Twilight in Sydney

You were probably expecting to see a photo of Sydney Harbour at twilight but instead, you are getting a post on the Twilight craze I am experiencing here in Sydney.

I remember when I first heard of the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. It was during one of our Monday cooking nights when Lauren mentioned that she started reading this book about vampires and high school romance that her 8th graders recommended (she was an 8th grade math teacher at that time). She couldn't put it down and was smitten by Edward the vampire. We all laughed and teased her about the book. We are pretty stuck up when it comes to our Young Adult literature, think The Golden Campus and the Gemma Doyle Trilogy or Harry Potter. Even The Black Jewel Trilogy and The Darkangel Trilogy (thank you Corrie for introducing that one to me).

Little did we know that we would all fall in love with Twilight and the subsequent books to follow. Each one of us devoured the books and couldn't wait for the release of Breaking Dawn. It is one of those books that you simply cannot put down. The chapters are so short and the writing so simple that you tell yourself "just one more chapter" and before you realize it, it is 2am. By then, you only have about 1/4 of the book to finish so you stay up until 5am doing so. Don't get me wrong, it is true that the writing is simple, but it is really the characters that draw you in and keep you from sleeping at night. They are so extreme yet similar at the same time. Stephanie really makes you feel for them. You end up loving or hating them and feeling frustrated by something they did or didn't do. You find yourself reliving your high school romances and realizing they were nothing like the love between Edward and Bella. You may feel a bit down for a while, then you realize that you cannot compare modern high school boys to Edward. At least not any of the boys from my high school!

But I digress, the point of writing this post was to comment on the Twilight in Sydney. When I first moved in July, Twilight was already huge in the States. Book 4, Breaking Dawn, was about to be released and the movie was to come out at the end of the year. All I wanted was to be able to see the movie with my girls (unfortunately, this did not happen but I did see it with my sister and cousin). I was able to pre-order Breaking Dawn at the Borders in Australia, and received it a couple weeks after it was released in the States. This was a long wait considering I am firmly planted on the Team Jacob aisle and I wanted to know what happened!

Borders was just starting to get into the Twilight craze. They had a small section in the front dedicated to the Twilight series of books and even a few posters set up. As time went on, I began to notice more and more posters and I saw Twilight or some version of the series everywhere I went.

Most of this occurred after the movie was finally released on 12th December. When I came back from holiday (trip to NZ and the US for Christmas), the city was blasted with Twilight paraphernalia. Twilight the movie was huge in Sydney. It graced the theatres all the way through March, just about the time when you could start pre-ordering your DVD in the US (we couldn't get our copies until April). In my opinion, the movie was what brought the fans over to Twilight and not the books. Over the next few weeks, I began seeing the books tucked in people's purses, on top of their work desks and even in the hands of a few guys. I never failed to see someone reading one of the books to and from work on the train.

We even started a Twilight book club at work. The first meeting was a couple months ago where we had a lively discussion of book 1 over lunch. Since then, we have had numerous group chats and will be holding our second book club about New Moon in the next week or two. We even did a group movie night and saw the movie at the theatre. That was my second viewing of the movie, for some of the people it was their 3rd, 4th and for one girl her 8th time! And I thought I was a Twilight fan.

The craze has died down somewhat. Borders Australia was really pushing the pre-order for the movie. I had my mother in law buy my Blue Ray version in the states (they are bringing it with them on Sunday, so excited!) since it was not available yet in Sydney and when it did come out, it was ridiculously over priced.

I still see the occasional Twilight or Breaking Dawn book on the train and it always makes me laugh.

FYI... for those who have not discovered Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse A Southern Vampire Series, you must go to Borders or Costco now and pick it up. Get all 9 books now b/c you will be running to the nearest Savons Drug store hoping to find the next book at 2am if you don't. If you are looking for a more adult vampire series, you must read this. I borrowed books 1-7 from Masha and I'm waiting for books 8 and 9 to come (again with the in laws. Hurry for Amazon and sunday!!). In case you didn't know, HBO has also made this into a TV series. Do not become discouraged if you've seen the show and do not like it. The acting is pretty poor and they did a horrible job casting, but for some reason, I still HAVE to watch it. Lol. Mahsa and I are pretty behind, we only have the season finale to watch and we better do it soon b/c season 2 is apparently starting soon. Anyways, the point is.. read the books. :)