Twas Brillig

Ahhh, come on.  You know how I hate to be left out of a good party.  If everyone else is talking about Stephanie Meyer’s fourth and last installment to the Twilight series, then I really have to also.

Okay, that’s a lie.  The truth is, it’s the sort of thing I never would have read if I’d heard the hype first.  Fortunately for me, I happened to be in a bit of a bubble and I’d really never heard of the books.  My dear friend Kate, who is NEVER in a bubble, came to town (back when I was a Utahn, doncha know) and handed me a pile of books and said, “read these.”  And since I pretty much do whatever Kate tells me to, I did.

All three in 32 hours.

THEN I heard the hype.  THEN I realized that I was the biggest cliche in the whole world.  Understand that this is something I fight against all the time.  I mean, I am yet to allow a Harry Potter book into my home.  The Lord of the Rings movies will never be watched in this house.  And no, Princess Fluffy, you CAN’T have a Camp Rock t-shirt.  But apparently, I’d just finished reading (and obsessing over) the biggest trilogy ever to hit the literate (and even quasi-literate) female population as a whole.  And I agonized over the fact that I’d not only read them, but I’d liked them.

Now, let’s face it.  Stephanie Meyer is a fun story teller, but she’s not a brilliant writer.  Catchy, yes.  She was able to concoct an amazing chemistry between characters who you really shouldn’t like and yet…  you can’t help it.  You care about what happens to this whiny girl and her 17-year-old vampire boyfriend.  Obviously she’s done SOMETHING right.  And yet, come on.  Her books look completely out-of-place on my shelf full of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Poe, Neruda, and even M. Catherine Thomas.  Still… there they sit.

And then, this weekend, my nieces who are 12 and 14 (and seriously the most gorgeous teenagers you’ve ever heard of) were here in Colorado (along with their four other siblings and their mom who is, in fact, my sister— not this sister or this sister, but this sister — so many stories to tell from the weekend, but this parenthetical is probably NOT the place…) and of course they, like every other teenager in America (and more especially, like every MORMON teenager in America) were also counting down… to midnight… and the sale of that certain book.  I half-heartedly suggested to Amy (my sister, their mom) that she let me take her girls to the local bookstore for the countdown to midnight to buy the book.  But we were all tired, and since the girls weren’t even going to be allowed to read the book yet until another responsible adult had read it first and approved it, it was silly to go.

But, the next day, I did sneak the girls out to go shopping (not really— their parents were fully aware that I was taking them, PLUS they needed shoes desperately and Amy wasn’t real keen on going shoe shopping, but I WAS) with me and Princess Fluffy at THE. MALL.  And lo and behold, we passed a Borders.  So I went in, with squealing girls in tow, and bought Breaking Dawn.  Yup.  On THE DAY it was released, I bought it.  And I’m feeling, um, rather sheepish about admitting that.  I’d love to blame it on Gwen and Kathryn, but… it was all me.

When we got home (back to my house, that is) I sorta pushed my new book towards Gwen, who sorta cracked open the cover, and then sorta started to read the book… for about 2 hours until her parents noticed and announced that she needed to be done.  (I’m such a bad influence.  They were probably so relieved to get their precious girls away from me!)

What this means is that I haven’t actually read the book yet, though it’s been in my possession for about 36 hours.  I’m actually rather proud of my restraint (but don’t ask me tomorrow— my restraint will most certainly have gone out the window by then).

All of this leads me to my point:

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And, if you HAVE bought it, have you already finished it?

Are my readers as silly as I am? And are you willing to admit it?