If anyone has been reading, then you'll maybe note that I mentioned that I would explain the mother-in-law situation this week. However, I'm in a good mood, so why ruin it? Really?

Instead, I'm going to talk about my newest infatuation-DO NOT LAUGH-Twighlight. Yeah, I'm going there. I recently had my appendix out and there were some, um, complications, so I had a small extended stay. And while confined to this white prison, I had nothing better to do than to read. My husband bought the first two installments of Twighlight for me from Half-Priced Books as a Valentine's Day gift, which I was delighted (don't get me wrong, I am easy to please), but I thought it was a little juvenille. My little sisters, both in high school at the time, were the ones that brought this story to my attention, giving me my arrogant attitude toward it. I should've have not judged the books by their, well, teen-aged followers.

The author of the Twighlight series, a woman named Stephanie Meyer, is an amazing talent, which (now knowing of her) I cannot imagine a world without. She definitely has an amazing imagination, a skill of drawing her audience in deeply, and a hopelessly romantic heart. The latter is something that I didn't realize how interesting it could be, because it's never been something I've cared about. I'm a pretty cut-and-dry, get to the point kind of person down inside myself. I had no idea what I was missing out on :)

The characters are so well thought out that, despite the fact that there are vampires and werewolves and a girl who is both in love with a vampire and best friends with the werewolf (yeah, like that could ever happen-we all know that vampires and werewolves hate each other, duh!) (lol), despite the so very obvious fiction, you can't help but get attached to each of the characters in some way or another. Finishing my read of the second installment, New Moon, (figuratively) killed me. It felt like I had lost contact with the very dearest of friends, with a part of my soul that I hadn't known existed. It feels like utter torture waiting for my turn at a copy of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, the third and fourth books of the series (respectively). I cannot bring myslef to explain why, to give any sort of synopsis of this story, because I am truely grateful that no one had done that to me. It was so worth the wait.

Watching the movie was horrid, however. Both of the lead characters were just as I had pictured, but there were so many changes that it was sad. I imagine that is the way that it goes, yet I've never seen a Stephen King movie transformed in such a way. So many vital parts were dismembered, new things added that didn't belong. I have had my joy in reading renewed, thanks to this gifted author. I cannot brag on her talents enough, and what's worse, apparently no one in her circle can either.

Because I am human, and aching to know what happens next, I visited Ms. Meyer's website to find anything I could at all. This woman had posted an apology front and center of her website, citing that a person she had once trusted had taken an incomplete draft of a new book to be added to the series and posted it to the internet-one that she felt had to be written, and was now contemplating trashing it because of this. She posted this "partial draft" there on her site, and had mentioned something about how she wanted her readers to get it from her rather than out on the web someplace. Quite understandable. So I downloaded it. If you have read Twighlight at all then you know that the entire story reads through the eyes of the main character, Bella Swan. However, her main focus, Edward, had a story to tell, as well-and so she began to draft Midnight Sun for his sake. It took me two hours-TWO-to sit infront of my screen, nothing to eat or drink, no bathroom breaks. I had it read, all twelve chapters, in two hours. And, it is beyond amazing. All of the little holes in the story that I hadn't realized were there, had been filled in.

I swore that I was never going to jump on the Twighlight band wagon, that I couldn't see what all the hype was about. Then I read it. Now I'm among the millions and millions of fans that cannot be pulled away from this series. Please, no matter how much I ask-don't tell me what happens. As of Sunday, I am number six on the list from the library to be called for the copies of the third and fourth books, and it is agony waiting. In the meantime, I've found another of her novels, called The Host, which has nothing to do with my obsession, but it also has everything to do with it. It's not the books, it is the author. (That was my epiphany just now). Wow.

~Katie~