Best Real Book: The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory
Most Entertaining Book [series]: Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer
Again, I've got two related winners here. TOBG came to me via my sister and I adored it. I've always said I don't like to read books about history or historical fiction but I've been proven wrong on that before (Winds of War and War and Remembrance, Winds of Wars being one of the top 5 books I've ever read). So it seems I'll have to change my mantra.
Phillipa Gregory is masterful as she weaves this tale. But almost more interesting to me than the story she wrote was how fascinated I became with the real history and the sheer number of people who research and write about Henry VIII. Each one has a different 'perspective' of how mad he really was and what really happened - fascinating to me that there could be so many sides to seemingly one story. Anyway, it was a great read and a complete page-turner.
Ok, so on to Twilight. Thanks go to Marsha and the Entertainment Weekly subscription she gave me for this one. Back in early June there was a big spread on the approaching movie. I love vampires - Anne Rice used to be my favorite brain candy - so of course I thought I would like this. I ordered the first two books from Amazon and literally sucked them down over the course of a weekend. I started Saturday afternoon while baby J napped and stayed up until 2 am. I was done with the second by Monday evening with the 3rd acquired the day before (God forbid there was any lapse) and stretched it out until the fourth and final book came out on Saturday. I didn't go so far as to hit up Borders' midnight release party (I wouldn't admit it here if I did) but I did reserve my copy and head over there toot sweet in the a.m.
While no literary classics by any stretch, these four books were hands down the most entertaining that I read last year. And the giddy high I was on after reading them continued for about 2 months while 3 girls at work and my sister devoured them and constantly kept me updated on where they were in the books. I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever felt so pathetic in my whole life.
Well, perhaps there was one other time...like when my three girlfriends and I got our Twilight movie tickets a week ahead of time, skipped out of work at 1 pm, and I felt like I was trapped in a bad after school special. Oh yeah, this was my only other movie for 2008, quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen, even worse than the only other movie I'm embarrassed to admit I saw in the theater, "Dude, Where's My Car."
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