Whenever
Twilight was opened up, I always remember my reading journey because Twilight
played a big part to it.
Join me as I
relieve it again.
I haven’t
read Twilight on its release date.
I haven’t even
known Twilight until Summit turned it into film.
I haven’t
watched the movie on release day.
I haven’t
even started reading Twilight until days before I was sure I will be watching
the movie.
I have no
idea how Twilight will impact me as a reader.
I finished
the movie first. I read a few chapters then I went to see the movie with my
friend. I go back to reading the book after I watched the movie and I was able
to finish it. I remember reading the book from the time I woke up at 8am on a
Sunday to 5pm straight I almost fainted at the church because my head was
spinning from reading 9 hours straight (I didn’t even eat lunch) and we have to
attend church by 6pm. But, it’s all worth it. Looking back, if I have to do
that now, I’ll probably have more stamina to do it. LOL!
Twilight by
Stephenie Meyer was released September 16, 2005 but the craze didn’t start
until November 2008 – when the movie came out. I’m not hipster at books before
so I haven’t witnessed the craze for other books like Harry Potter but the
Twilight craze for books that I witnessed in the Philippines was unbelievable.
I haven’t seen it yet happen again after Twilight.
I remember
long list of reservation the bookstores have for the next delivery of Twilight
books. I’m not just talking about Twilight, but the whole saga, that includes
New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. Breaking Dawn has just been released that
year (2008). And when the book stores have Twilight books delivery, they just
put all the Twilight books stacked at the center of the store (not even
bothering to put it on shelf) and the stacks get smaller and smaller by the
minute. I bought Twilight and Eclipse immediately when I saw it in the book
store, the pages inside are still hot like it just came out of press maybe, New
Moon and Breaking Dawn were out-of-stock that time. I bought them in the next
delivery.
I’ve read
Twilight 5 times or maybe more and maybe 2 times each for the next books and I
remember every time I read it; I love it even more than before. But maybe
that’s because I’m a fan and I haven’t read much YA before, nor I have read
that many books at that time to compare.
I always
love reading. My memory of me reading as a kid was reading fables that are sold
in our school – I think I owned at least 3 of that that were lost as time goes
by. Another memory of me reading as a kid was reading text books which test the
person’s reading speed – it was a book we got from my Aunt’s collection. The
book was a collection of essays and short stories which I actually don’t understand.
I remember reading the same paragraph over and over without understanding what
I read until I put the book down. English isn’t our first language so it’s hard
for my young mind to understand English.
However, I
have a love-hate relationship with reading during high school. I saw reading as
a chore that time – only for me to be able to write a (lame) reading report for
completion of (my lame) grade. Or I sometimes don’t read at all and copy the
reading reports of my classmates (ssshh don’t tell my teacher). But to be
honest, I kind of regret it because the English curriculum at my time was
classic literature and it will be so much fun to know about classics but yeah,
it is what it is. That was the hate part, the love part is that my friends and
I enjoy reading romance novels (/pocket books) at that time. We bought
different pocket books and after we read ours, we swapped and read each other’s
books. It was really nice, fun times.
In college,
I stopped reading pocket books (because it’s always the same old same old
perfect and rich guy and simple girl romance thing, it’s tiring) but I
discovered magazines – teen magazines. I have a big collection of magazines (I
collected 2 kinds of magazines – Candy and Seventeen) because I started in
freshman college throughout senior year but it got destroyed by Typhoon Ondoy.
My Twilight books were saved from Typhoon Ondoy but my magazines (and some
other books) unfortunately didn’t survive.Magazines were kind of helpful but
kind of not during college because that’s the time I was getting to know myself
more and or reinventing myself and those (unsolicited) advice from magazine
writers helped somehow in boosting my morale. Although, we know magazines, how
ideal it can be, how it kind of far from my reality and that’s the part didn’t
help me. Nevertheless, it’s a nice reading journey, I learned a lot. I also learned a lot of book titles that the magazines are
recommending their readers to read – but due to lack of resources because books
are very expensive here in the Philippines, I wasn’t able to read the books
that interest me based on the magazine’s recommendations. Unless my classmates
have a copy then I’ll borrow it. Libraries here don’t offer many titles –
libraries at school don’t offer many titles that aren’t academic books. It was
a hard to have access to books especially when I didn’t have the money for it.
I rely on Book Sale and books given by relatives.
If my memory
serves me right, when I started working, the first 2 books I bought from my
salary were Twilight and Eclipse.I was so used to reading magazines that when I
read an actual book, my mind was blown.Twilight was totally different from what
I have read before – story wise and genre wise. This was the first book that
opened my imagination on a new scale. Where I felt that I am one with the book
– like I was there with Bella in Forks watching as the story unfolds. I knew
that I love reading but during and after reading Twilight, I never thought how
much enjoyable reading can be. Twilight was the book that re-ignited the spark
for my love for reading. Not that it actually faded but it was on a new level
after Twilight.
Twilight
will always be special in my heart no matter what.
But I didn’t
actually continue on reading that much after Twilight. It’s like the story has
stuck to me and I can’t seem to find another book that will get me hooked like
that – it was like I was looking for the satisfaction I got from Twilight from
other books. I have tried to read The Host also by Stephenie Meyer and I didn’t
get past through 100 pages that time (but I read it last year and OMG it was
amazing. The Host is one of my favorite books of all time.) I’ve read a few
books though but I still didn’t get the same satisfaction as I’ve got from
Twilight. Funny though, I think I just need to wash away Twilight in my system
and be open minded, I’m not hipster at books before. I don’t know what the
current released books are, I don’t know what’s hot, I don’t know the best
sellers, etc.
I fully came
back to reading in 2011 after I needed something, anything to divert myself
into. That time it felt like a lifetime ago since I picked up a book that’s why
I went to the book store and pick my self some general fiction. It was Love,
Rosie by Cecilia Ahern. Finished it in 1 night. Bought another one. Finished
that then bought again and I didn’t stop reading after that. I’ve read the
books that I’ve been wanting to read since college from those magazines
recommendations. I can say, I am now hipster when it comes to books. I am in
the know because it’s much easier to have access to information now because
internet.
I can’t
believe it’s been 10 years since the released of Twilight and it’s been 7 years
since I first read it.
When I
learned that there will be a 10th year anniversary edition of
Twilight, I was like, okay, yeah, I’ll buy it for sure.
But when it
was announced that there’s a new (not really new) story included in the 10th
year edition, you bet, I want to have my hand on it the moment it was
announced. When the local book store posted their stock, me and my friend go to
the store and bought the book despite the location of the book store was out of
our way. We love this book so much we have to have it.
Life and
Death is a re-imagined story of Twilight where characters swapped genders. It’s
still the same story and world, though.
Edward’s
character is now a girl in the name of Edythe. Bella’s character is a guy
called Beau.
To
Stephenie, it doesn’t matter what gender you are in, if swapped the frenzy of
first love is still the same.
We’ll see. I
haven’t read it yet.
Twilight (no
matter what other people’s opinion about it) has such a huge, massive,
humongous impact in the book industry especially for Young Adults. So many
books have been published after Twilight. So many new authors (having seen the
market of YA) have been inspired to create new stories. Twilight may not
directly affected all that but indirectly, I have faith.
Have you
read Twilight? How does it impact you? Share your thoughts! Thanks for reading
this!
Love, Kaye.
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