Jumping on the Bandwagon

I started reading Twilight the other day and it really is as addictive as everyone told me. I've always been one of those people who hesitates when EVERYONE says something is great...it's as though they've been brainwashed or something...but after months of watching those black eyeliner wearing girls as they clutched onto the books and camped out to see the movie, I thought there had to be something to it. (BTW I did the same with Harry Potter, the whole idea of a story about a boy living in a Cupboard under the stairs seem ludicrous to me then...and now I'm a Potterite)

So anyway, I read the 1st book in one day and after pining for the second one for a day, I had to go out and buy it. I didn't start reading it until the evening and read it strait through 'till 5:30 this morning. That's certainly something I haven't done since Harry Potter (but I think that's where the comparison ends...the stories are so different I don't understand why everything has to be lumped into a category)

Twilight really is a love story, more so than I realized at first so no wonder awkward and miserable teenage girls identified with the perfectly ordinary and almost plain Bella Swan. I think every teenage girl feels that way. Hell, I'm about to be 25 and I still feel that way. If a handsome, intelligent and glittering vampire told me he wanted me forever I really don't think I'd put up much of a fuss either.

Stephanie Meyer has really created the perfect main characters. The most ordinary human girl, who is nothing special and almost socially inadequate and average looking (you have no idea how much I identify with that...it's like she copied my self deprecating, slightly loner self onto the page) and the 90 yr old boy/man who is so perfect that words can't describe him.

The only thing with books like this (and I get sucked in more frequently to this sort of thing than I care to say) is that these characters, these men we fall in love with on the page, there is nothing remotely truthful about them. Edward, Harry, Mr. Darcy, Romeo... these characters suck girls in, alluding to the kind of love story that sweeps you up in it, but in reality nothing like that exists. No guy is ever that handsome, that brave, that charming, intelligent or in love with you. Men are fallible creatures (I still haven't managed to find one who really sends that shiver down my spine and makes my stomach flip) and by buying in to the romantic comedy, romance book or splice of all of those men put together...no one in real life will ever measure up.

It's this that I ponder on most when I read (or watch TV). You hear of real life love stories, ones with chance meetings or long happy marriages but I still feel (even in my romance addled mind) that it's unlikely, practically impossible to strike everyone. So while Bella gets Edward, Ginny Gets Harry, and Elizabeth gets Darcy, I have a feeling that my Happy ending won't be as easy to come by.

You may think me ridiculous but how many couples do you know in real life that are that in love? I think I know of three...not really a huge number. But anyway I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I have two more books to read about Edward and Bella and then I can go back to my socially awkward and single self.