A Frenzy for Stephanie Meyer

Those of you who aren't into the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer (affectionately referred by me as "the sparkly teenage vampire love books") probably missed the biggest event of the summer. No, not the American Idols Live tour (which I did go to but haven't blogged about yet), and not "The Dark Knight" (which I went to dressed as a superhero.

Coming soon to a blog near you). The biggest event of the summer (for many, many screaming women between the ages of 12 and 74) was the release of the 4th and final book in the Twilight Series... Breaking Dawn! There were all kinds of release parties, the biggest at the local Borders. Seeing as this was a vampire book, some brilliant person at the blood bank even organized a blood drive in the Borders parking lot that evening. So great!

While I have been known to read me a good book from time to time, its usually something I do alone, not really sharing these experiences with many people. In fact, talking about my favorite books with people sometimes really bugs me. People pronounce names different than I do in my mind (i.e. wrong) and even though I can be fairly excited (in my brain) about some of the books I read, it somehow seems a lot weirder when people form this excitement into words. Part of this may stem from the type of people that seem to be really into the kind of books I normally read. I don't make my own chain-mail in lecture classes, I'm not much for LARP-ing, and I only wear capes and/or cloaks as part of a costume that I'm wearing for a special occasion (like Halloween. Or superhero movie premieres) Long story short, I don't usually purposefully congregate with my fellow Sci Fi/Fantasy readers. Well, unless there is a book signing by someone like Orson Scott Card or Brandon Sanderson. Such occasions are totally worth putting up with the cape-wearing LARPers. But seeing as I had no other plans last Friday night, I thought I'd swing by the local Borders to see what was up. I (being a much less devoted fan than many out there) didn't even get there until 11:30 PM. And consequently had to park roughly 3 blocks away behind the movie theater. By this time the blood-bank people were already packing up, and there were a local folksy kind of band playing for the horde of mostly women, the most enthusiastic of which were wearing red and black. The spokesperson for the band sounded a little dazed whenever she addressed the crowd. She didn't really know anything about the book that was being released, and obviously couldn't comprehend why hundreds of people would stand around for a stupid book.

I wander into the bookstore and get my wristband that tells me where to get in line at midnight when they can start selling books to people. I was number 1061! And there were plenty of people that got their little wristband after me. Since I was not the posessor of a wristband numbered under 100, I was supposed to go and wait outside with the other 968 people waiting for a book. Instead, I walked right past the bookstore employees like I knew what I was doing, and once inside, I pulled a book off of the bestseller shelf, found myself a corner, and started reading. This book was quite snarky, and seeing as it was fairly late in the evening, there were parts of it that were really funny to me. But much of the book didn't do much for me. Moral of that particular book: Vegans are skinny. That's what I get for reading non-fiction when I have an entire bookstore at my disposal. That's one hour of my life I think I'd like to have back. Well, about the time I had skimmed the last few chapters, I got up and checked out what number had actually purchased their Breaking Dawns. We weren't even to #300. And it was already 12:45. I came, I saw, I partook of the ambiance, and then I left. Yeah, just like that.

And it's now Tuesday and I still don't have the book. Go figure...