Since I can remember, I have always loved to read. I would read book after book and never put them down. I can even remember the first time I became in love with reading. Back in kindergarten, we had a program that introduced reading to us. A fifth grader from the same elementary school would be assigned to a kindergartener at the beginning of the year. They would meet twice a week for a few hours at a time to read a book together of your choice. One book in particular that Erin, my reading buddy, and I read really stood out. I don’t quite remember the name of it, but I do remember it was about a girl trying to solve a mystery. My favorite part of the book was when there was a secret message that the main character had to decode and so did the reader. The words were written backward, so in order to read them, we had to put it in front of the mirror. This amazed me and I was then obsessed with writing in ‘secret code’ to all my friends. I also realized that I liked mystery books, especially ones with a lot of suspense. Since kindergarten, I have read so many books. I would spend a lot of my time in the library searching for the perfect book to read. I indulge in each book I read and don’t put them down until I’ve finished them. I even won a reading contest in fifth grade because I read the most hours in one week. As I entered middle school, I continued to read multiple different series of books, but it became harder to find the time. The workload became heavier and reading was deemed as ‘uncool’. I found it difficult to find the time anymore to read. Especially when high school came around, I stopped reading for fun. Between classes, sports, homework, and friends, I never really had any leisure time. Mandatory summer reading even became a chore for me my first two years. Summer of my junior year, I had seen some pages from a book posted online and I was really interested and was on the hunt to find that book. It ended up being, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, and my friend actually had it. I read it in two days and then found out there were two other books that were after it. It wasn’t until this past summer that I finished the series and revived my passion for reading. I started going to the beach alone and decided to buy the second book of the Mara Dyer series. I finished the book in three days, I would bring it to work, read when I got home and whenever I could. I soon bought the third book of the series and finished that in four days as well. After that book, I bought another which I finished fairly quickly as well. I had forgotten how captivating reading a good book is, it puts you in a different world.