Twilight

I just reread Twilight in a day. Instead of working.

I first read Twilight in high school. The movies hadn't come out yet. A friend recommended it to me. I enjoyed it so much that I bought the last book in the series - a book that's still sitting on the bookshelf in my childhood bedroom.

At the time, Twilight was still popular. For a time, it was going to be the next Harry Potter. People identified themselves as either on team Edward or team Jacob. Then the movies came out, and people were weirded out by a hundred year old vampire dating a seventeen year old girl, and even more weirded out by the Jacob and Renesmee situation in book 4, and then 50 Shades happened and Twilight was doomed.

So there was a bit of shame associated with the fact that I had enjoyed reading the books. That I hadn't been weirded out until other people had pointed that stuff out to me. Etc. Etc.

But suddenly I had a craving for it. Happily married as I am, seven years into this relationship, Bella and Edward's story reminds me what it was like to love for the first time. That heady experience of discovering what lust was all about. Of how suddenly nobody in the world matters except for the two of you.

Of course it's not a sensible, mature relationship. But that crushing, head-over-heels feeling is not a sensible feeling. And I think it's easy to forget that when you've settled into your mature, responsible adult life where you've learned to communicate and negotiate and compromise. We're not young forever, but stories like this remind me what being young, and yes, being stupid, was like. Raging hormones make fools of us all, but being drunk on love is such a heady, pleasant feeling.

I will definitely be rereading it again and again, with no shame whatsoever. Not all books need to be literature to be engrossing, and not all wines need to be expensive to be savored.