July 17th (3 hours later): What is it about mysterious boys that we flock to? In this section, Edward has saved Bella's life, ignored her for 6 weeks, and has come back around to interacting with her. Now starting chapter 6, this book is so easy to read and brings back feelings of wanting to be liked. I do have to say though that I was NEVER asked to go to a dance by three different boys. Bella must have some unique quality that most of us (or at least I) don't have.
July 20th: As women, both young and not so young, don't we want to be pursued? In finishing chapter 9, I'm realizing that the allure of this book has been the desire to be sought. SPOILER: Edward has just followed Bella to Port Angeles, and saved her life once again. He admitted to looking after and protecting her. Yes, he's a vampire and therefore dangerous, but he holds that quality of protection we all long for. Our poor real life husbands and boyfriends can't read minds, or be lightening fast to save us. They don't follow us around looking for opportunities to swoop in. No, they have lives, thoughts, and interests that don't entirely revolve around us. In reality, would we really WANT all that doting? I'll take my imperfect, wonderfully human husband any day of the week!
July 22nd: I stayed up until 11:45 finishing the book. It was quite action packed from chapters 9 to 24. I spent most of my afternoon and evenings ignoring my family while sitting in the sun reading. I'm very interested in seeing the movie now. I know it won't translate as well because a lot of the book revolves around Bella's internal tension, but I'd still like to see it. All in all, it was a fast, easy book that kept my interest. I appreciated that there was no bad language and no "embarrassing" scenes (at least not yet in the series). It does make me wonder about our curiosity in vampires. Something about the undead...
