My Latest Haunts

I have been reading A LOT lately.  Like A LOT, a lot.  Like reading when Wyatt asks to watch YouTube videos which is like reading the same sentence four times.  And waking up at odd hours of the night to read until my eyes go blurry.  I even attempted to read in traffic the other day.  Bad idea.  I got beeped at twice before I decided it was probably the stupidest idea I've ever had.  I have always been an avid reader.  But lately my reading choice (and obsession) has got me a little concerned.

The first series I got stuck on was the Hunger Games.  Yes, its a youth novel.  Yes, so is the Twilight series which I also read and enjoyed.  Yes, so is Harry Potter which I LOVED.  So when I heard buzz about this series when the last novel was being released, I checked it out at the library.  I read this book in 2 days.  It is captivating.  The writing is not brilliant but the story is intriguing and the characters lovable.  It is more violent then I ever expected a youth novel to be and Graphic (queasy faced graphic).  I went back to the library to get book 2 and there was a waiting list.  I promptly ordered the other 2 books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay on Amazon.  Then I dreamt about these characters, about their world, their war, their poverty, their cruelty, their sobering reality.  I would find myself laying awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering about how I would react in their situations.  When the books arrived, it was Wyatt's first week of school and the St. John's Fair that occupies most of the month of September for me.  And I still could not let the books sit on the shelf for a better time.  I stayed awake from 1am until 6am reading Catching Fire.  I just couldn't put it down.  I was just as bad with Mockingjay.  I really hope they make them into movies and I totally understand what all the buzz was about.  This series was totally worth my late nights.

More recently, I started the Sookie Stackhouse Series which the HBO show TrueBlood is based on.  I love TrueBlood.  Just call me a vampire lover.  I think the show is so brilliantly awful yet oddly addicting.  I wanted to know where it originated from.  I have to admit, they are not my favorite books but the sex scenes do live up to HBO standards.  In the first novel, I found typos and sometimes there are so many characters that I can't keep them straight.  And predictably a new character is always the villain and most often dies at the end.  Perhaps the only reason that I am interested in these novels are for this man:

Oh my LORD.  I am drooling already.  Sometimes I find myself skimming pages simply to find his name.  This actor, Alex Skarsgard:  (I have to picture him again because he is just so delicious...)

Plays the character Eric Northman on the TrueBlood series.  And I simply can't help but imagine him when I am reading the novels.  Literally my life right now is built on elaborate fantasies about this man.  It just shows the state of my social life when I would rather read and dream about fictional characters then motivate myself to meet new people that most assuredly will not live up to my fantasies.  I know I should invest more time in actual relationships but sometimes it is just easier to dream.  I don't recommend the novels but I do recommend Alex Skarsgard.  Yum.  My next series is the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Thoughts?  Is it as good as everyone says it is?