Book Talk #9: The Book That Got Me Hooked On Reading

Hello, everybody! Today, I'd thought I'd share a little bit of a story with all of you guys about how I first got hooked on reading. I've always been a reader ever since I was little but I was never really hooked on it. I usually just read whatever sounded interesting and that led to some books that I now question why I ever picked up in the first place. Like, seriously, I had very little taste back then. 

But, that all changed when I was fourteen and I decided to check out a specific book from the library because I heard that the movie was coming out in less than four months and I thought 'eh, it sounds like it could be cool'. So I grabbed a bookmark, sat down and read the book thinking it would be an interesting book. Little did I know, I'd finished it in one sitting and die for a couple of days before I could get my hands on the next two books.

It was a little book you might have heard of through the grapevine: Divergent.

Before ever reading the book, I had never really read anything along the lines of a dystopia story, I wasn't even entirely sure what it was or meant for a book to be dystopia and not sci-fi. I was like 'what's the difference?' How cute I was for not knowing that. Anyhoo, I thought the whole idea of the book sounded cool, what with the whole faction thing and the fight training. I thought it sounded very girl power. Before I knew it I was tearing through the series all the way until the very end of the last book. Even though my heart was ripped out of my chest and broken into about a billion pieces, I was hungry for more of the dystopia world and traits. Through Divergent, I ended up reading Delirium, Legend, Matched, and a couple of other series. I started falling in love with reading again and before I knew it, I started learning just what kind of books I liked and I wanted to read more and more now that I was excited about reading again. 

Surprisingly, I never ran into The Hunger Games or even Harry Potter. How that happened is still a mystery to me. But, I did end up finding some of my favorite books and series that I still love to this day and to think it all started with one simple book. My parents had to watch my book collection grow a little bigger every day and even dared to ask if I was reading all the books I was buying. How cute. They were just glad that I was doing something productive so they didn't argue when the time came to buy me a couple of bookshelves after my collection was now too large to fit on a cart I bought from IKEA. That, and I think they were interested in some of the books I owned. 

Seven months after reading Divergent I started this little blog and well, you know the story. I wrote reviews, started talking about other bookish things, followed book-to-movie adaptations like crazy, I eventually got more comfortable with blogging and now here I am taking you all down memory lane. Woohoo! 

I think it's crazy to think that I'd been a reader my entire life and found some of my favorite books through randomly picking up books, not really knowing what I liked when it came to storylines. Once I knew what I liked in books and what I loved about the storylines, characters, and the genres, I enjoyed reading a lot more than I did before and found new ways to express my grief, fangirl moments, frustrations, anger, and every other emotion from reading. Not only that, but I made some new friends through blogging and discovered Goodreads and bookstagram and every other bookish community that was just as in love with books as I was. I thought it was something quite amazing, especially since my friends in real life are readers, but we all have very different tastes in books. Sometimes I feel like I can't talk to them about my new favorite book since they've never heard of it or don't like the idea of the story and I'm left to cry about my feelings to a pillow. 

However, sometimes we do end up finding a book we both really love but through blogging and bookstagram, I can easily find at least one other reader that I can discuss the book with, whether that person loved it as much as I did or not. I've even had a couple of bookstagram friends message me to read a book they saw I owned so they could discuss it with someone! I thought that was so cool to be able to just simply message someone about a book and fangirl over it that easily. Not to mention it helped to push me to finally read a couple of books I was still trying to get around to. 

I'm so happy that all it took was one book to get me hooked on reading and I've never been more in love with it in my entire life. I've gotten to make some really good friends, connect with fellow readers and also get to talk about my love of reading and writing to others who are interested in talking about the same things.

Divergent has a very special place in my heart and it always will. If it hadn't been for that series, I don't think I would've realized just how much I love dystopia novels and I hate to think I would still be kind of iffy about reading had I not fallen in love with the books and with reading. The series will always be my favorite trilogy of all time because I love the characters, the storylines, and everything about it, even loving the very last book despite that others don't really care for it. I adore the movies, and I would rant to you guys about the last movie in the series being potentially released as a T.V movie but that would take FOREVER for me to write and you guys to read through. It would end up being a three hundred page book so I'll just leave you with this GIF to explain my thoughts on the subject : 

So, what book do you credit for making you fall in love with reading? I seriously would LOVE to hear your stories about your favorite books and which ones hold special places in your hearts! Read on, bookworms! See you in the next chapter!