I remember the book that got me reading, The Giggler Treatment. Its a fantastic kids book and ridiculously funny, to this day it still makes me laugh out loud. That was the book that started me reading on my own, but as I have said before, Harry Potter really brought out the love of books in me.
Since first reading, The Giggler Treatment and The Harry Potter Series, i have reread them, many, many,many times. And that for me is a sign of a truly amazing book, wanting to reread it, even memorizing pieces of text, because of the way they speak to you. I wish i could say that every book I've read has been like this, but it hasn't, i doubt anyone can say that every book they've read has been that good. I have of course picked up and struggled through books i haven't liked in the slightest. But all in all I know I've read far more good books then bad.
When i start reading a book, a lot of the time, and this happened more when i was younger, I would just put it down if it didn't grab me right off the bat. Like for instance, Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman. A friend of mine gave it to me as a present, and I just didn't have the patience to sit down and read it through. Mostly because of the long chapters. I found Northern Lights, at first, to be unreasonably long. I have of course read bigger books, but for me the length of the chapters can really drag a book out. So eventually after hearing how good it was from family members I started to read it properly, and wow. It was an amazing book. Long yes, but still amazing. It completely changed my perspective on books, in that now, even if the book had stupidly long chapters and felt very long, i would still give it a proper chance rather then dismiss it.
The reason I'm writing about books, is that I have just finished reading Catching Fire, which if you don't know is the second in the Hunger Games trilogy. It was mindblowingly awesome. But I'm not here to review it. After finishing it I realised that I hadn't been reading as much as i used to and it made me wonder why.
The first reason was obvious really. The internet. I love the internet but I'm sad to say that recently I've taken to reading things online rather then picking up a book. Like I will read a REALLY good fanfiction all the way through in one night, even if its stupidly long, in favour of picking up a book. And yes i know fanfiction isn't as good as most published work, but dammit i do love it. I'm not sure why I've taken to this habit, maybe its the amount of time I'm on the computer anyway. But in my opinion i think its because I can be reading it on an open browser on split screen and still be talking to friends, where as i find that more difficult to do with an actual factual physical book.
The second reason, is an odd one. My mom's a librarian. Now you would think that having a made of awesome librarian mom would be good for my reading habits. But no, this is because, my mom is in the library the whole time so I don't really have reason to go there when she's not. And thats not really very good. Sure every now and again she'll bring me something that looks awesome, but I'm not getting nearly as many books out as I used to.
I have no other real reason, other then laziness on my part. Which is something i plan to fix. I'm going to start reading more actual factual books, that is a promise. I have so many that I have bought shelved and not looked at again, but no more! Speaking of which, Mockingjay tomorrow, you have no idea how excited i am for this book!
