The Twilight Saga should come with a health warning!!!

Headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, burning eyes, lack of sleep, nightmares, temporary insanity, hearing voices, talking to myself, depression, anger, constant crying...
No, I am not referring to the characters Stephanie Meyer has created, although I’m sure Isabella Swan has experienced all of these things at some stage, but these are the symptoms I have suffered as a result of reading these books! Can I sue Meyer for temporary insanity, the voices in my head, the fact that I am imagining Edward walk with me throughout my day???

Having completed the third book on a Sunday and Monday evening of last week I told myself I would have a break before I started the final book. Firstly, I thought my brain just needed a rest, and secondly, what happens when they’re all done? Sure, I could watch the film. And I probably will read them again at some point with much less urgency than before, but seriously, what was I going to do when it was all over?

I managed to spend my entire lunch break on the net searching for Twilight merchandise. I came up with some interesting finds.

I came across a GQ article that stated that ‘in the books Bella and Edward don’t have sex.’ I immediately closed the page – devastated and shocked, leaning across to a colleague who had read the saga and repeating the quote I had just read, I tried to sound as lady like as possible as I shouted “Oh my god do they not have sex?! This is what I’ve been waiting for!” I heard the words leave my mouth, and although I should’ve been disgusted with what I had just said loud enough for the Fashion Director of Esquire to hear, I could not be ashamed of my need for the physical relationship between Bella and Edward to progress. Their love, passion and lust is probably the most amazing and intense story I had ever come across. I’ll say it again; Stephanie Meyer is an amazing writer. I wanted my colleague’s reaction to show that the article was clearly wrong, but he looked down and gave nothing away. Had this article just ruined my life? After this I vowed never again to read any more literature, on the... literature, (that was so much more than that,) nor look for merchandise or other distractions, and just complete the final book.

So I began the fourth and final book when I arrived home on Monday evening.

The final book was a much slower read than the previous three. There was no way of rushing through the chapters, the urgency wasn’t there, but instead the need to take in the details, and savour each moment, as after that, I was finished.

On Wednesday evening, I went out for drinks with Esquire to the exquisite Dunhill Members Club. With Perrier Jouët and cocktails on tap, my slightly tipsy self decided when I got home that I would not be reading Breaking Dawn while I was unable to fully focus. Then on Thursday evening I had to meet with my fashion clique after work, as it had felt like a lifetime since I’d seen them last. We had drinks & pie at the launch of the One True Saxon store, and the goody-bags of some rather cool sunglasses and tees were a temporary distraction from my book that I had carried with me to work that day for my lunch break and journey home. As we left the launch and my friends talked about going on to another launch party I waited for them hail a cab and then made my attempt to exit. “I’m gonna head back home,” I said guiltily, looking at my book peeking out of the bag, but my friend’s plea to come as it had felt like forever since we saw each other forced me to jump into the cab and head toward Primrose Hill. When we first got to the party the weight of the hardback book on my arm was a constant reminder of what I could be, should be, doing right now. My hands were so obviously full and weighted with goody bags, my Tiffany bag that carefully guarded my precious book and my very heavy speedy, that two ladies offered, or insisted that I rest my bags down near them. I smiled and said I was ok. I didn’t know as many people as my friends did at this party, and was about to announce my departure anyways. Just then my friend reappeared and oops - I rested the bags down to the ladies’ gleeful smiles, took my glass of rose, the first of a few, began to mingle and ensued another night of no Breaking Dawn. On Friday after work I rushed to the O2 Arena for the Enrique Iglesias concert. The last time I and the little sis saw him, he took her and camera, placed it carefully down his trousers, and snapped away... We weren’t about to miss another opportunity (as I truly believe Enrique is in love with her, but that’s another blog altogether,) so again, Friday was a day of no reading. On Saturday we were celebrating my best friend’s birthday. A shopping trip to find her birthday outfit and gift and then head off to her birthday bash became another full day of no Edward and Bella time.
On Sunday I had brunch with the fiancé. I had neglected him much. The emotions of Bella and Edward had affected me in a way that he couldn’t understand. Worse than any kind of PMS, I snapped at him for no reason, I snarled if he interrupted my reading, I’d shout at him for not being like Edward, in fact I was starting to behave like an angry vampire. I acknowledged my behaviour (albeit a bit late and after causing many unnecessary rows), so we had a lovely brunch, and then I came home and continued to read.

The most amazing thing about the books is the utter ease and almost complete lack of control that allows you to empathise with Bella. So I struggled when the story began to be told from Jacob’s point of view.

(PLEASE DO NOT READ BELOW IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS. I DON'T WANT TO SPOIL IT FOR ANYONE!)

When Bella and Jacob got married I was slightly annoyed. Her engagement ring sounds just like mine. And her wedding sounded how I wanted mine to look too! Except there is no way I would not look in a mirror before I walked down the aisle.... crazy girl....

Their honeymoon is/was beyond unreal. I felt cheated with the lack of detail given by Meyer about the consummation of their marriage, but in fact, leaving it to the imagination, the feathers, the bedstead, the bruises, makes it so much more passionate, and so much more Edward.

I knew Bella was pregnant. And as crazy as it sounds started to feel very ill and get stomach pains as Bella did. When I stopped to tell my fiancé about what I had just read when he knew I was having stomach pains, he laughed, at his insane fiancée.

I read until a reasonable hour, and then stopped and went to bed.

When I woke up on Monday morning I could not believe how ill I was. I couldn’t breathe, I was in pain, in agony and my throat was burning.

Eventually I dragged myself to the doctor’s and low and behold I was diagnosed with tonsillitis!!! I couldn’t believe it. I just wanted to go to work and then come home to read. (This was something I couldn’t do with the first two books, and hence why I finished them over a weekend. But I was grateful to be able to take my time with this one. Plus - I love my job). I coyly suggested to the doctor that if I rested for a day and felt better I could go in tomorrow. She looked at me and said no, you can take the week off and rest and that it is the only way to get better from tonsillitis. I was mortified.

I came home and took my first set of antibiotics.

As my head began to feel like it was capable of taking in any outside information, I lay on the sofa with a little wooden desk my fiance had recently purchased to make reading easier, and decided to complete Breaking Dawn. As crazy as it sounds, as Bella ‘turned’, I felt like I was going through the motions with her. And in the strangest way, I felt like my being so ill and suffering made complete sense in the scale of my connection to this book. I checked my pulse on a little blood pressure monitor we have and it was 125 beats a minute. Hmmm...

I’ve completed the book and I’m not really sure what to say.

I smiled and smiled and smiled when I got to that last page. I woke up my fiancé to tell him it was finished, and he smiled when I told him he had his girl back. But I also smiled because I was, am, just so happy for Edward, Bella, Renesmee, and all the Cullens and Charlie and Jacob and ahhhhhh I am just so happy and relieved.

It’s a bitter sweet ending. Happily ever after indeed as the chapter in entitled, but the end, as the last words on the page are written, sealing their story tightly shut.

This book has done things to me that I didn’t know were possible. My heart has been broken, torn apart, I’ve lost the ability to breath, screamed and shouted at anyone near me, been completely oblivious to my surroundings, have wanted to die, have wanted to live forever, I have been through more emotions in such a short space of time that one would ever think possible from a work of fiction.

Unlike most books where I can differentiate reality from non-reality, this books feels deeply rooted in reality. Perhaps because I am already deeply in love, perhaps because I already say things like ‘I’ll love you forever’ to the fiancé, or perhaps just because I believe this to be the greatest love story ever told.

I do always wonder what effect this book would have on me had I been single. Would I be as ok if I couldn’t turn over and curl in to the fiancé? I worry at the thought of how this book effects those who are on their own, broken hearted, looking for someone, or even completely happy on their own? It must change them? The effect must be as strong as it was for me, and possibly worse? I flinch at the thought of someone else’s lonely pain.
As a literature graduate I acknowledge Meyer’s use and acknowledgment of Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights and similarities of Interview with the Vampire, all stories that had a significant effect on me as a reader, but at this present time, these books have had the most profound effect on my life. The most unique thing I think is that Edward never loved before Bella, and vice-versa. One true love, for as long as they both shall live. To a critic, I can see how their love may be unrealistic, unbelievable. And I agree, it is exactly that. And that is also what makes it so pure. The words written by Meyer have resonated so deeply within me. After the final book I am somewhat content. I’m grateful I didn’t end the saga with a desperate longing for more, although my heart feels a little light, that may just be the antibiotics and lack of sleep.

I will treasure these books for years to come. If I have a daughter I will let her read them if her heart is strong. But if she is anything like her mother or aunt (I would read my sister's Stephen King books to her from the age of 8), I don’t think I’ll have a choice. I feel as though I have inherited a precious heirloom. I think these books have changed my life. Maybe in some twist of fate, I will wake up with no tonsillitis, well enough to go to work, and not looking like a werewolf as I have been while I’ve been ill but instead a beautiful vampire... ok, ok, I’m getting carried away again.

It’s just that I don’t want to stop writing. I don’t want it to end.

I guess I have the Twilight DVD. There’s Midnight Sun the story from Edward’s perspective on http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/. And there’s the release of the New Moon movie in November. I guess for now I will just drool over pictures of Robert Pattinson, although the Edward on the page is so much more. I’ll buy a Team Edward tee and maybe one day I won’t talk about the books every single day, but somehow I think they’ll be with me, forever.

Stephanie Meyer. Thank You.

Thank You. Thank you. Thank you.