It’s deju vu all over again. Seems like just the other day bookstores were making front page news by staying open ’til all hours to sell the latest Harry Potter installment.

Next week, Friday, Aug. 1, it’s another author’s turn. Most of the bookstores in St. Louis will participate in “Breaking Dawn” parties, staying open until midnight to sell the new book in Stephenie Meyer’s series. 

If you don’t know any teen girls, you might not have heard of this book. Teen girls are the target audience for Meyer’s series, a paranormal romance featuring that classic triangle - a girl and her two love interests, a vampire and a werewolf.

At least I believe that’s the gist of it. I admit I haven’t read the books. But this story should seep into the culture a bit more when the first movie comes out. And obviously a lot of people are fans of the series: The  forthcoming book has been the No. 1 seller on amazon.com for at least a few weeks.

I’m all for enthusiasm for books - they deserve a bit of the marketing hype that drives most other entertainment blockbusters, right? But do these midnight parties really have the same demand behind them, the same interest in the books, that the ones for Potter did?

One bookseller told me that the preorders were about a fourth of what she had had for Potter. 

This craze for “Breaking Dawn” feels a bit more manufactured than real. Maybe I’m wrong - I hope so, because it’s nothing to sneer at if a  Mormon author’s books receive even a portion of the attention that the gore in summer movies gets.

Let me know if you plan to stay up to buy “Breaking Dawn” at midnight. And if you need a place to go, here are some ideas from our events listings in this Sunday’s paper: