Stop the presses: I bought a book!

Yes, bought, with money. (Okay, plastic. Still.)

Before I get into the subject, may I say that I look forward to returning to a time in my life when spending $15.00 on a book does not seem frivolous and verging on foolhardy.

I've always been a library fan, but over the last few years in particular, I have bought far fewer books than I would like to, instead primarily getting those I wanted to read out of the library. After reading, I would often add the title to my "buy sometime" list, and if I didn't want to put it on the list, I would pat myself on the back for saving the money.

Not that I haven't bought any books, of course. I had to have the seventh Harry Potter book the day it was released, and there have been a few others. Just not as many (as I normally would; as I would like to; etcetera). I can't remember who said it, but someone said that being really rich wasn't so much having a certain amount of money, but would be to have the ability to go into a bookstore and buy whatever he wanted, as much as he wanted, without thinking about the cost. Yeah.

There are, however, limits to my patience, and last weekend was one of them. I've mentioned before how I like Stephenie Meyer's books, and although I didn't check the library website beforehand, I can only imagine how many hundreds of holds there were when Breaking Dawn was released. (Today I checked, and I could be hold number 251 on one library system, or number 320 on another.) No. Not going to wait. I considered spending a few hours at a bookstore, reading a copy in situ, then decided no, damn it. I was already going out on Sunday (so it wouldn't require a special trip), it was heavily discounted (not a lot of money), and I was going to buy it. Yup.

No, I'm not justifying it at all. No.

And it was good. Satisfying. I disagree with a review I saw that said after a certain event (spoiler redacted), "it’s almost impossible to identify with" Bella. Um, what?

Of course, the same review also called it "interminable". Uh? I rather suspect that the review was not written by a fan*. To be honest, the book was written for fans of the series, and I for one really identified with Bella, and didn't find it too long at all. It was just long enough to tell what happened.

*Which reminds me of a very interesting blog post I read recently on a similar topic:

After I saw Mamma Mia! on stage almost four years ago, people would ask me how it was, and my answer was pretty simple: If you love silly musicals and ABBA, you’ll love it. If you don’t love one or both of those things, you’ll want to rip your own ears off. This is the kind of information I would file under, “Duh. Big duh.” And yet, I’ve read several reviews of the movie version that begin with the reviewer confessing that he or she is not really a fan of ABBA, musicals, or both — then talking about just how much they hated the movie, as if this came as a shock. Really?

I'm not going to go into Breaking Dawn more than that, for the sake of those who will or might want to read it, and would prefer not to hear any secrets first. But if (or once) you've read it, I would be happy to discuss! In particular, what you thought of a new character's name. Interesting? Or too much?