My Journey To Reading

     Now, I know I have blogged about this before, but this is slightly different.
     A few months ago I applied to be a writer for a literary website. While they didn't take me as a writer, they did steal my ideas. That's neither here nor there.
     Because they didn't take me as a writer, I decided I would write on here what I planned to write for them. This is one of the pieces I submitted to them.

A Reader Is Born

Brace yourselves.

When I was a child, I hated to read.

Yes, I know how bad that sounds. But I have my reasons. Well, more like one reason. I was bad at it. I had to get special help with my reading and I hated every second of it. No one ever likes struggling with something, but I was Harry Potter getting help from Snape hating on this class. So the hating journey began in kindergarten and lasted till the summer before my freshman year of high school.

That summer, my sister handed me the first Harry Potter book. I was hooked. I became an addict. I needed books like I needed air.

After I devoured Harry Potter, I picked up anything I could. I frequented our school library, a library that is now smaller than my personal collection. I read the classics, because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. But when Dickens and the Bronte sisters didn’t quench my teenage thirst, I switched my tastes. Seriously, the only thing I could remember from The Grapes of Wrath was a turtle. I tried reading nonfiction. Never again. Nothing was really doing it for me. But I needed to read. I just needed to find what fed my soul.

My senior year I got a new English teacher. This was not a new concept because the English teacher position at my school was as cursed as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors at Hogwarts. However, I got closer to this teacher than I had the previous ones. She introduced me to the Twilight books. At first I was a little suspicious and wary of the whole vampire thing. But, I needed something new and decided to give it a shot. Holy YA, Batman was I smitten.

YA was my new crack. I changed tactics in the library and found every Paranormal YA Romance book I could find. Blood and Chocolate, The Silver Kiss, the Inheritance series. Anything that had any type of magical or paranormal element.

In my college years, which I attended so I could major in books, I discovered that trilogies were possibly the best things since sliced bread. I would read a book, fall madly in love with it, finish it, be devastated it was over, then cry tears of joy when I found it was merely the first in a series. It was like Heaven opened up and the angel choir sang to me because I would get to read more books.

The following years, I read anything YA I could get my hands on. I was the equivalent of a book slut. Eventually my tastes refined and I was more like a book prude. It was sad, but it had to happen. I needed good YA books, not substandard ones.

Two years ago I heard tell of a certain book. Now, I am a person who likes to be ahead of the hype, but a friend of mine told me I had to read this certain book. So I buy said book. I sit down to read said book. I do not move till said book is finished. Yes, I’m talking about The Fault In Our Stars. I read TFIOS in one sitting. Let me tell you. TFIOS is 313 pages. On page 203 I began to cry and did not stop until I had finished the book. I blubbered like a baby. I had never been so moved by a book in my entire life. The Fault In Our Stars is by far my favorite book of all time. And I do not say that lightly.

I have since tried to find that pure euphoria and love for a book. I have not found it, but I will continue searching. Because I need to breathe and books are my air.

When I’m 100 years old, sitting in my rocker, clutching a book, they will ask me, “After all this time?” and I will tell them, “Always.”