Out From Under Twilight

Help! I'm stuck under Twilight and I can't get out!

Well, actually, I just unstuck myself. I finally turned the last page of Breaking Dawn, the last book in the Twilight series.

And thank God! I don't think I could take another installment.

The books annoyed me. And not just because they were clocking in at like 700 pages each.

I deeply disliked the main character, Bella Swan. She lacked independence, confidence and thought her entire self worth depended on whether or not the right boy loved her.

And when she wasn't obsessing over boys and whether or not she should get married at the age of 18, she was obsessing over doing the laundry and cooking for her single dad.

Puke! Gag! Gross! Especially when you consider the target audience for these books is high school girls! Come on! Positive female role models please?

So why did I read them all? Because despite all the plot line pitfalls they were strangely compelling. I just had to find out whatever became of Bella Swan.

That, and a friend wanted to read them and discuss them together. Turns out, neither one of us was a Bella Swan fan.

One of the ways I managed to pull myself through the Twilight haze was to look back over all the books I read in 2008.

I have finally finished compiling my year-end list, choosing my favorites and posting it to my web site.

Four of my top five 08 picks were travel books and the fifth was a novel that had me crying by page 3.

Check out my complete 2008 reading list.