A Shiny Re-Gift

Since the theme is gift, and I am barely dragging today, I am going to do one of my favorite, sketchy things (which I might blog about separately later) and that is "re-gift".  This is a re-gift of a blog post from August 2009 about a gift I was given by one of my best friends.  She came up here to visit during the Summer of 2009 and was appalled that I hadn't even tried to read Twilight yet.  So she bought me a copy at one of the Twilights stores in town.  Please don't tell her what I am about to share with you...

So, it might be of note to admit to everyone that I am from Forks. A town that, until recently, was entirely unknown to everyone but loggers and hippies. A town now made famous by a woman who had never set foot on the Olympic Peninsula, but who wanted to write a book about vampires and werewolves traipsing around the darkest, rainiest and gloomiest corner of the United States. And now here we are.
Twilight is everywhere. Twilight has entirely changed the face of my town. And, I hate to admit it, has kept businesses open and brought a boost to an economy that has long been struggling. Twilight may well be keeping our town alive during this recession. So, I hate to admit it...and I also hate jumping on bandwagons. I resist fads and frenzies and going with the flow. Up until a month ago, I would never have dreamed of actually reading Twilight. I would much rather remain ignorant and decipher what I could from the endless lines of giggling tweens and giddy twenty, thirty and forty-somethings who flock into our town by the hundreds, no thousands, every long weekend or chance they get to ooh and aah over the now condemned, original brick facade of the Forks High School, take their photo in front of the Welcome to Forks sign (no joke, the city paid to build stairs leading up to it) and take the black Twilight tour bus to La Push so they can collect sand. My husband counted (I never realized his attention to detail until this) 34 days in a row of driving into town and seeing at least one car parked on the side of the road next to the Forks sign. Incredible.
That being said - I opened Twilight for the first time about two months ago. I do realize and appreciate the pull of the teen fiction. Hey - I LOVE Harry Potter. I resisted that bandwagon too - for about 3 years. When I finally read the first one, I couldn't put it down. Every time the new one was set to come out, I geared up one to two months before by re-reading the entire series in preparation. I even stood in line at midnight at the Haagen supermarket, eight and a half months pregnant to buy the third Harry Potter book. I totally understand.
So - two months later, I am still halfway through Twilight. Part of me feels like I am just naturally prone to resisting something that has impacted my small town life this much. I could be purposely forcing myself to not be interested just to remain against the flow. I am well aware of this. But I truly just can't hang with the whole vampire thing. Or the werewolf thing either. I mean come on now. (Please disregard that I LOVE Harry Potter and I totally wish I could go to Hogwarts.)

I guess my only favorite part (line) so far (I do plan to force myself to finish) is "Stupid, shiny Volvo owner". (Yes, I saw the bumper sticker, too.) One, because I own a Volvo and it is SO not shiny. Two, because I like to mentally play with whether she meant that the Volvo was shiny and the owner was stupid or the owner of the Volvo was stupid and shiny. Especially when you find out that Edward is sparkly... sparkly, shiny.... pretty close right?
Meyer also did a great job of depicting (at least, so far in my mind) the infatuation, young love phenomenon that most of us experienced when we were in middle school and high school. Remember when we realized that girls and boys were different and shortly after our hormones kicked in? How many of us did NOT write 'I heart so and so' fifty million times on our notebooks in shadowed, shiny bubble letters, only to have to scribble it out a month later when we had a new person to heart? Don't tell me you didn't.
Infatuation is a crazy thing, and reading what I have of Twilight has brought back to memory those feelings that I had about the boys I thought hung the moon. But so far, that is all I see. And I can't yet bring myself to be infatuated with the story. As I wade through the remaining chapters, I will keep you posted. Maybe it'll click. Maybe I'll quit picturing a shiny Volvo owner and get involved. Until then, think about it. Stupid? Shiny?

[UPDATE: I am still on the same chapter and page as when I wrote this blog in August of 2009.  So lo siento all you Twilight lovers.  I just can't get there.  There are a multitude of books that I have found since that time that were more worth my time... (but not shinier).]

[Also noteworthy, I hit an elk with said Volvo in December of 2009.  I am no longer a Volvo owner.  But that doesn't diminish the importance of the stupid, shiny dilemma.]

Comments

  1. I have not jumped on the Twilight Bandwagon. I did read a few Harry Potter books, but not until several years after the first one came out. I have no idea how many books there are now, as I have only read a few, but I did enjoy them. Although, I can't watch the movies. They freak me out a bit. I could probably watch them with the mute button on. It's the darn music that get me. Anyways, I've encountered one book in my adult reading life that I started and just couldn't get into it. No matter how hard I tried. It took me 7 years to finish that book, cause darn it, I was not going to let that book get the best of me (and I have this thing that if I buy a book, spend the money, I should read it, no matter how long it takes). It was called "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson. And now it's a movie, starring Sarah Jessica Parker. (I don't know if it's made it to the theater yet, but I saw the movie cover on the book at the bookstore about a month ago.) I like SJP. So, now I'm curious if the movie could be any better than the book??? Do you think you'll ever finish Twilight? I'm curious if others have the same thoughts about reading books no matter how long it takes. Probably, I'm just weird. :)

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  2. Hey Nicole!! I've nominated you for a little blogger award. You can "pick" up your award over at my page! Have a great evening!!

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  3. I read all of the Twilight books because I read the first one and hated it and wondered if the rest were that bad, too. They were, in fact, worse. Don't feel bad for not finishing. That would have been the sane thing to do. Because now there are all those hours of my life that I can never get back and all that useless knowledge taking up valuable real estate in my head. I watched 10 minutes of the first movie and had to turn it off so that I wouldn't break my hand or the TV by punching Kristen Stewart in the face. I can't believe you live in Forks. I may have to come up and look for vampires some weekend.

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  4. I haven't even attempted Twilight. The few bits a (very young) coworker read aloud to me were enough to scare me away faster than any stupid, sparkly-shiny vampire could.

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  5. @ S. and Mom - Thank you! I feel better for not finishing the book!

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  6. @Taylor - Sometimes they ruin a book when they try to make it a movie. Not sure if I will ever finish Twilight... I have three books waiting to be reviewed right now, and I am reading The Help and Blue Like Jazz... and my bible study. Twilight is last on my list!

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  7. I loved The Help!! I waited until I could receive a copy of it via booksfreeswap.com (because I'm cheap and don't like paying full price for a book). :)

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