Once Bitten

I'm sorry. I've neglected you again, but let me explain.

You know I am a voracious reader. You know all life stops if I get my hands on a book I really enjoy. If you don't know this, you're fairly new here, Hi! nice to meet you.

Wait, back up, that can't be where my explanation begins....

I live in England. I am an American in Norfolk. I have access to American amenities at the AF base an hour away from my house. I don't go there often. I don't get American TV, sit in American cinemas and I don't see Regis and Kelly anymore (Oprah's shows airing here are from, well, I don't know which decade they're from, but she's not stick-thin anymore and seems just fine with it).
I don't know what American celebrities are doing-- unless they happen to be with Becks and Posh, and then I know just about every sordid detail.
I have no idea what movies are being released in the theatre or on DVD (unless I go on the web to find out).
I am not bombarded with American advertising or political mud slinging (thank you Lord).
So I find myself very often behind the learning curve on some of the things you discuss on your blogs.
Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog? What the heck is that?! I downloaded it and enjoyed every episode, all 45 minutes of it. There's no more?

Grey's Anatomy? You're on which season? I just started watching it.

Books.
Ahhh, we're almost back to my first explanation...

The great thing about living under a rock: When I find a great book, say part of a triliogy or a fourlogy (hah!), I don't have to suffer the agonizing wait for the next installment. I'm sorry, but it must suck to be you-- person on top of all of the newest things.

Anyhoo,
armed with this information now, maybe you'll be a little less critical when I say:

OMGosh! I just found the coolest book!

I was wandering around the Air Force base book shop.
I like to do that. Books reach out and pull on my sleeve and beg me to take them home. Library books do it too, but since the library closest to me is well.. another post on it's own, I buy or swap my reads these days.

I am drawn first to the cover.
Did you know that I am an artist? Yep, officially trained and everything. I could teach painting or drawing classes if I chose to do that. I don't. So, the dust jacket is very important for grabbing my attention.

Next is the title. If I'm holding a little treasure in my hand, it's already beaten the odds. I am intrigued, so I will open it and read a page or two.

How the words flow. Would-be authors? You'd better grab my attention by that first page, or all of the art in the world is not going to make me take you home. You don't have to start the book by killing someone or dropping a dog out of a plane, I just want to see your writing style-- I want the words to twist like ivy up out of the pages and around my fingers making it impossible to put the book down. I want that. I'm on your side, so help me out here. (this coming from a rambling, verbose blog writer).

Well on this particular book shop meandering, I passed a "New Book" display. There were several books by the same author, same color theme on all of the dust-jackets.
"Hmm, that's nice", I thought as I glided back to where I knew Philippa Gregory would be waiting for me in the back of the shop (have you seen THOSE dust jackets?).

As I wound my way through History, Self-Help, and Hobbies, I passed it again.
"What is this anyway?" I wondered as I glanced at a couple of the covers. I picked one up -- nice photo, pale arms holding hypnotically red apple on a black backdrop.
It was a vampire book.
I sighed and set it back down and walked off.

Don't get me wrong.... I love vampire stories. Scare me to death-- please. But somewhere a while back, something went wrong with vampire tales. I think it began with an author whose name rhymes with Stand Twice (just avoiding hate mail from her fans). She can really tell a toothy tale, only it has gotten so... explicit.
I like an author to credit me with some brain activity, a story that gives me something to taste, chew and then move on. I mean, if I want to fantasize about some pasty-skinned bat flying in and out of my room, I will. I can put the book down and let my mind really wrap around an idea, you don't have to tell me every detail of our encounter. Because of this latest trend in storytelling, I have been put off by these kind of books.
And,
as idiotic as it sounds-- even though I love reading vampire stories, I don't like reading bad demons/devil stories. I don't want to invite some dark yucky feeling into my life.

Despite my usual protests, something enticed me to go back and read a few lines.

Enchanting... I bought it. For the first half of it, when I couldn't put it down and was getting irritated with family members who wanted to eat, chat or have their diapers changed, I feared it. I didn't want it to change directions and turn into a mini-porn novel and ruin everything for me.

Captivating. I didn't have to flip back and forth to see what I had missed in between the distractions (you know, cooking, communicating etc...) and yes, it's considered a Young Adult read, but hey, who am I to call me old anyway?

I enjoyed Twilight so much, I went to the library today to try to get books 2 and 3 (they are reserved for the next decade apparently). I went online and discovered-- holy cow it's great to be me, because not only can I sink my teeth into 2 more books, there's a fourth (the fourlogy I mentioned) that was released --TODAY. Who HOo!

My life is good, but wait, it gets better.
There's a movie!
I am as happy as a Grockle dropped in a vat of chocolate.
Fellow rock dwellers, this was a good, clean, engaging tale. Others (thinking, "yeah, this book, movie everything, so old news"), shame on you for not telling me about it.