News Bites

Well, I have a couple of things to discuss today. One of them is kind of embarrassing so I might as well come right out with it: I have been "bitten" by the Twilight bug. (Ha! See what I did there?) I really can't believe it either.

I've been seeing these books in the stores for a while now and I would pick them up and read the back covers and then put them back down again. I love a good vampire tale as much as the next morbid person (Anne Rice anybody?) but these seemed a little silly and youthful and gossip girly to me.

Then came the movie buzz. Photos of Robert Pattinson kept turning up on some of the websites I go to and I'm here to tell you that he is seriously good looking. People are saying the series is the next Harry Potter. I overhear grown women like me requesting the books at the library. Then I inadvertently click on the trailer - and I decide I'm going to have to see the movie. But first I need to read the book.


What????


So off to the local booksellers to buy the first one, Twilight. It's over 400 pages long and 24 hours later I'm finished with it. I return the very next day to the same store and purchase the rest of the series. I don't know what to tell you. It's not Pulitzer Prize winning or Oprah's Bookclub either (thank God for that) but Stephanie Meyers knows how to tell a tale. The pages just keep turning. It's at heart a romance but a very intense, stirring one, with supernatural creatures, breath taking action, and an all-permeating sense of ill foreboding. I want to know what happens next and more than that, what will Edward do? For better or worse, I feel like an overwrought 14 year old.


I get it next!


I also read the next one in a day, 500 + pages. This is getting ridiculous. It's all I think about. I make some decisions: don't bring it in the car for one or I'll read at stop lights, at the dentist's office, in line at the grocery. Judging from the depression I felt when I finished the final Harry Potter, or the Return of the King, I know I'll be miserable when I finish the last book. So I decide to ration myself. Only a hundred pages a day. Also, the way I feel is just too intense! I don't even allow myself to start the third one until I've calmed down a bit, which in the end takes several days.


I guess everyone is reading it.



The movie opens on Friday in the US but not here until Dec. 4th. But good news! I'll be in Houston then and I can see it as soon as my jet lag clears! Who's in??

Yes, I am coming home for the holidays. Since Robert is out of school for most of December, he and I are headed to the States for the entire month. I will be in Houston from the 1st until the 14th when I fly to Vegas for a week. After that, it's Christmas in Covington, TN and then back through Houston for a day before jetting back to beautiful Abu Dhabi. I feel like a rock star on tour. So if you live in or near any of those places you can come see me and I will sign your copy of Twilight for you!

love,
Jaimie