Books That Made Me Want To Read!

Hello, world! Welcome to another Hype or Like Friday 😀

Hype or Like Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill from Rant and Rave About Books, Larkin from Wonderfilled Reads and Britt from Geronimo Reads. There would be a discussion topic for each Friday of the month that is related to a certain theme, and for this month, September, the theme is ‘Back to School’. This week’s topic is ‘Books That Made Me Want To Read’: Think about what books you read while you were in school that made you want to read. Maybe you were an English Lit major in college because you fell in love with Shakespeare or Jane Austen.

I didn’t have to read many books when I was in school, and even if I did, I don’t think I’ll talk about those books now. I want to talk about the books that really made me start reading 😉

I started reading when I was very young, and before I could read, my mom would read stories for me. The first books I read were fairy tales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, and so many other fairy tales. I don’t think my books had these covers, but you get the idea 🙂 . And yes, I was a Disney girl and I still am.

Fast forward to my primary school days, when I obsessively read Enid Blyton’s books. The first Enid Blyton book I read was The Cat With the Feathery Tail, which I got for my birthday. To 8-year-old me, that book was really awesome, and I kept buying more of the short story collections. Over time, I had more of these books than I knew what to do with 😀

Eventually, I outgrew these books and started reading other things like Jack London’s White Fang, which I really like, Jane Eyre, which I didn’t like as much, and Five Children and It.

Then, Twilight happened. The movie flooded cinemas everywhere, and I saw Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson’s faces all over the place, and every single one of my friends said “you have to see Twilight”, “you have to read the books”. Take note that the people who said to read Twilight, were also the people who didn’t read a lot, so I was definitely intrigued. I thought “Wow, Twilight must be really amazing to make these people read books“. So, I read Twilight.

(Warning: Unpopular opinions ahead!)

I have to give credit to Twilight for being the book that made me read A LOT of books. because I didn’t like Twilight. At all. I didn’t like the characters, especially Bella. But I muddled through. I read all four books so I could participate in debates  discussions with my friends. They also made me watch the movies but I couldn’t get past the first one, and I’m still not interested in watching the rest, no matter how many times they play them on TV.

But even after all that, I’m actually happy that I read Twilight. In fact, I’m thankful that Twilight exists, because Twilight is the book that opened the door to Young Adult books for me. After reading Twilight, I actively searched for other young adult books that I thought I would enjoy more.

Since then, I’ve found a lot of Young Adult books that I love, like The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima (I LOVE this series), Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Hereafter by Tara Hudson, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (I told you no list would be complete without this book haha), Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi and SO MANY MORE!

Of course, I do read books that are not YA. Occasionally. Like Richard III, The Kite Runner, 1984, As You Like It, and quite a few other books as well, but ever since Twilight, almost 90% of the books I read is YA.

So there you have it. Even though I’ve been reading since I was really young, my ‘official’ reading adventure began with Twilight. I’ve heard so many people say that Harry Potter was the book that changed their lives and made them start reading a lot, but Twilight was that book for me. And because of that, Twilight will forever have a special place in my heart, even if my paperback copy was eaten by termites 🙂

What about you? What books made you want to read?