As soon as I finished New Moon, I picked up Eclipse and started reading. It was nearly 4 am before I could put it down! Eclipse picks up where New Moon left off, yet explains things briefly for readers just joining the series.

Bella is torn between Edward (her vampire boyfriend) and Jacob Black (her best friend who she recently discovered is a werewolf). Naturally, vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies, so with the Cullen family returned the pack is itching with detest. Bella is stuck between the two, with her dad forever rooting for Jacob because Edward left her broken.

With unresolved dangers hanging over Bella’s head from the previous two stories, she is shocked to learn that a vampire, whose scent the Cullen’s don’t recognize, has been in her bedroom and stolen some things with her “scent” on them. Not only does she have to deal with whoever (or whatever) is stalking her, she has to decide between Edward and Jacob, both of whom she loves. It all comes to a head in this novel, as Bella resolves to be with Edward forever and the two commit to turning Bella into a vampire (under some conditions!).

As I’ve said before, it’s not highly intelligent literature, and there are definitely some questionable things Bella does for ‘love’, but it’s fun and entertaining. I can’t say enough about the compelling story of this series… but the best thing for you to do is read them all before Breaking Dawn comes out on August 2nd, 2008.

Sorry I haven’t updated recently — I’ve had to resist the urge! I wanted to keep the Pay it Forward (my contribution) at the top as long as possible. However, now I’ve found another way to pay it forward. A few weeks ago, I got a load of books off Craiglist, and I only ended up wanting to keep 5 or 6. My parents had a look at them and of the authors they were interested in, they’d already read most of them.

However, tonight I went to a new meet-up from Meetup.com and re-discovered BookCrossing.com!

I’d found some books previously around the city with this BookCrossing.com sticker. The concept is simple: read & release. It’s all tracked online by book ID numbers that you attach to the book, and you can say as much or as little as you like about a book you find. They all get added to my BookCrossing.com “shelf” and as other users log and enter their individual tracking numbers, each book gets updated. So I brought a bag-full of books to the Meetup tonight and I was pleasantly surprised!

Marina, the meet-up organiser, had her computer with her and helped me sign up for BookCrossing (though I could have sworn I had an account many moons ago). Then I registered and “released” all the books I brought with me.

I still have a box load left here in my bedroom (there were 96 in total – including the ones I wanted), so I definitely have something to contribute to literacy in the city! I was thinking of taking the bus with a bag of books and leaving one on every bus I took!

The meetup was great! All the people were really nice and super easy to talk to. Normally I’m a quiet person in groups, but it was totally easy to be myself around such a bubbly, friendly group of people. I definitely will be going next month!