! (See? :))

Not that I never read easy-to-read books, because I definitely do. I just don't tend to be very interested in: A) novels written for 13-year-olds; B) novels everyone—everyone—is reading (makes me very skeptical... :)); C) novels written for 13-year-olds that 33-year-olds are acting like 13-year-olds over. Oh, and D) novels about vampires. Hehe. 

But, here's the funniest thing: I actually liked them! Ha ha! Not in a way to make me carve "I heart Edward" into my furniture or anything. . . . Hehe. Or to bang on Barnes and Noble windows with 100 wild women to get the newest release when the clock strikes twelve. . . . But I liked them. :) So much of the story was really very sweet, and I think Stephenie Meyer actually did a really decent job at creating interesting, whole characters (for the most part). It was kind of fun! 

(Oh, and don't worry—no spoilers here. :))

Here's my great sorrow, though. . . . Oh! The agony! I think my favorite book of the series was Twilight—and its big climax could have been SOOOOO good. You know. . . . The part with the. . . hand. . . . :) OooOOOoooh.... [While I shudder.] Could have been amazing. But it kind of fell flat. I finished and thought, argh! If only she hadn't written it from Bella's perspective! And by the fourth book, when she did experiment with writing from another perspective I was seriously mad at her. Why not in the first book?!!! Why?!! Why?!!! Seriously, it might just be silly teen fiction about vampires, but that one scene could have been a really awesome conflict. I drool just thinking about its awesomeness! But it doesn't exist. So sad.... (I do predict, however, that she's going to pull an Orson Scott Card one of these days, and rewrite the series from Edward's perspective. And then—then!—we'll get that scene in all its glory. We'll see! I think I'll be right. :))

One reason I had fun reading these is that the writing style totally made me laugh! Back before I had even heard of these books, a friend of mine asked if I'd read them, saying they totally reminded her of me! When Matt read them a long while later, it dawned on me that those were the books she was talking about—I told Matt what she had said and he started laughing his head off. "It's true! They totally sound like you! HA HA HA!!" And several others agreed as well. It made me curious to read them! But I didn't, and then I forgot again about all those people talking about it. When I was a couple chapters into Twilight, I suddenly had the thought that "haha! This sounds like me!" And then I remembered that I wasn't the first to think that. Hehe. Anyway, that made for some fun reading for me. Bella talks just how I talk in my journal! See what I mean that my posterity will have the all wrong impression? But I can't help it! It's just too fun to write that way! :)

So Bella and I talk much the same way, but there are also lots of other reasons we're kindred spirits! It was like reading a really tripped-out story about myself! (Not that I attract impossibly perfect vampires. :))

• She's lethally bad at volleyball! (Don't ever, ever ask me to play. Really. :))

• In high school, she was totally disgusted with herself when she was dumb enough to crush on someone.

• But she hardly ever had a crush on anyone. And she always rolls her eyes at shameless flirts. Hehe. (So dumb. Flirts are, that is. :))

• She'd rather wear jeans! Always. :)

• She loathes the idea of school dances. 

• At any time, she might randomly start comparing life to a scene or character in some book her audience probably hasn't read. :)

• She uses m-dashes and ellipses liberally—as in this sentence—to add dramatic impact to her run-on sentences. . . . Yes!

• She often accidentally led guys on (sorry all...lots of you... :-|) and then acts the same way about letting them down that I always did. Very stressful. ;-)

• She inherently distrusts any female who appears to spend more than two minutes on her hair and/or wears too much make-up.

• She always has a guy sneak into her room for the night. (Oh, um. . . . Uh. . . . ;))

• Her sense of humor is exactly like mine! Haha! Exactly! Especially when she'd crack some cynical little joke in the midst of some actually-horrible thing. That's me! Made me laugh.

• Oh, and she also deals with pain exactly like me. I was totally in her head on that.

• She's almost entirely unreadable and hard to get to know. Does not wear her heart on her sleeve, whether she wants to or not (but she usually doesn't want to :)).

• Her modus operandi (ha ha! That's such a ridiculous term!) is self-control! I was more than totally in her head about that. Bella never would have wanted to get drunk—way too creepy to not be in control. . . . Riding on the back of a vampire. . . ? Having needles stuck into you? Being really. . . thirsty? ;) I was always in her mind with stuff like that because I'm exactly the same! 

It was kind of weird! The only times I didn't feel like I was actually reading about myself were when she'd tell someone off with some beautiful quip—it was always the exact kind of thing I'd think but not have the guts to say. Then again, my life hasn't been quite so intense as Bella's. Hehe. Maybe under considerably more pressure, I'd actually say those things. :) If I hung around with vampires, that is. Ha ha! Anyway, it definitely amused me. Me and Bella. Twinners. :) Go figure. 

So my basic take on the stories were that Bella was fun, and that Stephenie Meyer definitely succeeded with Edward. (Could there be a better Prince Charming? The impossibly beautiful and powerful man who loves you SOOOO much he won't. . . um. . . . eat you. . . . Ha ha! Oh, but of course he really wants to. Because he's sensual that way. . . . Hehe.) And all the Cullens were great. Very intriguing. But I hated—loathed!—the whole Jacob sub-plot. Blech. When it was clear he wasn't going away, I almost stopped reading! Halfway through the fourth book I was starting to find him a little interesting. But up until that point, the whole Jacob story was really lame—and totally brought out things that were entirely uncharacteristic of people! It just didn't make sense. It was lame. I hated it! ("I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to absolute detestation!" :)) I don't think Ms. Meyer got in the groove on that one until it was way too late. . . . (However, to be fair, my favorite chapter in any book—since the hand scene wasn't quite what it could have been—was the one called "there are no words for this," or something like that. It was excellent!)

The rest of my take is summed up with saying that the first and fourth books were my favorite. And the second book was mostly really painful and boring. And the third book was somewhere in between. . . . :) Overall, I enjoyed them about 1000 times more than I expected.

Anyway. . . . Twilight books. They amused me. :) And kind of fun to have such a totally easy read. I don't, however, suggest reading the whole series too quickly. Hehe. I was trying to get the whole thing over with so I wouldn't have to bring any books home with me (from Matt's mom), and I definitely over-consumed. Ha ha! My dreams have been insane. It's really ridiculous! It reminds me of when we watched the entire series of Lost in a just a few weeks a little while ago—bad, bad idea! (Don't do it!)

Oh, and inquiring minds keep wanting to know if we're going to see the movie. :) Eh. Not without a substantial bribe. :) All we needed to see was a picture of "Bella" and "Edward" staring longingly into each other's pathetic teenager eyes to know we'd never see the movie. They were no WAY Bella and Edward. Fun books, but I'd bet my life they made a painful movie! Coffee-shop-flirty-nerd-emo-"Edward" and too-much-makeup-"Bella" can't be as fun a story. . . . :) And I can't watch movies of books, anyway, without the movie images replacing what my own imagination came up with (hence the reason I despise animated scripture videos—I'll never be able to picture Abraham and Isaac as non-cartoons again!). So. . . . No. No movie for us. Besides, it looks like there are a bunch of good movies coming out soon! We've gotta save up. :)