“Full Moon” by Stephenie Meyer

Sometimes its so very hard to be a truly fabulous, much admired book reviewer. It is hypocritically sanctimonious to say, “Oh, you must read Kafka and Sartre,” when I don’t want to … at least, not right now.

I believe I called attention last week to this problem that I’m having, but we’ll call it the literary equivalent of throwing away the tofu and getting out the Hostess Cupcakes. This will be my cross to bear and they really are very good cupcakes.

I can not bring myself to pick up, “Pope Joan”, “Travels with Alice”, or any of the other myriad pieces of more “respected” literature that taunt me from my shelves.

Believe me, I want to, but the desperate urge to binge on Stephenie Meyer is not yet squelched. (I have also just finished 11 of Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity books, but can’t really write about those either. Suffice it to say they are very cozy, well-penned, appealing mysteries, and that’s about it.)

I must have dragooned the poor reader of the Lyme Library’s copy of “New Moon” into returning it, because, after last week’s review, it was quickly returned and presented to me. The only thing I did not enjoy about “New Moon” was that it flew by. I was done and staring starry-eyed at the kids again before I knew it. I do pay attention to my wonderful children, honestly. Mostly I read at night, so their childhood is not as dickensian as it sounds.

The appealing commodity of a lengthy saga is the promise of more. Starting New Moon knowing it was but an interlude in the bigger picture makes it tantalizing and tolerable concurrently. Edward and Bella are together at the onset, and then it takes a grueling, wrenching, teenage angst-ridden twist.

Oh, the drama. Being a girl, and, frankly, just being me, I am a slightly dramatic person*. I could feel Bella’s heart breaking. “Mom, why are you whimpering?” She tries to survive and barely can. Anyone who has been unceremoniously jettisoned from a relationship wants to behave as Bella does. Nothing exists for her but Edward.

Her friendship with the Quileute boy Jacob Black keeps her tethered to her life, but just barely. The dangers are more resolute and she more vulnerable. Her quest for destruction (and its for her) is tangible.

The introduction of the Italian Vampire Contingency is equally unnerving, also prodigious. As is the fact that Jacob Black is apparently no longer human. Every comment about these books makes me want to roll my own eyes. T hey sound so incredibly hokey. Werewolves too? Vengeful females? Bloody tourists? Come on.

I still stand by them. What should be a silly TV show (like the gory, too-sexed-up vampire saga just launching on HBO) … is not. I can not quite put my finger on why not, but my guess would be that in her books Ms. Meyer so perfectly describes the characters that we are, rather than ones we watch. It doesn’t occur to us to poke fun or be skeptical, because it is about us. We are not reading about pain and fear and temptation, rather, we are feeling pain and fear and temptation.

Probably I oversimplify, but as I watch the mailbox for the Amazon delivery of the next two installments, we can all be sure of one thing. I will have more to say on this matter.

I should apologize in advance … but I simply can’t.

* Husband in background, “Slightly? Slightly?!”