How did I go from owning only a handful a of books to owning over 350? Even better, how did I manage to actually have read the vast majority of those books? I think every reader has that one book, or that one series that made them reader.
As far as I can remember, I have always liked to read. Reading has been encouraged to me from a very young age, and especially when I was a kid I was usually reading something. A funny story, the Harry Potter series was not yet completed when I was young, and everyone was always in this “Harry Potter craze.” I just didn’t get it. I was completely uninterested in reading the Harry Potter books, even though my mom kept shoving them in my face. I don’t know why I was so uninterested in them honestly. One day though, I saw the first movie because my younger brother wanted to see it, and surprise! I ended up really liking the movie, and decided to finally read the books. I remember I finished The Order of the Phoenix on vacation when I was twelve. And looking back on that, I’m not sure if I was at the right age to be reading that then..
You’d think that the Harry Potter series was then what started my reading addiction, but nope.
As soon as I hit my early teens I completely forgot that books existed. I was much more concerned with friends, boys and online messaging. I hardly ever read a book during those years, and if I did it’s because I was forced to do so for school. Which I absolutely hated. Even worse was that I used to be the type that would automatically dislike whatever was popular at the time. The result of this was that I have never read any of the Twilight books.
No, my actual reading addiction started when I was finishing up high school, when I was around 17, and I think it started when I got a box set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as a gift. Fun fact, I have only finished The Hobbit. I never read any of the The Lord of the Rings books, ha!
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Either way, I think that’s when I started to appreciate books more. I think it also helped that I started reading in English, instead of my native language. Another series that really kicked off my reading addiction was the Fallen series by Lauren Kate. I think this is one of those series that people either loved or hated, but I was one of the people that absolutely loved it. I read the first book because one of my friends recommended it to me, and after that I think I bought the entire series in a single trip to the bookstore.
And then I bought a UK box edition of Game of Thrones. The first book came out the same year I was born, and the only reason I knew the series existed was because the first season of the tv-series was airing at the time. At this point I had become the person that automatically wanted to check things out if they were very popular (talk about character growth), so I just bought the entire series in one go. It did take me forever to read through the first five books, because let’s be real.. some of the chapters are just so boring. However, I read them fast enough that I was way ahead of the tv-series at one point. And oh, how hard it was not to smile smugly and try not to spoil what would happen to those who only watched the show. And oh, how hard I cry now that there are eight seasons of the show and the Winds of Winter is yet to be published (I guess that’s karma for me).
The last series I want to highlight in this post is The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, by Michael Scott. I bought the first book, The Alchemyst, when I was on vacation in Arizona, and I bought it because I liked the cover. I literally judged a book by its cover! But I really liked the book, and read it in a day or two. I was so happy when I found out they sold the series in English in The Netherlands as well!
So in short, it was not Harry Potter that started my reading addiction. It was a weird combination of YA and adult fantasy that set me off. To close this post off, here is a comparison between the amount of books I had when I got these shelves two or three years ago versus now… Thank god my editing skills have also improved.
Which books turned you into a reader? Let me know!
