Reading Between the Lines

I have a confession to make. I love to read. Really love it. I can remember the first book I read for my own enjoyment to this very day. It was called 'Socks' and it was about a stray cat. I was about 11 years old, at a new school away from all of my friends and Socks helped me escape how 'unbearable' my life had become. I put unbearable in quotations because when you're 11 your definition of unbearable and others' aren't quite the same.

Anyway, after 'Socks', I moved on to Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super-mysteries. I sure did love solving the crime before the book was over. I'm something of a smart ass when it comes to that. If you've read/watched enough, you pick up the clues that tell you who the perpetrator is. Remember 'The Usual Suspects'? Yeah, I knew who Keyser Soze was. So thank you Nancy and the Boys. You helped me be the person who ruins the end of movies for their friends!

Once Nancy Drew was no longer fun, my aunt's neighbor was getting rid of boxes of books. We're talking about years of Harlequin romances. Some of these books were probably as old as I was (at 13) and they were going to throw them away. My aunt, being the thrifty person she is, asked me if I wanted them. I said 'sure' and the world of romance was opened to me.

That was it. I was hooked immediately. By the time I was sixteen, I'd read all 300 books the neighbor gave us and began checking books out of the library. I was reading all the time. It got so bad that my mom threatened to throw my books away. I think she was worried I was going to rot my brain or something. I didn't party, I read. I still did things with friends, but seriously, those books kept me out of trouble.

Senior year: My high school was right across the street from the library and since I didn't have my license and had to wait for someone to pick me up from band practice, I'd hang out at the library. Every week I checked out anywhere between 6 and 12 books, finishing them and returning them the next week to trade for more. This went on at least 9 months. I began to read fast enough to finish a full-length novel in 3 hours. This excessive reading actually helped me on my ACT! Can you believe it? I wasn't the best student (hiding my romance novels in my textbooks), but I scored well enough that the valedictorians and all were asking me how I did it. What'd I tell them? I just read a lot. Yeah, the geeks thought I was a geek, lol.

When I finally got a car and a job, I began to cultivate my collection. Over the years, I've had to thin it out, but I still own some of the first books I bought for myself. No, I don't have anymore of those old Harlequins or Barbara Cartland's (they were taking up too much room in my bookcase!).

I'm 33 years old and if I had the money, I'd be at the bookstore every week buying 20 books at a time. Because I don't have the money (and I've started writing). I re-read my novels. I have some books I've read up to eight times. Excessive? Probably, but when you're desperate to read and can't spend money, this is what you do! I keep telling my mother this, lol. If a new book comes out in a series, I have to read the entire series before reading the newest release. This is a little more difficult with some of the series (like Sherrilyn Kenyon or Laurell K Hamilton), but I do it. The Black Dagger Brotherhood? Immortals After Dark? Lords of the Underworld series? Yeah, I've read them about eight times.

My joy of reading has helped me so many times. Now that I'm writing, I hope that my books (should the blessed things ever be published) do the same for some other teenager.

Now that I've finished rambling, does anyone else re-read their books frequently? Do you remember the first book you read for the joy of it? How fast do you read?