Vampires, Uglies and Angels . . . oh my!

I've been on a reading kick lately.  I love to read, but I go through phases.  Sometimes I read five or six books a month, and then I'll go a couple of months where I don't read at all.  For a few years I devoured all things vampire.  Mind you, this was long before the whole Twilight craze, and most of the books I read were adult paranormal romance genre.  I did read the Twilight books though, and I enjoyed them very much . . . until the craze started.  Since the movies started coming out, I'm just sick of it all.

Here's the thing, I get caught up in a certain type of book and then I want to read everything out there of that same type.  Like the vampire stuff.  I was reading so many different books, and series of books, that had vampires.  Of the series that I started reading years ago, I still read the new books that come out, but I don't go looking for new vampire series to read anymore.  I think I met my vampire quota.

My latest obsessions are urban dystopia and fallen angels.  In the urban dystopia category, I like the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Divergent by Veronica Roth, which is the one I read most recently.  The idea that humanity is always trying to perfect society intrigues me.  In Divergent, at the age of 16 every child gets to choose which "faction" of society they want to spend the rest of their life in.  What aspect of their character drives them the most - fearlessness, honesty, peacefulness, selflessness or intelligence.  A standard theme in all of these books is that the "perfect society" that has been created is flawed in some way.

Of course it is.  

I haven't found any new, similarly-themed books to read yet so now I am on a fallen angels kick.  I am not religious.  I've never claimed to be and I refuse to pretend to be.  But one thing I love is when anything of a "heavenly" nature is portrayed in a less-than-perfect light.  Even Heaven can be flawed, right?  So right now I am reading a series called Hush, Hush.  I'm on the third book, and once I finish it I will have to wait a few months for the next one to come out.  Luckily, in researching this particular plot theme, I've found quite a few other books with the same premise - fallen angels on Earth, falling in love with human girls that they shouldn't be with, other angels get mad about it, blah, blah, blah.  It's all fluff, but it's sweet, romantic fluff.  I can think of worse ways to pass a few hours than reading this.

I guess I should mention one other common theme among the books I love to read - they're all YA books.  I'm 45-years-old, and yes, I read books aimed at teenage girls.  There, I'm out of the closet.  Weird?  Maybe, although I know a lot of adult women who read them.  I can't speak for everyone, but for me I think the attraction is that they're innocent.  Sure, some of them have some bad language, but nothing worse than what I probably say on a daily basis.  Some have sex, but not the graphic, tell you the size of his . . . well, you know, kind of sex.  They also are so far removed from the reality of my life.  Bottom line, they're a great escape.  

Now, that is not to say that my life is so horrible that I need to escape it.  It's more of a "Calgon, take me away" kind of escape, a sort of nap-with-sweet-dreams that I don't have to wake up and feel groggy from.  

I know people who read thrillers, mysteries, autobiographies and horror books and if that's what floats their boat, good for them.  Not for me though.  I don't need something that is going to scare me at night.  Mysteries make me so crazy that I end up reading the ending before I'm even half-way through the book.  As for autobiographies, well . . . I figure it this way.  The only way a person gets a book written about them is if their life has been hard and they've somehow come out ahead, even with all the pain/loss/(insert horrible trauma here) that they've faced.  

Ummmm, hello?  I've had enough of that kind of reality in my own life.  Why would I want to pile all of your drama on top of my own?  You can keep yours, thankyouverymuch.

Maybe I should start a therapy group for old women who escape reality through the lives of fictional teenage girls?  "Hello, my name is Shannon and I'm a closet teenager."  We could open the group up to women who like fan fiction too (don't even get me started on that free form of crack addiction).  Do you think my group would be big?  We'd certainly be an interesting group to listen to.

Who do you think is dreamier?  Peeta, Four, or Patch?

Oh.  My.  GAWD!  It's SOOOOOOO Patch!

Oh no, Four is totally hot!

:::: phone rings :::

Oh, hi honey, yes, I'll be home to cook dinner as soon as I finish with my, ummmmm, book club.  Love you!!!!

Then again, maybe I should keep my book love in the closet for a little while longer . . .