Maybe I am getting old...

You know your getting old when you pick up a book from the pharmacy (cause your there to get all your meds)and you think 'vampires... cool'. Without realizing there is a hype about the book (which usually actually means a bad read--- Da Vinci Code... need I say more?). Can you guess already that I am refering to Twilight? I like a good urban fantasy or paranormal romance. I find them to be fast paced, easy reads that I can absorb when I have a migraine without forgeting the plot, but are also enjoyable (sometimes sinfully so) and tend to have a lot of action. Usually, they are great reads, fun and sometimes dark.

It was by far the worst book I have read this year... and I read about three books a week on average lately (bad migraine year). It was the sort of book that was painfully slow to start and then did not go anywhere.... until it became just painful. You kept expecting it to go somewhere, but it didn't. I read about four or five books while struggling not to bore myself to tears reading Twilight. It came very close to going on that pile of books I have half read but are so poorly written or the plots are just so tiresome you stack them up for when you run out of anything else to read, or re-read. The only reason it did not, was because it was a fast read, when you got to it. So I finished it and thought 'well, no point buying the next one'. Then I forgot that I finished it, because the ending at been so anti-climatical that when I watched the movie (cause for some reason i thought it might be better as a visual and maybe action packed vampire flick)... I kept expecting something else to happen, cause I thought I had not finished the book... turns out I had and thus the ending of the movie was just as sad as the book.

I have to wonder that if I was a teen (maybe 12 or 13) this book might have been better. It is obviously geared to a younger audience and so what I found to be tiresome and lame might have been interesting to a younger generation. But then i remember at 12 I was reading the Chronicles of Amber (which I borrowed from my dad's shelf). Which to this day remains my fav fantasy series and have re-read it numerous times. I remember by that age the Chronicles of Narnia set lasted me a few days and was only moderately entertaining. So maybe Twilight would never have been the book for me.

If a book has next to nothing for plot and a mystery that is no mystery (oh... he is a vampire)... then what is the appeal? I have read some trashy romanaces that were by far not the best written or with indepth plots... but at least they were fun and there is an obvious progression to the characters relationship. I read Anne Rice when I was a kid and loved those books... the plots were interesting, the characters dark and disturbing... all good stuff. I think it must be an age thing. I think I am far too old to enjoy teenie books... and maybe, too old even when I was a teen.

Most books are worth reading. Some have more depth than others. Some you read for different reasons than others. There are only a few books that are so bad you can't finsish reading them and you wonder how they got published in the first place. I am just one of those people that does not like those books people seem to rave on about. The Da Vinci Code was just a lame predictable version of Foucault's Pendulum . Never saw the appeal to the Harry Potter thing. And obviously I find Twilight lacking. I suppose my tastes are off. If it is a best seller and a 'must read' then apparently you can take it right off my list. Now I get why the Harry Potter ones don't appeal to me... I am not anywhere near the target audience for them and I think they are awesome for kids these days (encouraging kids to read is awesome) And I get the hype on the Da Vinci Code... which was hype becase of the idea of the grail being the bloodline of christ (which is not a new thing at all, but got people's panties in a bunch), but it was not a good book... you could see the plot and the ending a mile away (that one did make a better movie). But I totally don't get the hype on Twilight... maybe the teens love the guys in the movie... but the book was so utterly dull and predictable. Maybe the series gets better, but obviously not my scene.