A Total Waste of Makeup

Everyone has dirty little secrets. I’m not talking about a fetish for leather or something. Dirty little secrets like “I like Vin Diesel movies.” I do not, it’s just an example, kids. However, I will admit to watching (and enjoying) American Idol this season despite my attempt to break up with it last year. Liking the odd Fall Out Boy or Panic! At the Disco song. My latest one brings out the lovesick, romantic young teenage self in me. Back when I thought I would have a boyfriend who would actually write me poetry and totally get my angst ridden, misunderstood heart. That teenage self melts all over again for the Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer.

A little background. A few of my friends unanimously raved about the books. Well, they actually said they were totally addicting. These women are some of the coolest and smartest women I know, and partners in literary crime as they are big readers themselves (the others can out themselves in the comments in case they want to keep these as their own dirty little secrets; the two I linked to already outed themselves!). Their goodreads.com shelves awe and shame me from time to time, and my to-read list is always growing thanks to them. A few of my books are currently loaned out to them and vice versa. You get the picture.

So one Saturday, I set out to Barnes and Noble with my birthday gift cards, thinking I’d try Twilight. I’d heard something about vampires, and I dig fantasy stuff on occasion. I go to the information kiosk since B&N seems to enjoy putting the books that I'm looking for out on special tables and I wander around aimlessly.

Me: Hi, I’m looking for a book called Twilight, fiction?
Her: By Stephenie Meyer?
Me: That sounds right.
(Looks on the computer) Her: It’s upstairs…
Me: Cool, so it's up in the sci-fi/fantasy section?
Her: No, it’s in young adult section. I’ll show you.

Oh.

Young adult? Hmmm...I don’t remember that being mentioned in the raves amongst friends. Maybe I should have been tipped off when I looked up the book on B&N.com and there were several comments beginning with “OMGGGGGGG” and “This is my favorite book ever!!!!!!!” Down the rabbit hole I go, or up the escalator as it was, and the nice lady picks the book up off the Young Adult table and hands it to me. I thank her and go on my way.
It wouldn’t be until Thursday that I would start the book. A week from that Thursday? I was three quarters of the way through the third book. A week after the first Saturday, I returned to the place where I get my drugs...erm...books, I picked up New Moon at Barnes and Noble, asking if it was in paperback yet. The B&N man told me it was coming out in May, would I like to pre-order it? Noooooo, I said, clutching the hardcover. I picked up Eclipse an hour later at Target (where they are way cheap, FYI). Totally. Hooked.

Short synopsis for the uninitiated: Bella Swan moves to a small town. Bella meets an impossibly beautiful and mysterious boy, Edward Cullen. They are of course immediately attracted to each other, and even fall in love. There’s a catch though: he’s a vampire.

It was so nice to read a book where I didn’t have to think very hard. And I don’t mean that as an insult to the book because while it’s not poet laureate caliber reading, it was not a stupid book (although the author has a tendency to overuse phrases, to the point where I thought about counting how many times she said ‘my favorite crooked smile’ or ‘his/her eyebrows pulled together’). It just wasn’t completely intricate and didn’t make me constantly turn back to previous pages to get the story straight, and I never read a page without processing what I had just read. Since I’ve mostly given up on chick-lit, this was great. Although it definitely had some chick-lit elements to it, but more on that in an upcoming post. It was also great to time travel back to being 13 years old for a short while when you actually believed all that true love stuff could really happen. Although probably not with vampires.

Since finishing the third book I decided to take a closer look at Twilight fan sites to get more info about the movie, read interviews (I read one before finishing and had something small spoiled), all that. Oh my, are there a lot of Twilight fans. No really. A LOT of Twilighters, as many of them call themselves. They have their own catch phrases like Holy Cullens. Not surprisingly, the majority of the fans are teenagers. Although in my digging over the last couple of weeks, I have discovered Twilight Moms, a forum where you must either be at least one of the following: 25 and older, married, or have kids. I also found a very popular website that produces a podcast series by women in their 20s. I also just read (on the aforementioned podcast site) that there is a guy starting an I’m a Guy who Hearts Twilight blog shortly too.

Girls, boys, men, and women are in love with Bella and Edward and the Cullens and Jacob Black and just…well, all of it. Down the rabbit hole all of us go. Why? They’re borderline adventure books as in, how will we get out of THIS tight spot and they're fantastical. But Meyer doesn’t focus too much on the battle, even though we all want to know how they will get out of it. She instead goes for the heartstrings. At least half to three quarters of Twilight is dedicated to Edward and Bella talking about their feelings for each other. Oh, how their love is naïve and beautiful and all encompassing. There was a time when I thought that could really happen (again, not with vampires). Then to set it into a quasi-mythical world – vampires! Vampires with ethics! Werewolves! True love! It’s like junk food for the brain and a little for the heart, as Jess and I described it once. It’s nice to get back into those old Doc Martens and flannel shirts of my teenage years and think of dreamy boys falling totally and unbelievably in love with the girl next door.

They say admitting your addiction is the first step, right? Well, hold on to your knickers. In case you wanted more, there will be a movie in December. A super buzzed about movie - even MTV movies has an official page for Twilight the movie updates and Twilight Tuesdays (which is further evidence that I am *cough*slightly*cough* above the target age range since I officially outgrew MTV a few years ago). And guess who plays the super dreamy vampire hero du jour? Robert Pattinson, who you might know as Cedric Diggory from the movie for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He’s a perfect Edward Cullen because he’s so hot. And so very pale. And kind of smoldering, as I imagine all good vampires are. See? There’s a picture. And yes, I realize I have firmly placed myself in the dirty old woman category, but I don’t seem to care. He’s 22, so get off my back! I'm even going to embed the newly released trailer at the end of the post because...well, I'm a big dork.

See? There’s just no beating down the romantical teenager in me sometimes. She had mostly given up, after having only a diet of cynicism for so long. Now she is rejoicing in her stretchy pants after indulging in the high calorie, un-nutricious gooey love goodness of Twilight. For any of you who may want to feed that teenager in you, I say go for it. Join us. It’s delicious.