Yes, I will confess that I am one of those people who will probably see the second installment of the Twilight saga at least three times this weekend if it’s good. After a year of anxious anticipation, I can sit back and enjoy Stephanie Meyer’s book turned theater blockbuster.
But last year at this time I wasn’t quite like this. Let’s rewind a little bit to November 2008.
I was bored one weekend and looking for something to do. I had heard of the Stephanie Meyer series called Twilight, but I couldn’t comprehend why so much hype surrounded books about vampires. Sounded cheesy.
But the commercials for the new movie had caught my eye, so I decided to relieve my boredom by taking a friend to see it.
After two hours of watching a movie about vampires, true love and life, I was hooked. If the books were anything like the movie, I had to read them.
So I saw the movie five more times in the theater (yes, five) and went out and bought the books. On the night that I stayed up to 3 a.m. reading “Twilight” when I should have been working on my college senior seminar project, I knew I had to stop the madness.
I finished the first book and forbid myself to read the others until winter break arrived. When the holiday rolled around, I gobbled those books up faster than a Christmas feast. I spent less than a week finishing the series, and I wasn’t very good company during that period. My boyfriend at the time would come over to hang out, but I would just ignore him and bury my nose farther into several hundred pages of imagination candy.
Here I am, a year later, going to watch the second installment of the series on the big screen. But in all of the excitement I can’t forget the books that made this movie excitement possible.
The Twilight series did something magical for me — it taught me to love reading again.
As I sat out in my college dorm hallway trying to get enough light to read the pages of “Twilight” without waking my roommate, I was reminded of my childhood days.
As a kid, you couldn’t separate me from books. I learned how to read at age 4 and was hooked immediately. I took a book with me everywhere and very quickly acquired my own library of several hundred texts. I read at the dinner table, I read in the car — I even read under the covers using a flashlight when my parents thought I was asleep.
In fact, my parents used to punish me by taking my books away. I would read so much that I wouldn’t get anything done, so they would take away my books until I completed my chores.
But over time this love for reading lost its spark. In college I was forced to read too many yawn-inducing texts. When I caught a break after hours of studying, I would turn to the television instead of books for relief.
It takes much less effort to watch something. You can just sit back and have someone else entertain you. Reading takes a little more effort, and it cultivates the imagination.
I wish all children could grow up with a love of reading like I had. But I hope, unlike me, people never lose their enthusiasm for books. There are plenty of interesting books at your local library or bookstore, if you’ll take the time to look. When I read the Twilight series, I was reminded of the joy that reading a good book brings.
So after I watch “New Moon” this weekend, I’m going to dust off my Twilight books and read them all again.
Movies are great, but remember that behind every movie there may be a great book waiting to be read.
Meghann Evans is a staff reporter with The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at mevans@mtairynews.com or at 719-1952.
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