I Read a Book and I Liked It

As an English major, I often find myself engaged in discussions with my sisters and friends about what we are reading. In fact, the question, "What are you reading" is usually one of my favorites to answer. That is, until a few weeks ago when we were out to dinner with one of our most literary couples, Kathryn and Stuart Snow, both voracious and discerning readers. when Stuart asked me the question, my face froze and a mixture of panic and dread sped from my chest to my face. I knew I couldn't lie, too many witnesses at the table knew the truth. For the first time in my life, the question drew a confession-- The Twilight Series. He was totally aghast. "Isn't that the one about vampires, written for kids?" I could only nod. "Those books are four, five hundred pages each. How many did you read?" My voice was barely audible, "All of them." Shocked, Stuart could only shake his head. "How many are there?" "Four." I tried pathetically to rally, "We just got back from Aruba. It was beach reading." "Fifteen hundred pages worth?" I shrugged, looking to my friend Melissa, with her ivy league credentials, an author herself on whose suggestion I started the series. She tried to defend me by taking the blame on herself. "It's my fault, I told her to read them." But I knew it wasn't really her fault. True, after feeling like maybe I was the only female member of the church who hadn't read the series, her suggestion did push me over the edge, but she didn't make me like it. Or read the whole series in less than seven days, or re-read my favorite parts. It's completely insubstantial fluff, like mental Doritos, maybe even capable of atrophying my brain, but I have to admit, the books were sort of addictive. Even though I recognized the shoddy writing, and my stomach turned at the melodramatic phrases like "His eyes did that smouldering thing again," or "Edward, you... you made me faint..." there was something about them that made them hard to put down. And sometimes, when Melissa and I are alone, we even talk about what we do or don't like about the books, as if there's any dimension to them whatsoever. I guess it ties into the whole high/low culture phenomenon-- the same person who enjoys Dostoevsky is allowed to enjoy a book about a vampire falling in love with a human who he happens to attend high school with-- so long as she know it's corny. At least that's what I keep telling myself. And Stuart doesn't need to know that I watch the movie trailer online or that Melissa and I are secretly emailing our local English-movie theater asking them to show the film when it is released next month.