Why I Love to Read: @kindlevixen

Posted by Mama Kitty on 29 June 2010

When MamaKitty asked me to post about why I love to read my first thought was… “Well duh what else am I supposed to do while I sit around eating bon bons and drinking vodka drinks while I ignore my kids?” Ha, like my monsters, also known as children, would ever let me ignore them, le sigh. Anyway, the truth is – I was always a reader – I just took a vacation for a while.

When I was a kid my mom would BEG me to go outside and play. I am not sure why she was so worried about it, I was an active kid. I played softball, basketball, and fieldhockey. Yet when I had down time all I wanted to do was crawl up into my loft bed, surrounded by NKOTB posters, and grab a book. It started as a young girl with The Babysitter’s Club and Nancy Drew. Then I started sneaking the VC Andrews books from the library…. I was a lover of smut even as a young girl it seems. The first book I remember reading and falling truly in love with was Gone with the Wind.

I picked up the classic story because I was a total geek and goody two shoes (totally believable right??) and it was on the summer reading list for my English class for the following year and I always liked to read ahead. I was instantly drawn into Scarlett’s world and fell in love with the suave Rhett Butler. I wanted to be Scarlett, I wanted to be able to woo the men folk even in a makeshift gown made of curtains. I wanted to be that resourceful, spunky, tough woman who got what she wanted no matter what. My teenage heart broke at the ending and I remember tossing it across the room… how could Rhett turn his back on me… err I mean her! Needless to say I read it over and over again and then found the follow up books to read and obsess over.

Yet, something happened when I entered the real world and had to at least pretend to be an adult.  Between jobs and kids and husbands and family stuff, who had time to read? I took up sewing and fudged around teaching myself html in my spare time…. but reading was something kids do right? Surely not grown up women with too many responsibilities and too little time.

I can’t remember exactly when or why I decided to give in to the Harry Potter craze, but I did. Something about the midnight book parties and funny scarves made me want to find out what all these crazy kids and adults were loony over. I picked up book 1 and it was just like when I was a kid… I was swept away in a world where I didn’t have laundry waiting to be folded and there weren’t children jumping on the couch practicing their karate chops. I flew through books 1 through 6 just in time to be at my grocery store at midnight for the release of The Deathly Hollows. I read it in one day and while I was supremely happy to have closure, I found myself saying …. now what?

I had spent 10 years ignoring something that I obviously loved to do…. but would other books have the same magic for me or was Harry special? I procrastinated and managed to avoid picking up another book, worried I would be disappointed. Finally, I once again gave in to a craze and picked up Twilight. While it doesn’t have the best writing and the characters leave a lot to be desired, the story of the series touched me. I saw my teenage self in Bella – making all those same “I need a man” mistakes. I remember the longing to have someone who loved you as no other would. The story was totally emo but I drank it up like it was Raspberry Lemonade with Vodka.

After the Twilight books, it was all downhill from there. I called a friend who I knew was into that “vampire stuff” and asked for a  list of book titles. I picked up the Sookie Stackhouse series next on her recommendation and couldn’t put it down. Then I moved on to Kim Harrison and The Hollows series. I was tearing through books at a rather alarming rate and hubby was getting a bit concerned. I mean someone needed to feed the kids and books were going to start taking over the living room at the rate I was going. It just so happened that at the time Oprah was talking about the Kindle and it was big news…. as a gift to me and my new found love of reading (and surely to keep books from taking over our bedroom as well as the living room) he bought me one. From the day it arrived I have been reading daily and haven’t looked back.

My life is stressful. I go to school full time, I have a 9 year old, 5 year old and a husband who sometimes thinks he is 12. I volunteer and drive them around, I do the best I can to make their lives happy every day, even at the expense of my own sanity. Reading gives me an escape – it gives me a few hours a day where I can pretend that I am being swept off my feet by some alpha werewolf or I am kicking ass with a really big sword. We all need a hobby that lets us tune out and turn our brains off, reading does that for me.

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