This month's LitSoup question:

What are your guilty pleasure reads?

I posed this question to the newsroom, and these are the responses I received:

Caitlin Fertal:

In the request for our guilty pleasure reading, Cheryl pointed out that we could “go ahead and admit that you’re reading the Twilight series,” so I thought, OK, I will.
I read these books a couple years ago, and I immediately fell in love with them.
It was an easy read that you could throw yourself into completely and just escape whatever it may be that you were dealing with in the real world. (For me, that happened to be a less-than-pleasant breakup, so the fantasy world sucked me in where I didn’t need to think).
I think a book like this is perfect for it, and I’ve told anyone who will listen that I don’t know if what was going on in my life at the time is why I am so fond of these books, or if I would have liked them just the same if I wasn’t escaping reality.
Either way, when I went to see The Hunger Games recently, (which was AWESOME) and the trailer for the newest Twilight film came on, I was pretty excited about it. I’m not gonna lie, I can’t wait to see Bella turn into a vampire.
Maybe I am just a nerd/teenage girl at heart, because I love everything about the characters and the story. (I know Cheryl thinks they’re lame, and hasn’t joined either “team,” but I’ll always be a team Edward girl).
If you haven’t read them, you should know that the movies are pretty terrible in comparison. I still like them, and I’ll go see the newest one when I have time.. but the books are far better – especially because you aren’t surround by a bunch of swooning 12 year olds.
Books like this and the (much better) Harry Potter series make me wish I could be a vampire or attend Hogwarts. Now that certainly qualifies as a guilty pleasure.

Nicole Franz:

My guilty pleasure reads are comic books. I’m particularly guilty of delving through the bound volumes of Marvel Comics titles like X-Men.

Jeffrey L. Frischkorn:

Shhh.. Don’t tell anyone but it’s SCI-FI, especially the Star Trek stuff… Great airplane reading material…

Cheryl Sadler:

As Caitlin mentioned above, I am reading the Twilight series (but I don't think I'm enjoying it as much as she did, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as guilty pleasure). I am a fan of mindless chick lit -- those pink paperback books. I'm working my way through some Meg Cabot, which is not that great but entertaining. And it shouldn't be a secret to any longtime readers of this blog that I read and thoroughly enjoyed "Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later ..." (though I might have liked re-reading the original Sweet Valley High books in preparation for that a bit more).

Matthew Skrajner:

My biggest guilty pleasure read is definitely celebrity gossip. Do I know any of these people? Will I ever meet them? Do they affect my life in any way? Absolutely not. But I can’t get enough TMZ… I’m not proud of it.

I opened the question up to Twitter:

@nhcheryl Sweet Valley, duh! I just got a copy of Sweet Valley Confidential. Only a year late. :)
— Danielle Capriato (@DCapriato) March 26, 2012

@nhcheryl Sorta feel guilty that I still prefer Wishbone's interpretations of the classics to the originals. t.co/KoWG0Dti
— Edouard Weevil (@EdouardWeevil) March 26, 2012

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This post is part of a LitSoup, a regular feature on The Book Club compiled of contributions from the newsroom and community. Send an email or tweet with your suggestions for future LitSoup topics.

-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl