Reading is such a unique experience. I was scrolling through Reddit and someone said that “Reading is looking at a dead piece of wood and hallucinating for hours.” It is a very strange concept but it is so true. As a kid, I did not understand why my best friend and sister would read so much. I always wanted to play outside or do crafts but they wanted to read and I remember some days that made me angry. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I realized why reading was so hard for me.
As a kid, I would cry when my parents or whoever was watching me told me to read. I just did not think it was fun and didn’t see the purpose. When I entered into middle school a lot of my friends were into reading. I remember thinking how upset I was that all my friends were reading during study hall. Mind you during those study halls I was always writing short stories but I didn’t seem to see the connection to reading and writing. Then my classmates started asking me if I had read whatever book they were in to at the time and the answer was always “no, I hate reading.” They would proceed to give me a weird look and walk away.
Then people started asking me why I hated reading and I never knew the actual answer to that question. I would usually answer that I am not good at reading. I knew that was a lie from the first time I said it. Then that was validated when I got a high score in reading comprehension on the IOWA tests. Well, that is the excuse that I used every time someone asked me why I hated reading. For the record, I say that I hated reading but I did read a select few books over and over again. I mentioned this in my first blog post. I read them because someone told me that I would get a prize if I read a book or something like that, I never read a book for the first time because I wanted to.
Looking back on that time in middle school I can laugh now, but at the time I remember thinking that there was something wrong with me. When I would read Percy Jackson or Maximum Ride I got attached to the books and hated when people would say negative things about them. I didn’t understand why everyone else didn’t absolutely love the books that I was reading. I got defensive but I still said I hated reading even though I actively tried to convince my friends that Maximum Ride was the best book series ever written.
When I got to 11th grade and we read a certain book that made me realize why I said I hated reading for all those years. (Once I got into high school I started associating events with what book I was reading.) I really enjoyed reading and the books I read in high school were awesome, well most of them. I have some harsh feelings about Moby Dick. Anyway, I was loving the books we were reading that year and then I remember a feeling of awe when my teacher placed the last book of the year in front of me. Les Miserables is over 1,400 pages and it was like he plopped a brick down in front of me. I didn’t think I was smart enough to read this huge book, and then I started reading it and I was so confused and it brought back my memories of hating every book. I stuck with it and it is now one of my favorite books. It was one of the few books that I continued reading passed what was assigned to us.
I was in love with it and it took us about three months to read through all of it. In my opinion, that is a long time to read a single book. I was sitting on my roof and I decided I wanted to just finish the book so I grabbed a flashlight and sat outside in the dark until I finished it. Then I proceeded to sob as I closed the book. That night I realized why I hated reading. The ending of Les Miserables is not overly sad nor was it anything that a normal person would get so upset over. I cried because the book ended and I desperately did not want it to end. Jean Valjean, Marius, and Cosette became my friends. Yes, I know that sounds crazy! It was such a strange feeling because for three months I traveled with these characters and they went with me where ever I went. Whenever I was bored I would just read some. I was attached and then they were just gone and I felt as if I had just lost my best friends and there was no way to hear from them again. That is what happened with the books I read in middle school, I got attached and became “friends” with the characters and it killed me inside to have to say goodbye to them. That is why I read the same books over and over again, I just wanted to be with my friends again.
I didn’t hate reading because I was bad at it or because I didn’t enjoy it. I think it was because I liked it so much that I didn’t want to have my heart-broken by book characters anymore. I know that there are people out there who relate to this situation because books are magical creations that cause people to feel crazy things. Oddly enough the only remedy that I have found is to read more. After I finish one book I start another one and then I get a whole new set of friends. Sometimes I do go back and reread chapters of Les Miserables, just so I can visit those friends again. So now you all probably think I am nuts because book characters are my friends, well that’s just who I am.
Quote of the day: “The book the reader has now before his eyes – from one end to the other, in its whole and in its details, whatever the omissions, the exceptions, or the faults – is the march from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from the false to the true, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from brutality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from nothingness to God.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérable