Book Worm

I would describe myself as a bit of a book worm.  This is a pretty common description for many  adult women, but it seemed so unlikely that I would become one.  I hated reading when I was young.  Aside from the New Kids on the Block biography (yes, I totally just confessed to reading that book), I wasn't very interested in books.  That was one of the first books that I read from start to finish without anyone forcing me to.  I considered it to be important research, since I was planning on becoming the future Mrs. Jordan Knight.  As it turns out, I was dead wrong about my future, but I did gain something else from it, I discovered that I like to read when it was on my own terms. 

I moved on to the typical pre-teen reading list: Sweet Valley High, The Babysitters Club, Super Fudge and anything by Judy Blume.  Just like my experience with the N.K.O.T.B. bio, I enjoyed reading the books of my own choosing.  Unfortunately though, my high school teachers had VERY different taste in literature than myself. 

I found a few of the assigned books enjoyable, but the rest were not interesting enough to hold my attention.  That is to say that my boy crazy mind would much rather memorize pager numbers than retain Frankenstein.  I liked the Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451,  and Animal Dreams, but I HATED almost all the other assigned books.  Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, made me contemplate cutting out my own eyeballs with a steak knife.  For this reason, many of my high school English tests were done with the help of Clif Notes, brief plot summaries from my bestie Marchele and crappy movie adaptations of the assigned reading.  Lucky for me, I mastered the art of "bull shitting" at a young age and I graduated with decent grades. 

Side note: Sorry Mr. Lovet, but I only read chapter one of almost every book you required me to read.  Your good looks were the only thing holding my attention in your class.

So how I went from a book shunning slacker to a late night chapter hound, I'll never know.  I'm thankful for the change though.  There is nothing better than getting absorbed into a well written novel.  I love ending each day with a trip into a totally different world.   Some of what I read is so acutely familiar, and other stories so far from anything I've every experienced, yet they seem to real in my mind.  I love falling in love with characters and I hate reading the last paragraph of the last page that ends my knowledge of them. 

I've been reading some great books lately and my local library has been kind enough to actually carry some of the books I've been dying to read.  So the last few weeks I've been staying up way to late to hurry through books that I never want to end.  I have lost so much sleep, but I enjoy it.  I love being able to say that I really, truly enjoy staying up late reading.  Here are a few reason why.