Personal Narrative Essay about Reading

I have always hated reading. No matter the book or genre, I would feel an undeniable obligation to read by my teachers. It pushed me to the point that reading always felt like a chore or homework. I was the definition of what we learned in class as “the anti-reader ''. I never really had the opportunity, though, to read a book I wanted to read. All this changed when I started finding genres that appealed to my interest and I became entranced by my books, unable to put them down. I read a young adult romance novel my friend had recommended and since then I haven’t been able to stop and reading is my way to relax and escape stress.

Ever since I was young, I would hide the fact that I enjoyed reading romantic fiction. When people would ask me what kind of books I read, I would always reply with “oh, I love crime” or “I enjoy reading historical books”. This was my way of making myself appear smarter, as I feared that people would look down upon me because of the books I read. I was always hearing countless stereotypes surrounding romance readers that I felt ashamed to be considered one of them. While reading an  article from Huffington Post, “Who is a romance novel reader”  the author stated that, “the non-romance readers I surveyed thought that romance readers were less likely to have an advanced degree than romance readers reported having attained.” For reasons such as this article, I would always hide what I was reading. In this article, it was also discussed how large the romance industry is. Currently it is “the second largest category of fiction”. There are so many people who prefer romantic fiction, yet they read other books in front of people. Knowing information like this is why I will continue to share my love of these books. There's nothing better than  transforming yourself into an alternate reality where life is what we call “picture perfect”. Additionally, romantic fiction  is my favorite genre because the books are always extremely predictable. Though many people, myself included,  can find this irritating and prefer sitting at the edge of their seat, there are also times where I find comfort in knowing what will happen. I find myself waiting for that moment when the two main characters finally get together and “live happily ever after.”

According to my reading list, I learned that young adult fiction is a genre I often enjoy reading as well. I find these kinds of books amusing to read when I want to distract myself with something nice and easy. When reading, I typically don’t find pleasure in heavy books as they cause me to be easily distracted and it's difficult to concentrate on them. However, most people say that as we are approaching adulthood we should begin reading books to reflect this change. In an article by “The Atlantic” it introduces the idea how “Having entered adulthood, we should now exclusively read books aimed at and written by adults. Which is kind of like moving to France and then deciding you’ll only read French novels.” This quote was very reflective to me as just because I am reading these books does not make me any younger and I should continue to read what I enjoy.

Whenever I read a story, I want to see myself transformed into another character. I like to picture who I am as someone I never would have expected. This way I feel more connected to the story and more emotionally invested. This idea was introduced in an article, “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors'' where it brought up topics of how books are a great way to get insight on different ideas. A sliding glass door is a way of “walking” into another reality and learning new insights. I mainly enjoy these genres as I like to have relatable characters, but to have completely different scenarios than I would ever encounter. Whenever I read a book now all I look for is a way to learn and explore different views. I never wanna hear any current events in books or anything that relates to now but instead want to hear something I never would have expected.

In conclusion, during the upcoming year, I hope I have the opportunity to see if there are any other genres that I enjoy and grow my repertoire. I also hope to continue my growing love of reading and figuring out who I am as a reader.