A slightly embarrassing addiction

My decision was made, made before I'd ever consciously chosen, and I was committed to seeing it through. Because there was nothing more terrifying to me, more excruciating, than the thought of turning away from him. It was an impossibility. - Bella, in Twilight


On the way to Denver, I picked up a copy of Twilight as I was browsing in the airport bookstore. I wasn't planning on buying it, but suddenly I was five minutes and ten pages into the book...and I didn't want to put it down. I knew even as I started reading it that the series is geared toward teens. Descriptions about people so beautiful they are like "airbrushed pages on a fashion magazine" are good indicators of the target audience. But still, I was hooked.

A few nights later, I was lying on my bed, completely absorbed in the book. Toby had been on the porch playing the guitar when our neighbors asked us to come over for a beer. Since the girls were sleeping, only one of us could go, so I happily continued reading while he went over to socialize. An hour later, he returned and announced that the neighbors wanted me to stop by as well. Grudgingly, I put down the book and walked across the street to greet three slightly drunk couples smiling at me from the front porch. Feeling that I needed some explanation for my disheveled hair, sweatpants and wrinkled t-shirt, I apologized for my appearance, telling them that I had just been in bed reading. When they asked the inevitable, "What are you reading?", I paused for a minute. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was on my bedside table. A respectable, Pulitzer-prize winning, grown-up book. But I decided to go for honesty and instead admitted, "Umm, I'm reading Twilight." Amused smiles all around. Turns out all three couples have daughters who are all currently reading the series. And all of their daughters are in fifth grade.

OK, so that was a little bit embarrassing. But you know what? I found out the next day that I'm actually in good company. When admitted what I was reading on Facebook, within minutes several friends well over the age of fourteen came clean with their own addictions to the series. One friend declared that her children lived in dirty clothing and ate dried cereal for a week because she couldn't put the books down. Another compared it to her childhood addiction to Sweet High Valley. (Who can forget Jessica and Elizabeth and their "perfect size 6" figures?) It was a relief to hear that I wasn't the only grown woman who was bumping into walls while walking around the house holding up a copy of Twilight.

All of this was very reassuring when today, I found myself in Barnes and Noble, unable to wait for six more weeks before New Moon is available at the library. When I asked where I could find the Twilight series, the woman at the counter directed me to the teen section. I smiled sheepishly but she had her own confession to make: "My daughter and I both love those books."

And so, if you haven't read the book yet...and if you're a woman (because there's no denying this is chick lit)...you might want to give it a try. It's not great writing. And even the plot, with the beautiful but often helpless main character and her strong "movie star handsome" boyfriend, reads a bit like a dated fairytale. But you may suddenly find yourself falling in love with a teenage vampire as you attempt to read while folding laundry. And that just doesn't happen every day.