When I told Jacks about my latest obsession, he said “girls and their fantasies…”.

When Ee Lin read my earlier post about my MPH Warehouse Sale splurge, even she was skeptical.

Even when I first heard about it, and read about it, I was skeptical.

That was until Nat (my excolleague from Tower) bought the book and showed it to me and I got through the first 20 pages before returning it to her. But even then, I wasn’t that convinced.

Thank God for MPH Warehouse Sales then and the 50% discount I got for both books.

The ‘Twilight’ series are four Stephanie Meyer best-selling books and have garnered quite a cult-following. While not as impressive as the Harry Potter fandom, it’s still pretty darn huge.  While they certainly are not literary works of art, I have to say, I was impressed. Impressed enough to finish all four books in 5 days. The best part is? This genre is not at all in line with my current reading tastes which range from Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro to Jodi Picoult and Ian McEwan.

I admit though, I’ve always had a thing for vampire stuff. I loved Anne Rice’s books and the adaptation of an Interview with a Vampire (which is, in my opinion, one of the must watch movies of anyone’s lifetime) and I was quite the follower of not Angel, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer (partly for Spike).

But.. Twilight is so different from all that. It has so much of teenage angst, drama and romance. So… typical high school romance.. and yet, so much more. Twilight tells the story of Bella Swan, a girl who moves from the big sunny city of Phoenix to the small rainy town of Forks to live with her father. But she’s not your typical Sweet Valley character. She’s quiet, introverted, mature, withdrawn, and hates the attention she gets for being the new student. There she meets, or rather is introduced (behind their backs) to the Cullen siblings – Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice and Jasper – all adopted children of the respected resident doctor. They’re all beautiful, smart, incredibly rich and… “freaky”. No one likes the Cullen siblings in school. Bella becomes intrigued with one Cullen sibling in particular – Edward – probably because he is oh-so-gorgeous and seems to be oh-so-repulsed by her. Thing is, the Cullens are vampires. Vegetarian vampires. Translation: they are good vampies who only drink animal blood. Not just that, they’re not our typical mystical vampires with pesky allergies to garlic, holy water, crucifixes and the sun.

But I digress. Edward, instead of being repulsed as Bella thinks he is, is actually very drawn to her blood. So drawn that he has to force himself not to kill her for instant gratification. Funny thing is, instead of being terrified of him, Bella’s completely unafraid of him (which tells you how sane and realistic she is in the first place). Maybe it’s because he saved her life twice. Maybe it’s because he is that goodlooking. But she’s not afraid of him. In fact, she starts falling for him and before you know it, it’s vice-versa yada yada yada. Right now you’re saying, so cliched, tell me something new. What makes it slightly different though is that Edward, being a 100plusyearold vampire, is… chivalrous to a fault. He does not compromise her virtue, he’s protective… he’s completely old world chivalrous and probably the sort you would want to bring home to meet your mother, minus the diet.

And yet, that’s not just it. The whole point of the book? Exploring Bella and Edward’s romance. It’s a beautiful and hesitant build up of a teenage romance that can be so much more than just a teenage romance. In some instances, you find it ludicrous and thinking, oh my god this does not happen in real life. Other times, it might make you reminiscent or wistful and some times, it can be rather realistic, despite the vampire-y feel.

But like I said, literary-wise, they don’t stand a chance against greats like J.K. Rowling, and even less so against experienced vampire-authors like Anne Rice. What struck me most about the book was its simplicity and its ability to draw you into the story and trigger emotions in you that you might not have felt for a long time. Maybe even draw out emotions that you’ve never felt before. When you look past her writing style, the twisty plot or the sheer absurdity of it all, you might find yourself rooting for Bella and Edward and to an extent, developing some kind of compassion and sympathy for them.

In the sequel, New Moon, you get a completely different feel from Twilight. It’s loss, desolation, depression… and it might get whiny and repetitive. In Eclipse, again, a totally different feel. The undercurrent of the story is there, the theme is there, but the focus has shifted somewhat. But when you look past that, you might still find yourself rooting for Bella and Edward and close the book with a few heartstrings touched. I mightn’t say the same for the last book of the series though.

Despite popular avid reader opinion, Twilight is not going to diminish your good taste in books. It just takes an open mind looking for entertainment past the idiot box in the livingroom and a hopeless romantic to start. Who knows, maybe you can’t stop.

The movie “Twilight” will be out in cinemas this week (Nov 27th I think) and they’ve chosen perfection for Edward, from what I’ve seen in the trailers. Robert Pattinson is a GOD. If you don’t know who he is, you might remember him as Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter IV. If you don’t, feast your eyes =]

L-R: Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene), Emmett Cullen (Kellan Lutz), Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed), Jasper Hale (Jackson Rathborne)

The Cullens: Emmett (Kellan Lutz), Rosalie (Nikki Reed), Esme (Elizabeth Reaser), Edward (Robert Pattinson), Carlisle (Peter Facinelli), Alice (Ashley Greene), Jasper (Jackson Rathborne)