Top 5 Reasons you should be watching Friday Night Lights

5. It's not Gossip Girl. Ok, I know, I know, no one loves Gossip Girl more than me, but Friday Night Lights is just, well, better. Gossip Girl is fun and entertaining, but Friday Night Lights is real and it gives me that breathless feeling in my chest that reminds me of being in high school and having silly crushes and trying to get into college and how the air always smelled like fall on the night of the first football game of the year.

4. It's inspiring. Much of the reason that Laura and I chose to write young adult literature (and I use that term loosely) is due to arrested development. I mean, clearly when you're 30-years-old and still watching shows like Gossip Girl, you're not ready to write for adults. But FNL reminds me of why I want to write for this audience so badly. Because when you're 16, there is nothing like that feeling of getting a phone call from the boy you've been obsessing over for 6 months. And your friends are literally the most important people in your world. And passing your driving test feels like a matter of life or death. Everything is bigger, brighter and carries an overwhelming sense of importance when you're 16-years-old. It's fun to remember what that feeling was like and to try to capture it in our writing and shows like FNL (and My So-Called Life, I still miss that show) remind me of what it was all like.

3. Football sucks. OK, I hate football. HATE it. I hate having it on tv, I hate listening to it on the radio and I really hate it when I have to think about my son playing it some day. So, as you can imagine it was a tough sell to get me to watch a show that pretty much centers around football, but Ken was insistent and I was bored, so I watched the very first episode with him. And I was totally hooked. Because here's the secret, it's not about football at all. It's about living in a small town in America. It's about being 16. It's about family. It's really about everything that isn't football. Just don't tell Ken that, ok? Because I really like watching it with him.

2. Coach Taylor and Tami Taylor. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton do an amazing job portraying how marriage really works. They fight about who makes dinner. Coach is always trying to get laid and Tami is usually too tired. They're stressed. They're happy. They're trying to create a better life for themselves and their kids. I love watching the way their marriage is played out on the show because it's like a real marriage, only better.

1. Tim Riggins. Ok, if for no other reason, you need to be watching this show for #33, Tim Riggins. He and Lyla are so cute together and I'm just constantly cheering for the bad boy with the heart of gold. And he's hot. Like, really, really, really hot.

I could go on and on and on about this show, but I'm supposed to be working on Gmail and you all know how Laura is a total slave-driver when it comes to writing. She's even threatened to revoke my blogging privileges if I don't buckle down and actually write.

So, please just give this show a chance. Even if you hate football, there's a lot to love about FNL.