When I was in preschool and elementary school, I loved to read. My favorites were Junie B. Jones, The Babysitters Club, and Ramona and Beezus. I learned to read at a young age and loved to read short, simple books in one sitting. However, as I got older and entered fourth grade in particular, I lost my love for reading. Reading requirements for school became more frequent, so I never had the chance to read on my own anymore. Whenever I had to read, it felt like a chore, so I stopped reading books for entertainment. I didn’t hate reading all together, but choosing to spend my time reading started to sound ridiculous to me. During fourth grade, I also started to get a much larger homework load, so I began to have less free time available. Fast forward to around eighth grade, my friends all started to talk about the Divergent series and how they loved it. Being easily influenced at 13 years old, I decided to try it for myself. I loved the book, at least what I actually read of it. Around ¾ through the book, I got bored and never finished it. But this was the first time I had even tried to read a book for enjoyment in so long. This is what initially sparked my love for reading again.

Once 2022 started, I made a goal for myself to read at least 12 books that year on my own. I quickly succeeded in my goal. I still wasn’t reading high quality literature, but at least I was reading for fun again. I began to read books and finish them within 48 hours. My favorite book was A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder because this book was what finally got me out of my 12-year reading slump. While Divergent first opened the doors to reading again, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was the first book that I actually couldn’t put down. I consistently read books for fun after this for about six months. Unfortunately, as school began to pile up, I stopped reading again until the summer after junior year. Realizing that I had missed out on the most fundamental reading years, I decided to spend some of my summer reading the books that most people had read during elementary school and middle school. For example, I had never read Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, or Percy Jackson. At the beginning of June, I decided to pick up The Hunger Games and I finished the series within about a week. After reading The Hunger Games, I loved it so much I could not bring myself to try something else. I had developed an obsession and couldn’t stop focusing on it. Especially with the hype of Suzanne Collins’ newest book coming out, my excitement was very high. Over the past month, I have become a normal person again and I am ready to embark on my next reading hyperfixation: Harry Potter. If you are anything like me and have never been much of a reader, this is your sign to go back and read some of the quality books your friends read during second grade.