How To Read Me Essay

Up until I was in fifth grade, I absolutely loathed reading. I thought it was monotonous, useless, and troublesome. I actually hated it so much that I avoided reading new material for years, and instead used Judy Moody Predicts the Future by Megan McDonald for three separate books reports. Unfortunately, that book helped me from having to branch out from my unadventurous, very selective book choices, but it also set a tone for what genre of reading I would continue my preteen years. These books were generally childish, composed of sci-fi or fantasy stories rather than stories layered with depth and societal complexity. And the epitome of my preteen reading years was the book that made me love reading in the first place; Maximum Ride. This book by James Patterson was the first “young-adult” book I’d ever read, and it transported me to a new and thrilling world; one with winged children, bloodthirsty wolf-hybrids, and action scenes upon action scenes. It was the first time of many that I would completely
lose myself in a story and be unable to put a book down. Eventually, I began to explore a variety of new writing genres.
When I first read Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson, I was surprised by how enthralled I became with such a dark and mysterious plot. That book opened up a new world of thriller books, and with reading new literature came expanding my author selections to the point that Marc Olden, Dean Koontz, and even Stephen King novels piqued my interest. Stephen King in particular shifted my attention from the thriller genre to the horror genre. As King was one of my late father’s absolute favorite authors (seriously, he had a bookshelf of Stephen King books), I decided to read It. That was the first book to make me cringe, gag, cry and quite literally drop the book in surprise. I feel that It changed me in that I now enjoy reading books that may seem morally compromised in its attempt to shock the reader because there is often a universal message hidden in horror novel’s gory extremism that I love to
unveil. Just as I feel that my Dad’s reading had an impact on me, my Mom did as well. One of her favorite stories to read to me as a kid was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein because of it’s simple and selfless message. To this day reading the book makes her teary with nostalgia, and I will always positively associate that book with both my Mom and my childhood. However as I grew, my Mom began to recommend books with convoluted lessons. Another book recommendation by my Mom, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley, introduced new ideas of feminism through almost barbaric legends in female perspective. This represents me in that since then, I have adopted and maintained a feminist mindset that guide my decisions as both a reader and as a person. I personally believe that all 10 of the books I discussed have helped me “discover through exploration.” Whether that discovery is a new perspective, a new passion, or even just a new genre, I appreciate that my past experiences with reading have molded me into who I am today, and am interested to see how my taste in literature will evolve in the future.