Obsessions

This is getting ridiculous.  

Remember how I mentioned the other day that I was "fully enthralled" with this new book, Twilight, that I was reading?  That's the biggest literary understatement I have ever uttered.  I am so completely engrossed in this book that I am beginning to think I am a vampire myself.

Last night, I curled up in a lounge chair on the back porch with a large bulb of red wine, and my beloved book.  I read for hours: through sunset, and twilight, and sucked my red wine down as Edward tried desperately not to suck Bella's "red wine" out of her neck.  But my senses aren't as great as dear Edward's would be.  The pizza guy had to bang on the door a few times, and Edward would have heard/smelled/sensed him three blocks away.

So maybe I am not really a vampire.  Maybe I am just obsessively in love with one (AKA, our heroine Bella).  I am having difficulty concentrating when I am doing anything that is not reading Twilight (being with Edward).  I want to read (be with Edward) all the time.  I worry that I will get to the bookstore and the next book in the series will be sold out (Edward will not come back from his hunting trip like he promised he would).

I think my intense emergence into this story is a sign of good writing.  There are probably several literary critics out there whose heads just exploded as I wrote that; words like genre writing, young adult fiction, co-dependent teenage relationship are running through their minds.  And I kind of hear them, to a certain extent.  I don't know if Meyer's writing qualifies as great writing in the grand literary sense, but I think that there is something to be said for creating characters that are so compelling and stories that are so... encapsulating.

Is there a literary term for the experience I just described?

The fourth and final book in the Twilight series comes out tomorrow (Breaking Dawn).  I start reading the second book (New Moon) tonight.

I expect I'll have finished Breaking Dawn by the time I see you all again on Monday.