I think you could probably quite safely say that vampires are my guilty pleasure, not just in books but generally.& I'm not talking vampires that sparkle in the sun here, I'm talking actual proper vampires; yes I know, that's as much of an oxymoron as the term 'living dead' itself but you know what I mean, right?
I don't know what the appeal is. I remember getting an LJ Smith book free with a magazine when I was about 14. It was about this teenage girl who was dying of cancer and her vampire boyfriend who was all immortal and intense and could read her mind when she drank him blood & then I watched 'Interview With The Vampire' (remember that film??) and something sort of stuck. There's something about the vampire that's just.....sexy.
Is that weird?
It's totally all to do with the way they're portrayed: they're dramatic and powerful; they're sexy in a dangerous passionate kind of way and 9/10 times they're beautiful. They either look beautiful (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Gary Oldman, RPattz [come on guys, you can't deny that RPattz is a beautiful young man] Ian Somerhlader etc) or they are described as being beautuful and thus are so in my head which brings me to my guilty pleasure in the book world: The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris.
The Sookie books are the inspiration for the TV series True Blood and tell the story of a telepathic barmaid from Louisiana, living in a world where vampires are living 'out of the coffin' and trying to integrate themselves with society.
They're complete trash.
I love them.
They're 100% totally and completely unrealistic. They're overly dramatic. The plotlines are so insane that they're almost laughable. If they weren't about vampires then I probably wouldn't give them the time of day but that is not the case, instead I have some kind of 'V' addiction so I can easily lose myself for a couple of hours (because that's all they take to read) in Bon Temps, because the vampires, Bill and Eric, are beautiful in my head; there's a cute shapeshifter and a fit werewolf; theres' lots of hotvampiresex;Sookie is actually a pretty awesome protaganist and a pretty good role model in that she is alwaysalways prepared to fight for what she believes in, and every book in the series (so far) has contained enough edge-of-the-seat drama and mystery and romance and humour to keep the pages turning.
I know these books aren't great but I also know I like them and that's what matters, isn't it?
This whole 'guilty pleasure' thing also links quite nicely into my Friday Photo. That beautiful man in the corner of this post is the star of my televisual guilty pleasure "The Vampire Diaries" and yes, he plays a bad-ass vampire.
Anyone noticing a trend ;)
I have a boyfriend and I love him and we're very happy. I just want to make that clear. That does not however stop my jaw from hitting the floor pretty much any time I see Ian Somerhalder (Yes, it is Boone of off Lost) because let's face it people, this man is beautiful and sometimes no matter how loved up you are, a beautiful man off of the telly can make a long slow week seem better.
