NEW MOON by Stephenie Meyer

Okay, I am SO hooked on the Twilight Saga now!!!

I finished the first book, Twilight and I was so enchanted I had to watch the trailer for the movie (Tish told me there is a movie coming out) just to see if it looked like it would do the source material justice.

IT LOOKS GOOD!!!

So then I launched into the second novel in the series, New Moon...

...and I was less enchanted by that! :(

It starts off fine, but then plunges you into this place you SO don't want to go!

Except...

Okay, I'm not reading the text of the Twilight Saga... I, um... found a way to score the entire series (including Meyer's "adult horror" novel The Host) for free in audiobook form.

Here's my thing: I didn't know if I would enjoy the series, but I definitely wanted to give it a shot, because I dig exploring things Tish is into. And the easiest way to enjoy a novel, for me, is audiobook. You can listen while you're driving, playing videogames, even working! Sometimes you miss a few details, but you get the entire experience: It's like speed reading. (I'm a VERY slow and thorough reader, but I actually do know how to speed read... I just never do it, lol.)

But when you get something super-cool for free, you sometimes get what you pay for. (What I mean by "sometimes" is that, to date, I usually get a great deal MORE than I pay for. But sometimes the quality of the product reflects the fact that you got it free.) (Btw, I didn't steal the audiobooks, just in case my vagueness leads you to wonder, lol. I'm not that guy!) (P.P.S. The Internet is our friend, and it truly, really loves us! *wink, wink*)

This dictum ("you get what you pay for") proved true while listening to Twilight in that the chapters sometimes clipped. The end of one chapter would be missing, as well as the very beginning of another. But the phenomenon was tolerable because I still got the whole story... I just got jerked out of the moment for a sentence or two, then slid right back into the riveting narrative.

New Moon, however, suffers from a more significant problem: Some of the chapters are well out of order, lol!

So I begin New Moon and it's cool because it returns me to the world I've grown to love.

THEN...

Nothing significant happens, but the world I love is shattered into a bazillion pieces and Bella Swan is miserable! (And, therefor, I am miserable!) And there's no acceptable reason why!

The reason is that 2 whole chapters have been skipped, and I just knew that X happened without any real explanation, other than "this is what the author made to happen."

So I drop the book for a day and enjoy a few chapters of Ghosts of Austin, Texas: Who They Are And Where To Find Them -- more research for my screenplay.

And this turns out to be a positive thing for me, because last night was a relaxed night, and I ended up writing several pages on the screnplay because of the free time! :D

But tonight was ALL WORK.

And I am dead-set on experiencing everything Ms. Meyer has written so far, if only to have some fodder for conversation with my Tisha! So I returned to New Moon as I worked.

AND I FELL BACK IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD! :)

I won't go into any specifics, as I have no desire to spoil the experience should you happen to get curious and read the saga yourself. But things progressed and got more interesting, and then...

...the chapters jumped back to the missing 2 chapters from the beginning of the book!

And Stephenie Meyer set everything up, and let everything play out, in such a way that even though you HATE where the story is going, you're still hypnotized by the journey!

What happens at the first of the second book -- the thing you NEVER would believe COULD happen by the end of the first book -- is no longer a function of a sadistic author, but a necessary step in an obviously well-thought-out progression of life events that will evolve Bella into a well-rounded and powerful woman (eventually).

I was in the hands of a master storyteller, but for a day and a half I didn't realize it!

This experience in disjointed narrative has convinced me that Stephenie Meyer is a writer that I can trust! I CAN NOT WAIT to experience the whole of the Twilight Saga!!! Not just the novels written, but the novels to come! And I'm excited to watch the sage unfold on the Big Screen, as the screenwriter and director seem to really have a strong hold on what made the novel such an amazing experience! :D I think the best comparison (this is before the movie has been released, please note) would probably be the translation of the Harry Potter novels to the Big Screen! I honestly believe it may be that kind of experience for fan-boys/fan-girls!

So now I'm on Track 20 of 60, and I'm loving the ride, even though I've leaped backward in story-time once again to fill in some gaps that -- at this point -- I hadn't really missed, lol! But discovering what lead from X to Y is just as entrancing as the events of Y, if not more so! ;P

Um...

It occurs to me that this might all sound like drivel.

If so, I can clear it up thusly: Go buy Twilight and read it. Then buy the rest of the series -- New Moon, Elcipse, Breaking Dawn (because once you've read the first you'll want to read them all) -- and READ THEM!!! :D

Don't simply wait for the movie to come out, GO READ!

If you're a romantic and you have a dark side, you will SO enjoy this journey!!! :D

Or, let me rephrase that: If you've ever experienced what you believe is True Love, experienced what felt like true loss, and you also enjoy more mythic, Gothic stories, you WILL ENJOY THIS JOURNEY! :D

Now, back to the book for me. :)

I LOVE YOU, MY GNOMEY-GODDESS!!! :D xoxoxo