Heh heh heh: Twilight.

{{ Some mild-to-moderate spoiler info follows... }}

#1: I watched the movie. This was for Robert Pattinson. (That and I previewed the Girl, and could stand the Girl.)

#2: I did use the movie as a litmus test for if I could even get into the books. I decided that I could give the first one, anyway, a shot without experiencing acute pain.

#3: I donned a paper bag o'er my head & headed down to my local bookstore.


Awright...I did not wear the bag. But I mentioned the suggestion of wearing it, to the saleslady.
She offered to put it into a plain brown paper bag for me...lol. So I took her up on it. (Couldn't hurt?) <:}

I just bought the paperback version- of #1 - you know--signalling "no commitment here," ...and then over the weekend proceeded to read it in perhaps...I have no clue...36 hours? Only 24, all together? I didn't keep track. I do know that I was done in plenty-o-time, Sunday...I had most of my afternoon/evening or something free.

And...I also discovered that my copy was missing 1 full page. Imagine that!

So, it was like kismet...since I had to return the flawed paperback copy to the bookstore on Monday anyway, and I'd decided I would go ahead and go for broke (on the series), I traded Paperback vol. 1 for hardcover vol. 1, vol. 2, and vol. 3. (They were out of hardcover #4 so I thought I'd wait, I still had 2 more very thick books to get through...by then they'd get Vol. 4 in.)

All I know is that Stephenie Meyer's series dominated my waking life (--and there was a lot of it -I've never been so sleep deprived since college!) for a couple of weeks straight. Darn things are extremely addictive.

And no, though I'm easily a naysayer in most circumstances like this in all other available cases, I'm going to go ahead and say it to you Other Naysayers:

It's not teenage candy fluff.

Now, it's not gothic horror or particularly 'dark,' either- but it's not silly.

The thing that actually struck me most about Meyer's series is how very good she is at conveying the inner psychological spaces of her main characters. In Book 2, I was poignantly personally affected by the job she did of tracing Bella's depression. It struck me that Meyer would have had to have experienced a serious depression/-loss herself, to characterize this in this way at all.

It was actually pretty hard to read. Painful. It plucked at a weird spot in my chest, that I thought was done, and well-healed- nothing but an old scar now. But apparently there's something that doensn't ever go away when you experience a deeply painful, damaging experience like the one Meyer describes...sooo well.

I found myself almost hurrying, through those parts...her depression. The 'dead' funk...the bodily reaction at the mention of names...the extreme avoidance of...so many things. The extreme, extreme, delicate, fragility.

And then, I read this [see the 8th "Q:/A:" down], at the Twilight Lexicon.

...And was blown away.

This woman...has an incredible imagination & gift, then. Either that, or she's possessed. LOL
(Or a liar, I guess...but I am not suggesting or even feeling or supposing that.)

I'd have to admit, though, to having had (still have) some skepticism...that someone's imagination alone could account for the pricking of [flashback-]feelings in me, so poignantly...when not even reading real-life 'survivor's stories' and descriptions of pain has ever pinged what Stephenie Meyer pinged in me.

She must have at least known someone who went through this-- got a chance to observe it, at least, in another-- you know?
Impossible.... But anyway, gifted.