Reading

Growing up I always had an affinity for reading and writing. My father loved to read to me and he would put on voices and act out scenes. When I entered school I was pretty far ahead of my class mates in terms of reading and writing. Although my handwriting is atrocious.

I remember we used to do creative writing in elementary school and I would make up these ridiculous stories and use my classmates as characters to make them laugh. Later in life I would write smutty fan fiction about The Beatles for my best friend in high school and once in English class I made a teacher cry with a story about my dad’s second wedding.

When I hit middle school I was reading books meant for adults. I somehow got my hands on a copy of Kiss the Girls by James Patterson. I don’t know where I got it, or if someone gave it to me. There is a specific scene in this book where a man ties a woman up, fills her ass with milk and lets a snake coil up inside her.

Obviously that’s not the stuff you want your middle schooler reading. My mother found out, either she read it herself or someone told her I had it.

She.

Went.

Ballistic.

I blocked out most of the rampage but she reamed me out, took my books away and humiliated me for reading about subject matter that she deemed too mature for me. I was, like, twelve!

So I stopped reading for fun. Every time I picked up a book I felt depressed and ashamed, like I was the one who wrote that scene. I did read the books that were assigned to me in high school – Pride and Prejudice (a favorite of mine now), Siddhartha, 1984. What was that horrible book where the kid has two dogs and they die? That was traumatizing.

Anyway. I grew up, moved out, at 25 I started taking care of my mental health. I found a shop called Half Priced Books and became enamored. At first I thought I was a fantasy reader. Lord of the Rings, The Sword of Shannara, Mistborn. But they kind of bored me. My husband bought me a kindle and signed me up for Kindle Unlimited and from there I explored other genres.

I became friends with a man who was a huge comic nerd. He took me down the rabbit hole of comics and I bought way too many. I would read comics in between books. At some point I realized I still carried the same fascination for the grotesque as I did when I was a child. There were many afternoons spent in Blockbuster in my hometown, I would wander off to the horror section and gawk at the terrifying covers. Hellraiser. The Blob. Dead Alive. Then I’d get my sno-caps and we’d all watch a comedy at home together.

Eventually I picked up My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. This book wasn’t anything of note – no crazy deaths. But it opened to door to other horror books for me, and from there I really started to get my reading motivation back.

Every few years I re-read Pride and Prejudice. It’s one of my favorite books. I posted this sentiment on Instagram and my mother saw it and commented, “I love that book!”

Hey mom. Fuck you.