When is reading not like reading?

When you're planning on writing something and get your editorial head on and mentally criticise it line by line. Or is that just me? When I was at Uni, I had to stop reading for fun for the whole of my final year because every single thing I read I was just thinking about it critically, how they did this, how they achieved that effect, what I would have done differently or what I would love to do myself. Hmmm. I don't want to sit backstage at the theatre, thank you very much I'd prefer to be front-row. So I'm planning my YA book and have started to read in genre. I'm steering clear of Twilight because I've blacklisted it in my head. There is no real reason for this, I've just decided I don't want to read it. I'm sure it's brilliant and I'd love it if I did but the line has got to be drawn somewhere. I can't read everything. I'm already a big fan of Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and the Hunger Games (well, the first two. I wanted to give Katniss a massive shake in the last one). I've started to read more and found that my inner editor went absolutely crackers. I can't name the book I'm talking about because I don't want to be some massive cow who slags off other writers, when writing a book is an amazing achievement and something I can only dream of. I read an article (on Perez Hilton, of all places) basically saying how this book was being made into a movie and was the "next big thing" and the best/most dangerous thing about having a kindle is that you can think of a book and about a minute later you can totally own it. Anyway, I totally own this book. And at first, I loved it. And I still really like the story. It's the way it was executed that threw me, some of the things didn't make sense to me, some things just confused me and there were quite a few points that made me think, ooh, I'll steer clear of that. So what did I learn? * how can a girl who is so plain be so attractive to everyone and have boys fighting over her? - my heroine will be a stunner * too many characters are confusing, especially when they are all around the same age - I'm going to have three core characters and well defined secondary characters who cannot be mixed up * repetition is annoying - get creative I think those are the three key things I'm going to bear in mind when I finally get typing. Which I'm saving for NaNo. In the meantime, I'm off to make up a book of inspiration. See ya!