My Biggest Reading Influence

It's been ages since I did one of these posts, where I yap about a book, author, or other bookish subject that's had a profound impact on me as a reader. It's challenging sometimes just keeping up with the everyday blog stuff like reviews and the occasional meme, so posts like these tend to get pushed to the backburner.

I've been thinking about writing on this particular topic for a while, but I've been hesitant because personally, I hate cloying sentimentality, and I'm nervous about my little story coming off like that, despite my best efforts to avoid going there. But I've also been in a blogging funk lately and doing a lot of second guessing over content. So, in the spirit of blogging about what I feel like blogging about, I'm writing this post because it feels like the right time for it.

I never would have become the reading fanatic that I am today had it not been for my parents. They fostered my love of books from as far back as I can remember. Some of my most treasured memories are of my mom reading to me when I was little. She did the best character voices, and she didn't mind when I asked her to read me the same book over and over and over again.

I didn't understand until I was older why it was always my mom who'd read to me. My dad had quit school when he was 16 and started working full time. His parents didn't give him too much of a hassle over it because he was also helping support his five younger sisters at home (they were a family of ten all together). My dad never went back to school, and I think he tried to keep quiet how poor his reading skills were, but he encouraged me to read as much as my mom did. He often came home from work with the best surprise I could ask for—a new book. My parents were far from wealthy, but growing up, I never wanted for books to read, whether they were bought or borrowed from the library. We went to the library often, and I always had all of the time in the world in there to browse (well, until the library closed, anyway).

My dad will be gone four years on Tuesday, my mom eight years next month. One of the many, many things I regret never telling them was how grateful I am that they made reading such a vital part of my life. Every Sweet Valley Twins book they bought for me in Waldenbooks whenever we went to the mall, every trip we made to the Greenpoint branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, every massive book haul they let me do at school book fairs—I wouldn't love books as much as I do now without all of those things and so many others like them.

My mom, my dad, & me

Anatomy of a Reader: Let's Talk About Edgar Allan Poe

Anatomy of a Reader is an occasional post in which we highlight a book, even if it’s not a YA title, that has had an impact on us and shaped us into the readers that we are today.

I'm kind of cheating this time by devoting this post to an author rather than a specific book. With Halloween right around the corner, I thought that this would be the perfect time to spotlight Edgar Allan Poe, one of my all-time favorite authors. His short stories were my first foray into adult literature; I was about eleven and looking to branch out beyond the Sweet Valley Twins books when I obtained my first collection of Poe’s tales. It was a very modest compendium, containing only four stories, and was an edition aimed at younger readers. I actually found it in a neighborhood five and dime store, along with a few other bargain-priced classics like The Count of Monte Cristo. It was the cover of the Poe book, though, that had really caught my eye that day; I was completely intrigued by the cover illustration of an eerie, haunted-looking house. This was quite surprising because I was a complete chicken when it came to anything even remotely horror-related. (To this day I’m still a scary movie/TV show coward, but I’m gradually getting braver about reading scary books.) I wasn’t afraid of this Poe book, however, and I couldn’t wait to start reading it.

My favorite Poe story is still the first one that I ever read, “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I was just riveted, as well as more than a little spooked, by this story of a poor old man who is killed because his creepy eye freaks out the story’s narrator. What amazed me the most about this tale was how Poe managed to tell such a compelling, memorable, and of course, macabre, story so succinctly. Although reading this gave me the chills, I became fascinated with Poe’s writing, and he forever secured a place on my list of favorite authors.

I know that “The Cask of Amontillado,” which also ranks among my favorite stories, and “The Gold-Bug” were also part of this collection, but I’m slightly less sure about the remaining tale that was included. Sadly, I no longer own this book, so I can’t go check. When I upgraded to a slightly larger Poe compilation through my school’s book club maybe a year later, I sold the original one in a yard sale, probably along with the Sweet Valley Twins books. My gut feeling tells me that the story in question was “The Fall of the House of Usher” because when I had to read it in sophomore year of high school, I remembered having read it already. This story wasn’t in the newer Famous Tales of Mystery and Horror that replaced my original Poe collection, so it must have been the fourth tale in the latter. Do I regret selling that book? Perhaps a bit. It’d be a great piece of nostalgia to have today, but Famous Tales of Mystery and Horror still sits on my bookshelf next to a complete anthology of Poe’s stories and poems that I purchased a few years ago, so it’s not as though I sold the book and forgot all about him.

Becoming acquainted with Poe’s works was sort of a turning point in my reading life because after reading his stories, I wanted to continue reading grown-up books. I never really went back to reading young adult books for the rest of my school years. Ironically, it wasn’t until I was well into adulthood when I started reading YA again. If you happen to love both Poe and YA, then I highly recommend Bethany Griffin’s Masque of the Red Death, which is an excellent Poe retelling.

I continue to love Poe because his stories are so cleverly crafted and mesmerizing. I love that thrilling moment in a tale when the twist that you’ve been waiting for finally happens. If you’re a fellow Poe fan, I’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to share your favorite works in the comments!

Anatomy of a Reader: Why I'm Forever Indebted to Twilight

We thought that it'd be fun to do an occasional post in which we highlight a book, even if it’s not a YA title, that has had an impact on us and shaped us into the readers that we are today.

I’m kicking off this feature with Twilight, the novel that, for better or worse depending on who you ask, introduced the world to average human teenager Bella Swan and sparkly vampire Edward Cullen. I absolutely did not predict how much this book would affect my life, and I’m not just talking about the amount of money that I would eventually spend on the books, movie tickets, books about the making of the movies, etc. Twilight is the book that helped me rediscover my love of reading after a very, very long spell of not picking up a book on a regular basis. And if I hadn’t started reading again, I certainly wouldn’t be here today blogging about books.

As a kid, I was an extremely avid reader and always had my nose buried in a book. Once I went to high school, though, I had a lot less time for leisure reading. My summers as a teenager were filled with required reading, a lot of which wasn’t really my cup of tea and further put me off from books. College left even less time for anything but school-related reading, and by the time I graduated, one of the last things that I wanted to see for a while was a book.

After college graduation, I did read on occasion, but definitely not as much as I once did. That thought saddened me, but I didn’t know how to rekindle the love that I used to have for books. Then in 2008, my best friend asked me if I’d read this book called Twilight. I’d seen it on The New York Times Best Seller list for a while but never paid much attention to it. She had enjoyed reading the book and recommended it, but she did warn me that she didn’t like the second book nearly as much. I decided to give Twilight a try and bought a copy, which then sat on my shelf for about two months until Christmas. It probably would have remained there even longer if my cousin (and our guest blogger), Melissa, hadn’t received a copy as a gift and urged me to start reading mine. So I did.

For the next few nights, I got very little sleep because I could not put this book down. It wasn’t the best book that I’d ever read, but there was something about it that grabbed my attention and refused to let go. I was 31 at the time, and I hadn’t been this obsessed with a book in ages. The day after I finished reading Twilight, I went out and bought the rest of the series. I haven’t stopped reading (and buying books) since.

Although my fervor for all things Twilight has waned quite a bit over time, this book will always hold a special place in my heart because it got me back into reading for good. This is going to sound really corny, but in a way I feel like I’ve been reunited with a long lost best friend. One thing is for sure: we’re never going to fall out of touch again.