Love for reading

From a very young age I loved to read and was so excited when I discovered series like Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley High, and Nancy Drew.  I kept my love of reading until high school when my reading choices were no longer my choices but those of the ‘required lists’.  For some reason Charles Dickens and I just didn’t find our love for each other and I struggled with reading for once in my life.  I lost my love for a while until I rediscovered it again in college.  Someone introduced me to Janet Evanovich and her crazy bounty hunter character.  Book by book I fell back in love with reading.  Stamping took over my reading time for a few years, and then after I had Taylor I found my way back to reading.  I went through the books on my shelves and anything that a friend lent me.  As part of my 29 before 30 I made a goal to read a book a month and that has been an easy goal to reach.  Sometimes I think Chris would be happier if I limited my reading to ONLY one book a month. 

 

Last year I re-read all the Janet Evanovich books in the Stephanie Plum series except for number fifteen because it was still in hardback and checked out at the library. 

I then moved on to Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series.  If you haven’t read these they are awesome!  The HBO series Tru Blood is loosely based off them and makes for an interesting interpretation.  Now to wait until the next one comes out so I can find out who Sookie falls for next.  I couldn’t get enough of her writing and also read ‘A Touch of Dead’ which are short stories that fill in some gaps between books.  I love it when Misty comes to visit because she always has a stack of books for me to read and we like similar styles of books.  She’s the one who got me hooked on the Sookie books, so she brought me ‘How to Sleep with a Movie Star’, ‘The Art of French Kissing’, ‘Italian for Beginner’s’, and ‘The Blonde Theory’ all by Kristin Harmel.  She is another great writer.  M also brought me ‘Shopaholic and Sister’.  I’ve read some of the other Shopaholic books and while they are funny, I cringe through the entire book with the amount of money that she spends! 

By now you’ve guessed that I do not read books to become smarter or how to better my life.  Reading is my escape for a few minutes, hours, or however long I can hide from Chris and Taylor.  I like a fun and fast read that is not going to give me nightmares or stress me out.

After dealing with a few toddler tantrums I figured it was time to stop and read a few parenting books to make my daily life a little easier.  It’s funny how I can read a fun book in a few days/a week but it took me almost a month to finish Toddlerwise and Toddler 411.  I just dreaded picking the book up and always feel asleep while trying to read them.  I love my daughter and want to be a great parent, but sometimes those books are just way too dry! 

Boy was I excited when I could put down the parenting books and get back to fun reading.  I started off with Dear John by Nicholas Sparks.  Maybe it was just me, but don’t read this book without a few tissues.  I read it on the plane to NY and Desha had to keep giving me her napkins as the tears just rolled down my face.  It was a great book but sad in parts, but that’s common with a Sparks book.  To lighten the mood I tried LA Candy by Lauren Conrad next.  You can tell that she’s not a writer but the plot is somewhat interesting and the bad thing is that she leaves you completely hanging at the end of the book.  I had to buy the next book just to find out what happens to the character. (it’s in my stack to read, but let me know if you want to borrow them)  I enjoyed the Kristin Harmel books that Misty had given me so I read ‘After’ and ‘When you wish’ that are also by her.  These are a bit more juvenile and not as good, but still better than LA Candy.  Misty has been to Austin for a visit lately so I had to resort to my own bookshelf for another book and was excited when I found ‘The Lucky One’.  In my mind I thought it was the Miley Cyrus movie that’s in theaters right now and was very confused when I started to read it and it sounded nothing like the movie trailer.  That would be bc Miley Cyrus is in ‘The Last Song’.  It was a good book and very worth reading! 

Another fun surprise on my book shelf was ‘Grave Sight’ by Charlaine Harris.  This is another character series she wrote with four books currently in the series.  They just as good as the Sookie series but I’m already sad that I’m on book 3 and only have one left.  That means I have two books on my ‘To Read’ list and then am looking for a few more great books to read.  What books have you read lately that you love?