Reading for Fun?!?

Ok, so let me just start off by saying I, for one, do not read for fun. However, I do agree that it can heighten your sense of problem solving and yada yada yada… My problem is that I simply don’t have time to read. School, marching band, cross country, and church don’t really leave with a lot of free time (and the little that I have I tend to spend napping). Seriously, It’s now 1:26am and I’m writing this for an English assignment that is do at 7:25am because I fell asleep on the floor. But I digress…

Another reason that I find reading endlessly irritating is that EVERY story ends the SAME WAY! The isolated indie girl whose father died of cancer meets a troubled boy who was just released from juvenile detention and they work through their problems together as their relationship deepens. NO! I cannot stand those books. Not only does every single young adult fiction novel end like that, but that also doesn’t happen in real life. Once I meet a couple whom that has actually happened to, I will never question those novels again. But, until then, I think I’ll just stick to skimming through whatever the teacher assigns, and complaining like there’s no tomorrow.

I probably should start reading for enjoyment, though. I actually used to love reading. And I mean LOVE. It didn’t even bother me that all stories had a happy, unrealistic ending. I would just read. All the time. At home, in the car, even at parties my parents would drag me along to. I remember going to one of these such parties and reading the entire Hunger Games! This was all until I had a teacher in the seventh grade who just made me despise reading. I never knew one’s opinion toward something could change so drastically over the course of just one year. I have yet to pick up a book since.

As for those of you who enjoy reading, I envy you. It would make my life so much easier if I could just read for enjoyment. I have a friend who’s like you. She read the entire Harry Potter series in just one month. She loves reading perhaps more than I did pre-seventh grade. I can remember how much I used to love reading and I really, really wish that I still did.

But if you’re like me, and you really just cannot find something interesting to read, or you don’t have the time, then I urge you to just start reading. I will, too. We’ll start this god-forsaken journey together. I am going to download Harry Potter on my Kindle today, and hopefully I will see something in it that the rest see. (I chose Harry Potter simply because everybody begins to hate me when I tell them I’ve never read it.) Maybe I will even enjoy it. Who knows? But I am going to face this head-on, and if any one of you want to join me, then hop on the band wagon. Everyone probably should read. It really is like push-ups for your brain, and I think all of our brains are looking a little flabby.