What’s Your Reading Journey?
If you’re an AAR old timer (I’ll let you define what that means), you may be wondering if I fell off the face of the earth. Short answer: Yes, yes I did. Short version for those who don’t avidly follow my life: I was a managing editor and then publisher of AAR for years (1998-2016-ish). In 2014 my marriage of 25 years ended, in 2015 I met the love of my life, in 2018 he died. Now it’s 2020, and even with a world that has had no bottom since 2018, I am still on the planet. The seismic shifts in my world have drastically affected my reading, though.
That got me thinking about reading journeys. If you mapped your life out, your reading life, what would it look like? How has it shifted and changed? How does it continue to evolve? What events in your life have driven the changes? Here’s mine:
- Childhood – I realize I am a reader. I don’t actually remember not being a reader. I read outside when my mom tells me to “put down that book and go outside.” I stay up reading when I am supposed to be sleeping. I win the summer reading contest because I read 77 books (Yay! I win a stapler because it is 1978.) This is the year I read every Carolyn Haywood book. Do those still exist? Later I read every Nancy Drew. My father offers to pay me cash money if I read something besides Nancy Drew, and I decline to take him up on this offer.
- Teen Years – I realize I love history. I read historical fiction, and Sunfire Romances. I go to my favorite B. Dalton so often I could almost shelve books for them. The summer after my first year of college, I work there, so I do shelve books for them. I read romance on the sly, but I feel guilty about it. I read classics for fun. I also realize I am a writer. I write pages and pages in my journals along with truly terrible poetry and an equally terrible novel which no one will ever read (including me, unless I get really bored one night, get drunk and read it as performance art for laughs).
- Twenties – I have four babies, and read romance. Lots and lots of romance. This coincides with the birth of the internet, so I find my people and start reviewing romance too. I am a lot more confident about my reading choices, confident enough to read what I want to read instead of adapting to someone’s else’s idea of what smart women read. I finish college and go to grad school during this decade, but mostly I am a stay-at-home mom. The kind who reads when babies nap, or reads with one eye on the book and the other on the non-napping baby (her name was Abigail).
- Thirties – I work part time for most of this decade (full time toward the end) and read lots of romance. As I increase my work hours, there is less time for reading. I am also managing AAR and then publishing it, which also takes a lot of time. But reading romance during this decade still feels like a cause.
- Forties – my reading slows down even more, for many reasons. I work full time, and then I get divorced and can’t seem to read at all. I spend way too much time on social media and read everything in tiny doses rather than book-size doses. Then I meet my love and still can’t seem to read at all. Gradually, I start reading on the train while commuting to work. Then Mike gets cancer and I read in the hospital, but I have gone off romance, possibly because I am living it, possibly because after two decades of reading it I kind of feel done.
- Now – I turned fifty in February. Mike died when I was forty-eight. And since he died I have trouble focusing on anything that is fiction. Instead, I have an endless capacity to read books about grief, dead people, and the afterlife. But I also enjoy other non-fiction (Melinda Gates’ Moment of Lift, Tara Westover’s Educated). And after years of hearing patronizing comments about how I should quit reviewing books and write my own, I did that! But not a romance – or, not exactly – a memoir about my crazy, romantic love story.
What does your reading journey look like? Has anything about it surprised you?
Well I am also an AAR old timer, I miss those days! I was lucky enough to review for the site and work with Blythe for a few years. I posted here because I wanted to say how similar this has been for me. I stopped reading straight romance when my husband Chris and I got together, and read more urban fantasy and fantasy/sci fi while we were together. Since Chris’ death in 2018, I haven’t picked up ANY fiction books and only barely picked up a non fiction book. I’ll read newspapers, magazines, online articles, but it seems too hard to let it all fall away anymore by diving into a good book. I miss that. Thanks for posting this. ❤️❤️
I just hate that you lost your husband too, Liz. But I like that you, too, are willing to talk about it and just be real. Sending love – and empathy.
Blythe, it’s so good to hear from you! (Old-timer here.) I’m sorry for your loss. Cancer is such an evil disease. My mother has terminal lung cancer, but she’s 93 and nearly ready to go, and actually doing well with immunotherapy. But when cancer kills a younger person it seems especially tragic. Like KarenG, my reading career began with The Happy Hollisters! My 2nd grade teacher read them aloud and I was enthralled. (I have the entire set.) In 3rd grade my teacher read Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, and she is still my favorite children’s author. A stylist beyond compare, but with a sadly short backlist. In 4th grade it was A Wrinkle in Time which was my first exposure to science fiction, which I still read selectively. Then Mrs. Ross spoiled it all by reading Steinbeck’s The Pearl (the baby died) and worst of all, The Red Pony to animal-loving me. I’ve never forgiven her. I read Nancy Drew but preferred The Dana Girls, also by Keene (by way of the Stratmeyer Syndicate). I loved Beverly Cleary, whose writing still holds up, but I don’t think I want to reread another childhood favorite, Harriet the Spy, because I don’t think it would. I loved the Little House books (still reread), and to name just a few, Joan Aiken, CW Anderson (his horses never die), Margot Benary-Isbert, LM Boston, Eleanor Cameron, Madye Lee Chastain, John Christopher, Susan Cooper, Alexander Key, and Sally Watson. I was actually reluctant in middle school and high school to leave my friends in the children’s section behind. I read Lenora Mattingly Weber’s Beany Malone series but I think that’s another series I would find hard to read now. There wasn’t much of a YA section in my local libraries. I befriended librarians, certain that was where I wanted to be when I grew up. One gave me Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals when I had major back surgery in 8th grade and I will always be grateful. I didn’t read much nonfiction as a child. At 12, I tackled Michener’s Hawaii and Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, but I’m not sure I could reread either today. But as far as adult novels went I didn’t really get into any until a friend loaned me my first Georgette Heyer. I will be forever grateful! Victoria Holt wasn’t a keeper author, but Mary Stewart is. Then Rosemary Rogers put me off trying new romance for many years. I found historic cozy mysteries instead, like those of Sayers, Allingham, Elizabeth Peters and Ellis Peters. I read fantasy and some science fiction, but I read Dune too young and then made the mistake of reading the sequels… no thanks, I prefer to believe they never happened. I also read Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein) but didn’t understand it at that age (young teen). My ex-husband got me hooked on Lord of the Rings, still a favorite, back when the first LOTR movie came out, many many years ago. It stopped right in the middle of the story and I said “but what happens next?” “You’ll have to read the book,” he replied. So I did. I’ve read it multiple times. I majored in history and I do read history for fun. (Majoring in English would have meant having to read a lot of depressing classics like more Steinbeck. No thanks.) I also enjoy books on physical anthropology and paleontology. In my thirties I began my current job in an elementary school library and discovered picture books! (The only picture books I remember reading as a child are by Dr. Seuss. I jumped into chapter books and never looked back.) Trina Schart Hyman is my favorite artist, but I’ll leave it at that. I could write a book. This also led to my return to romance, through a co-worker. Then I found AAR and a romance reading group where we share what we’ve read personally each month, rather than everyone reading the same book. These two sources (and Dear Author) have led to me finding many favorite authors: Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs, Anne Bishop (Others series), Lois McMaster Bujold, Gail Carriger, Carola Dunn, Carla Kelly, Mercedes Lackey, Deanna Rayburn, Nora Roberts/JD Robb, Sharon Shinn, Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series, Elle Katherine White and many more. Other favorites include Carrie Bebris, Robin McKinley, Carrie Vaughn and Vivian Shaw’s Greta Helsing series. Also way too many Pride and Prejudice sequels, which is totally the fault of AAR! And… Read more »
Sad to hear about your loss.
I dont even remember when not reading. Have always read from pamphlets to my dad’s medical journals.
My love of reading grew from going to the library after school everyday to wait for my mom to be done work. I started with the heartbeat cute love stories, to hardy boys and then read romance and that was it. It was my secret love for decades
I spent so much time at the library that sometimes i would hide books i wanted to read in a different section because I had reached my withdraw total. I could probably shelve the books after 3 yrs of after school library things.
I am a cant put it down kind of reader, so had to be careful in uni to not start a book before my clinicals because I will stay up to finish a book.
I have been mostly romance reader followed by mystery. and really interesting non-fiction.
In my 30s joined a book club and started reading other than romance.
Now I have a hard time reading, romance has been whittled down to being very formulaic. I now tell people I read romance,but my books need more character development that isnt driven by sex scenes.
As a black reader I need and am looking for more representation, maybe once the publishing world gets its life right I will come back to reading romance liek I sued to. As for now black women literature is my go to.
Thank you all, both for the condolences and the responses. I think when I was younger I didn’t see what a journey reading really was, and because it was ALL ABOUT ROMANCE for so long, I thought that would be what I read forever. Life’s long though – or mine probably will be anyway. Who knows where reading will go next?
Thrilled to join the discussion and follow along. I am A childhood friend of this amazing author, Blythe
I have been a reader since age 4. I was reading books ranging from Blueberries for Sal to The Secret Garden to all the colors in the Fairy Book series. My mother was an unabashed romance reader, so along came Phyllis A Whitney, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart. As I aged I devoured the Jane Austens, the Brontes, Georgette Heyer, Kathleen Woodiweiss, Johanna Lindsey, etc. I gradually added contemporary romance into the mix,and dabbled into erotic fiction (which often left me disappointed) and stayed with my historicals, They give me great pleasure in my older age, and keep me hoping the HEAs will occur in real life.
What a wonderful prompt for discussion! I have enjoyed reading the responses over the past few days. Please accept my condolences, Blythe, and all the other commenters here who have been or are going through rough times. Now, my reading journey? I’d say it’s quite a bit different from a lot of the ones I read here. But still welcome, I hope! Childhood- Knew from an early age I wanted to be a writer. Not because I was an avid reader, although I did read early and often, but because I was a major daydreamer whose only clear goal/aspiration was to live the good life. I essentially liked the idea of writing down my daydreams for oodles of money. I still like the idea, but am waiting on the oodles of money part. :) As for what I read as a child, I didn’t like any of the books I was “supposed” to like. Too many classic children’s books felt flat and preachy to me, so I gravitated more toward Beverly Cleary who actually had a clue about what kids like to read. Ramona Quimby forever! I also liked historical fiction and science fiction. Basically, the kids in anything I read had to be fun and have cool adventures. Preferably, the protagonists weren’t “bad” but had the potential to be little snots. Because I found goody two-shoes and “reformed” characters insufferable. Incidentally, I never cared for Little Women. At whatever age I tried to revisit it, it was a DNF for being way too drawn out, boring, conformist, and so saccharine I felt like my teeth were rotting. Also, the idea that Jo March married a guy who openly insulted her work as a writer (them’s fightin’ words, right there!) and gave up all her aspirations? Not cool, man. The one funny memory I have of Little Women being shoved down my throat was a play I got dragged to in early childhood. At one point, they staged one of Jo’s plays within the play, and a bad guy (guessing a dummy) got thrown off the balcony. Bloodthirsty little thing that I was, I wanted to see that play instead of the insipid little family drama I was being forced to watch instead. So, after the show, when people asked me what my favorite part of the play was, I remember proudly stating, “I liked it when the bad guy got thrown off the balcony!” Ha ha! Adolescence- Didn’t have much time to read with school, homework, and sucky assigned reading that really killed the joy in it. One book that brought me comfort was Dolly Freed’s Possum Living. Written in the 1970s, Freed and her Dad (affectionately called “Old Fool”) essentially lived as semi-outlaws in the Pennsylvania back woods. They hunted and fished without a license- hence why they always wore running shoes- didn’t pay any taxes they could get away with not paying, and dodged truant officers. For the record, I never endorsed her cavalier attitude toward vandalism, and Freed retracted a lot of her outlawry in adulthood. But I loved her spunk and FU attitude toward the world that a lot of teenagers like. Post-high school- So much joy in reading had been destroyed in me- but not all of it! To cure myself of school-induced reading trauma, I picked up Gone with the Wind and loved it. I still remember lying on the floor reading it on those hot summer days after graduation, the fan blowing through the pages. Then I tackled Hawaii by James Michener, another wonderful book. Adulthood- My reading repertoire didn’t vary for years. Basically, I read epics (Shogun and Tai-Pan FTW!), historical fiction, science fiction, nonfiction (largely economics and personal finance), and a smattering of biographies. All the while, I wrote. Professionally, I did some nonfiction, but the idea was to fulfill the dream of being a full-time fiction writer (preferably, a rich one). When I could never get novels to form due to poor plotting and attention span issues, I switched to writing short stories and never looked back. Romance, as many of you know, didn’t enter the radar until I was shamelessly seeking a get rich quick scheme. (Let me go hold my head in shame for a moment before continuing this post.) After reading a few novels with a condescending attitude of research, I learned that 1) romance novels could actually be so good I stayed up way too late at night reading them and 2) no, they weren’t… Read more »
Oh Dr. Bhaer is a sore spot with me still. Decades later, and I still get mad thinking about him. I wouldn’t have minded him getting tossed over the banister in the play that’s for sure.
I fell into Gone With The Wind in junior high I think and I remember dragging home the giant large print two volume hardcover set from the library over and over because that was the only version not already checked out. I absolutely loved Scarlett, her vivacity and her obsessive descriptions of her wardrobe. It wasn’t until later I had a realization of everything that was wrong with her and that in life I was totally a Melanie. I’d be the one discussing the merits of Charles Dickens rather than flattering and flirting and I probably would have hated Scarlett. And I grew to resent Scarlett’s selfish ways and how she ruined so many lives chasing a man she never really loved (or understood) -equating him to a pair of “Aquamarine earbobs” by the end. It’s funny how some books don’t age with you well, while some are timeless.
“I wouldn’t have minded him getting tossed over the banister in the play that’s for sure.” LOL! I have no idea who got rail-killed in the production I saw, some villain created by Jo, I assume. But it’s my strongest memory of the play along with my bloodthirsty proclamation afterwards. Nowadays, somebody would probably send a swat team after me or haul me away to counseling for making that comment.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has a peck on Dr. Bhaer. Add to that, shame on Jo for being such a sellout! A couple of years ago, I saw a fascinating documentary about Louisa May Alcott. It turns out, she hated Little Women, called it “moral pap for the young.” What she really loved writing were scandalous, pulpy thrillers under a pen name. My respect for her went through the roof when I learned that, because I had always equated her with insipid and safe children’s lit.
But in regard to Jo ending up with Dr. Bhaer, it was a subversive decision for the time. Alcott was annoyed when girls wrote to her asking if Jo was going to marry Laurie, as though that’s all Jo was good for. But, being the mid-1800s, she probably couldn’t get away with Jo not marrying at all. Seriously, though. Couldn’t she have created a guy who supported her writing? Or maybe did an enemies-to-lovers thing where Dr. Bhaer turns out to be less stuffy and disapproving, and maybe Jo adds some more literary work to her repertoire as a compromise? This is why I get a bit annoyed when people don’t believe me about authors being pressured to write one thing or another in order to get published. It happened then, and it happens now.
Moving on to Gone with the Wind, I suppose it was different for me reading it as a young adult (about 18 years of age) than it would have been if I read it at a younger age. I would be lying if I said I didn’t find the passages outright glorifying the Klan to be stomach-turning. But it didn’t stop me from enjoying the well-drawn characters and the world they inhabited. Even now, though, I do have a soft spot for Scarlet O’Hara. She’s one of those characters I would probably hate in real life but loved her as an anti-heroine. She had both good qualities and bad, and often did good things (like caring for Melanie before, during, and after she gives birth) for bad reasons (wanting to get closer to Melanie’s husband). But she felt very real.
That documentary sounds very interesting Nan! I have to shamefully admit that as a teen I loved how Jo ended up with Dr Bhaer. However re-reading it as an adult, I am just aghast at that choice of pairing! I read an article on Alcott, which stated that she actually wanted Jo to end up alone and to focus on her writing, but that her publisher was adamant that Jo had to be married at the end of the book. That’s why as a sly prank, she married Jo off to an old, stuffy professor! I think you would have actually liked Alcott more than you think:):)
Oh, it is. The title of the documentary is Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women. I seem to recall there’s another one as well, so I might be mixing information from the two docs in my mind. And yes, I’m sure I would have liked her. :)
I know I’ve gotten into kerfuffles on AAR about this, but Alcott’s publisher being adamant about Jo having to be married in the end goes right along with what I’ve been saying about publishers steering authors to make choices they ordinarily wouldn’t. It still goes on, as Marian Perera can tell you regarding her rejected HRs. From a business perspective, I get it. Publishers stay in business if they can neatly package their authors into a brand and make them “write to market.” And authors definitely need some reining in with an editor sometimes. But from an art perspective, these policies create less variety and tend to flatten things out to make them “safe.”
This is also why I get suspicious when authors who have written controversial things that get called out on Twitter suddenly fold up and apologize. Yes, I agree some authors could have a change of heart and really mean it. But having some idea of how things work behind the scenes- and knowing how precarious the trade of the written word is- some of it strongly reminds me of when kids are forced to apologize in school to the teacher and/or a classmate and they don’t really mean it but say it anyway because they have to in order to get people off of their backs and not be in trouble. Know what I mean? No, I don’t have concrete evidence of this phenomenon, but I’ve heard a lot of anecdotal things on the sly. And having worked in sales, I know you sometimes have to appear contrite and frankly (excuse my language), kiss ass in order to move on with a deal.
Oh I firmly believe that huge numbers of people, including authors, apologize because they or their agent, publicists etc feel they have to at the time. Remember Kathy Griffin crying her eyes out and apologizing, practically begging for forgiveness over the decapitated Trump fiasco then a year later or less she retracted it all and said it was “b.s.”
While I am sure there are a large number of people who do truly feel bad and change their minds after doing or saying something inappropriate, particularly as time goes by, they learn more or simply mature and can say that those feelings don’t express how they think or feel anymore. I am equally sure there are other people who do a 180 degree flip in 24 hours, apologize, but are more sorry they got caught than sorry about what they actually did.
I’ve known the history behind Louisa May Alcott’s decision about Laurie/Jo/Bhaer for quite a while and it kind of fueled my annoyance about the whole situation. A lot of people don’t know that what they think of as Little Women was actually two separate books combined together. After the the first “book” was published people clamored for a sequel and begged Alcott to put Laurie and Jo together. I’ve always seen it as her not getting them together out of spite, as in other books of hers she has no problem having the friends end up together. It’s funny to think that if she hadn’t catered to demands (and the lure of money not that I blame her) and written the second “half” of Little Women as we know it (or as it was published some places “Good Wives” gag) everything would have “ended” quite happily (no Beth dying) and readers could imagine whatever ending they wanted for the characters.
I have always had two major problems with Little Women (since I was old enough to step back and examine my feelings critically) one is that Jo ends up with the old guy who belittles her work (work that LMA actually published in real life and lived off of) instead of her best friend who supports her. The other is that it seems like it rewards the selfish, awful sister. Even when Amy was a child she was cheating on her mother’s present to save money for herself and despite the new angle on her being an under celebrated feminist- I still can’t stand her. Everything she does is for herself and usually at the expense of others.
Jo’s relationship with Dr. Bhaer always felt sort of paternal to me. It’s was clear that he influenced her to change her views, so she no longer wrote sensationalist fiction. But did she have any similar influence over him, such that he learned from her? Or was he pretty much right to begin with, in a daddy-knows-best way?
I’ve seen Bhaer analyzed over the years and there are a million theories about who he is based on. Some unfulfilled parental need? A lot of people say either Alcott’s crushes on Thoreau or Emerson are the basis for him.
There is an at this point decades old LLB column about the disappointment of Jo not marrying Laurie (I believe Robin mentioned the subversiveness of the choice at the time, and how it was considered a slap at Alcott’s father?). I actually really like Little Women and loved the most recent film version of it. But still think Jo should have married Laurie. I think they had chemistry, and as a veteran of a marriage with huge chemistry and one without, I am team chemistry.
GWTW has all the racist issues, but I loved it when I read it as a teenager. My oldest daughter is named Scarlett, which is not an accident.
I think the fun of Scarlett is that she is just such an active character. She’s no passive heroine, she makes the decisions (albeit bad ones) in her life and doesn’t sit waiting for the men. She acts, and doesn’t just react. She’s also unsinkable and keeps everyone else afloat with her. I know Margaret Mitchell wanted to explore how some people handle disaster, some sink and some swim.
The flip side of that is she will use anyone to get what she needs to go on. Friends, relatives, her sister’s beau, slave labor, convict labor and anyone in her way better move or get mowed down.
The 1994 and 2019 movie versions of Little Women didn’t completely adhere to the book’s portrayal of Professor Bhaer and made him more acceptable to a contemporary audience, which was fine with me. Their versions of the Professor were more explicitly accepting of Jo’s liveliness and intelligence, and I could understand the attraction much better when Bhaer was portrayed by Gabriel Byrne or Louis Garrel, as both are extremely attractive and not so much the stuffy old man from the book who seemed more paternal than lover-like. The 2019 version makes Alcott’s dilemma explicit, as it has a scene with Jo and her publisher where she resists having her heroine marry and the publisher insists on it.
As for GWTW, I loved the book when about 13 or 14. All of the positive and negative things people say about Scarlett are what made the book such fun for me as a teen, and I loved that she wasn’t traditionally pretty but had such charisma (and such a tiny waist) that all the boys swarmed around her. But I tried to reread it as an adult and could not get past the overt racism. I’d not even noticed it when I first read the book, but it seemed to have flashing neon signs and arrows pointing to those passages when I tried to reread it, and I just couldn’t get past them so stopped. I think this sort of thing is why it’s sometimes dangerous to reread old favorites.
Childhood and tweens: Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden
Teens: Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Wilbur Smith, Evelyn Anthony, Sweet Valley High, Sweet Dreams, L M Montgomery
Twenties: Helen MacInnes, Mary Balogh, Mary Jo Putney, Edith Layton, Justine Davis, Linda Howard, Patricia Potter, Ruth Rendell, Loretta Chase
Thirties: Some of the above, but less historical and more contemporary romance, ebooks and audiobooks, P G Wodehouse
Forties: re-reading Christie and Sayers, plus Freeman Wills Crofts, MM romance, Georgette Heyer (on audio), New Adult romance.
Sprinkled throughout all this genre fiction have been Austen, Shakespeare,
E M Forster, Daphne du Maurier and historical non-fiction. I am enjoying different things about the Golden Age mystery rereads but I have no interest in revisiting the romances I read 20 years ago.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Blythe. Thank you so much for sharing your personal experiences with us, I really appreciate it. You’ve also asked such a great question. I was always voracious reader, to the point that my parents had to punish me with a reading ban whenever I missed behave. As a child, I read a wide-range of books. I loved the Enid Blyton series, and had many dreams of having midnight feasts! I also read a lot of fantasy novels by Diane Wynne Jones, and of course JK Rowling (which is why I’m disappointed with her recent comments). I grew up with the Harry Potter series, and I still remember eagerly anticipate for the next book to come out, and reading it under my desk in school. In my tweens, I discovered the Anne of Green Gable series, and I think this was my first foray into romance. Anne and Gilbert’s romance fascinated me, and I loved following their journey into adulthood. I also read a ton of classics in my teens, including of course the entire Jane Austen collection, the Brontës, Charles Dickens, Fitzgerald. Apart from the classics, I first discovered the historical romance genre when I was 18. I picked up Something Wonderful by Judith Mcnaught to read on a flight, and promptly fell in love. My sister (as sisters do) borrowed by copy and before long we were reading her entire backlist. I was looking for more historical romance books to read and stumbled across AAR (about 10/11 years ago). Thanks to AAR, I discovered a positive treasure trove of new authors, like Mary Balogh, Sherry Thomas and Laura Kinsale. In my twenties, I read a whole range of books, mainly from the historical romance, fantasy and literary fiction. I am currently in the process of finishing my doctorate in law, so most of my time is consumed with case law/arcane legal texts. As such, I don’t read physical novels as much, and have tended to rely on audiobooks, which have been a god sent, as I can listen to them when doing mindless chores. Just wanted to thank all of you at AAR for introducing me to so many DIKs, I would never have discovered them without you!! Your reviews have always impressed me because they are so detailed, thoughtful and balanced.
Thank you. Your arcane legal texts sound more fun than my legal reading (harassment complaints galore!)
I don’t know if this helps, but a woman I know who lost her husband several years ago told me that it doesn’t get any easier being a widow, she just has become better at it.
Today was a rough one. Mike died two years ago tomorrow, and sometimes my grief just feels like a giant hole I have to live with.Oddly, I like being a widow, I just don’t like that Mike’s dead.I even like the word.
Blythe, your voice has been missed. I’m happy that you left to write your own book and spend time with the love of your life, and I’m so very sad to hear that he died. I was lucky to have spent many years with my own special guy, but he too died in 2018. He’s still part of me and therefore part of my Life, but I liked it a lot better when he sat across the dining room table and made me laugh.
As for reading, my choices have been somewhat consistent across the years, although I find I don’t have the attention span to read all the wordy Victorian novels I read in my 20s. I do read long books, both fiction and nonfiction (e.g., Les Miserables, Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns), but I’ve tried to reread some of the books I loved in HS, thinking they’d be comfort reads, and I just couldn’t get into them (W.H. Hudson’s Green Mansions, I’m looking at you). I discovered romance novels and AAR at about the same time and remain grateful for the new authors this website has led me to. I’m a big mystery reader, and I’ve discovered some intriguing mystery series here as well. I read some literary fiction, some nonfiction, some SF/F but no horror or true crime. During the pandemic, as other activities (movies, plays, etc.) are no longer available, I do find I’m reading more, both to fill the time and to take my mind off what is going on the the Real World. And I’m trying to reduce the number of unread books in the house (volunteered in the library’s UBS and wound up taking home too much of the inventory), of which there are far too many.
Part of why this website has been so rewarding, over and above the reviews, is that it has such great comments from others who post here. I’ve learned much from so many of them. I wish good reading to Blythe and everyone, and may everyone find comfort and joy in the right books right now.
Thanks so much Susan. I’m sorry about your husband too – I’ll tell Mike to say hi. This is a shitty club, but it has some of the best members.
As I mentioned in another comment, my covid pastime as been puzzles – almost to the point where it’s weird.
Okay, I’m an old lady. I didn’t start reading romance until after I retired. (I was much too much of an intellectual snob to read books you could buy at the supermarket.) I started with historical romance, Loretta Chase to be precise. If I’d started elsewhere, I might not have continued. Anyway, I have been enjoying historical romance for the past 14 years. I generally steer clear of contemporaries because the attitudes are a bit too foreign for me. But I loved the Betsy books, and have tried to persuade grandchildren to try them. One also loves them. But I have been unable to persuade my sister to try romance. If it isn’t on the Booker shortlist, she’s not interested.
I grew up in a family of readers, but I was the only one who brought home books, either from the library or ones I purchased with my meager allowance. This resulted in me having to hunt down the book of the moment and taking it back from whoever swiped it off my nightstand or out of my bookbag. When To Kill a Mockingbird came out in paperback I bought a copy and went home to fix myself a sandwich and read while I ate lunch. My dad took it off the table while I poured my milk and started to read it right in front of me! Ballsy…! I was about 11 and asked for it back, which he reluctantly did. I still have that copy, every single page has come unglued from the backing and the pages are yellow and brittle, but I will keep it until I die. What an amazing book. It was my first real grownup read.
And yes, I kept having to locate it every time I put it down for a few moments; they were all thieves at heart it seems! Lol!!
I never read kids books much, I was reading Gone With the Wind and Jane Eyre by age 12 or 13, We had the Childcraft set of books, which kept me pretty satisfied until age 9 or so. I filled in with books like the Lassie series, Lad, A Dog, and other animal books geared for younger readers. The adolescent books many of you seem to have read were not on my radar, but I did read Harlequin romance novels for a few of my early teen years. I loved Victoria Holt, Anya Seton, and other gothic-type romance novelists.. I read a few of the bodice rippers of the 70s but I hated the rapey-ness of them and stopped reading romance for decades because of them. I turned to mysteries and true crime for the most part, but there was a lot of general fiction in there too. Herman Wouk, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro are two writers that come to mind. Around 2000, I started reading romance again, having discovered Elizabeth Lowell. I still read all kinds of books, fiction and non-fiction alike, but it mostly centers on romance. I avoid sci-fi and fantasy because I usually find them to be tedious, but romance set in a paranormal world, such as the Black Dagger Brotherhood, can work well for me.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of memoir, humorous romance, and a few biographies. I’m re-reading a lot, and trying to keep my reading matter light because life is depressing enough right now. But I’m a book a day reader, and always have been. I read (listen, actually) under the covers, in front of the tv, in the backyard, while I cook, shop, run errands, just all the time. I even listen as I sleep…I put on a book that I love and drift off to a favorite narrators voice. Books are essential to life for me!
Blythe, I’m sorry for your loss. Thank you for proposing this incredible prompt. Elementary school – I’m dyslexic, but once I finally learned how to read, I didn’t stop. I vastly preferred books to people and read all the time! My mother came for a parent-teacher conference and the school librarian told her I read everything that she had available, multiple times. I’m hugely grateful to my elementary school librarian because through her selections, I discovered a lifelong love of history and consumed any books that were set in the past. During this time, I also saw myself in the literature I read; girls and young women were frequently the central protagonists and they were portrayed as flawed and complex, as well as confident, strong, and self-determined. I collected the “Dear America” and “Royal Diaries” books by Scholastic and I was completely obsessed with Tamora Pearce’s “Song of the Lioness” series. Middle school – My nascent feminist awakening began! My 7th grade English teacher assigned age-appropriate novels that reveal how the patriarchy operates to oppress women worldwide. Miss. Fitzgerald, my 8th grade English teacher, had us read Grendel by John Gardner and my world was shook. Cue a lifelong affection for anti-heroes, anti-heroines, and unreliable narrators. Outside of school, my reading life was 100% unsupervised and I was mesmerized by stories told from the perspective of women who were overlooked, misunderstood or villainized, including the “Wideacre” trilogy by Philippa Gregory, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. High school – When I discovered in high school that the canonical texts we were assigned were told almost exclusively from a masculine prospective and female characters serve as one-dimensional supporting presences that bolster the male journey, my feminism become a burning pillar of rage at the patriarchy. Rare bright spots include Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and Song of Soloman by Toni Morrison. I was briefly hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, after experiencing sexual assault, and while I was there, my mother’s longtime boyfriend re-gifted me my first romance novel. He had begun reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, thinking it was Scottish historical fiction, and when it turned out to be a romance novel, he was miffed. My younger sister and I devoured that series and any other Scotland-based historical romance we could find, including most of Julie Garwood’s backlist. My romance reading petered out because I grew frustrated by the repetitive virtuousness of the heroines, but my sister became a vicarious romance reader and read a ton of paranormals during their heydey post-9/11. College – I studied history in college and since I read so much for school, I often watched television or movies to unwind. Once, on vacation with my family, I got bored and went looking for something to read. I found my sister’s Kindle and binge-read 3 or 4 Nalini Singh “Psy-Changeling” books, but that experience didn’t lead me back to the genre. post-college, my 20’s – After college, I worked as a tour guide at The Mount, which is a historic house museum dedicated to the American author, Edith Wharton. During this time, I read a ton during work and at home. I read Wharton’s books, autobiography, poetry, and the major academic biographies of her. I also read books by her contemporaries and friends (namely, Henry James), influential classics by other women writers (i.e, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, George Eliot’s Middlemarch), and literary fiction/nonfiction by female authors who lectured at The Mount (i.e., Emma Straub’s The Vacationers, Kate Bolick’s Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own). When I was 26, I joined a local book club that was organized by the library and held at a local bar. I would get drunk and talk books and it was awesome and unhealthy…so, like most of my 20’s. But, I read books I wouldn’t normally bother with (graphic novels, books by men). My favorite books from this time are Europhia by Lily King, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter, Heartburn by Nora Ephron, Austenland by Shannon Hale, The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects Under Discussion by Meghan Daum and The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman. now – I rediscovered romance in 2017 and my mind melted by how much I love it and feel at home in the genre. Romance intersects so many of my interests, intellectually and otherwise. Every year, I still read literary fiction… Read more »
I grew up in a family of readers, and being a horse lover,my childhood was spent reading every horse book (and dog book) ever written, or at least I tried.Ear;y on my parents realize we (the kids) would pretty much read anything while we ate and they started leaving magazines and books around the kitchen table. I read lots of favorites,like A Little Princess, and The Outsiders during that time.
Teen years saw my parents continuing to hand me books, which is how I read Les Miserables, and several Faulkner books. I also read Thomas Wolfe, Victoria Holt, Herman Hesse, and mysteries, along with whatever we were assigned in school.
In my twenties I read less due to college, failed first marriage, college, and general mayhem.
In my thirties and 40’s I started reading mysteries again, Elizabeth George, Margery Allingham, Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sue Grafton, Agatha Christy, P. D. James, etc. I was 41 and pregnant with my youngest when I read my first Jane Austen book. I read them all that year. I also read quite a lot of fantasy.
By that time I was also homeschooling my children using a literature based program,so though my late 30’s and 40’s I read a wealth of wonderful JF and YA historical fiction books aloud to my kids hat really enriched my life and increased my knowledge.
I was led into to romance in my early 50’s through a couple of mystery series, (Charlotte MacLeod, and Earlene Fowler), that included romances. I found romantic suspense (LInda Howard, Nora Roberts, and and then contemporaries and finally ventured into historical romances when I accidentally bought all of Georgette Heyer’s audiobooks on DVD illegally. (I didn’t realize it was illegal. I’ve rebought them since. Sorry.) But that got me started on audiobooks,which is still a favorite way for me to experience books.
In later 50’s I branched out again and listened to or read sci-fi, fantasy, and romance books, as well as mysteries. I found Catherine Asaro and Lois McMasters Bujold. But reading time diminished as I returned to work.
So today, I still want at least a touch of romance in my books. It keeps me invested in the stories. I’m reading low stress books at the moment–escapist reads mostly. My happiest finds of this year have been audiobooks by Stella Riley, and K. J. Charles.
Brush with greatness: Elizabeth George taught at my high school.
Blythe – I’m so sorry for your loss! And thank you for stopping by. You were the editor/publisher when I discovered AAR in 2005, and it remains my favorite site for readers.
Yup, yup, yup. Like everyone else so far: Nose in a book, inside, outside, late at night . . . I missed the Haywood books but Nancy? Oh yeah. (Speaking of, have you read the parody True Confessions of a Teen Sleuth? It is “Nancy’s” memoir, written as a middle-aged woman. OMG it is hilarious.) Anyone else remember The Pigman and Me? Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (I kid you not!) Ramona (the historical fiction “romance”, not Cleary) Mrs. Mike by the Freedmans? Yup. . . . the beginning of the YA market included a lot of “romance”. I found a stash of Barbara Cartland’s at a babysitting job (along with 3 years of Glamour magazines) that I was allowed to borrow. The first Barbara I liked but reading one after the other, I got bored with the formula, and decided every romance was exactly the same. I refused to read another “romance”. Fiction with romantic elements however: Atlas Shrugged and The Mists of Avalon and I was all in.
I pretty much abandoned fiction in college: being a business major I switched over almost exclusively to non-fiction “business” reading: lots of WSJ, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week. Combined with a romantic partner who liked to watch TV it pretty much put paid to any reading for fun. I would go on to work in marketing and public relations, so the non-fiction reading continued for many years, because it was work related. It wasn’t until my son was born and I reduced my work hours that I came back to fiction in a big way: Reading Charlotte’s Web and The Little Princess and Harry Potter with him was such a joy. I joined a book club to read stuff for me, but we didn’t read romances, or even genre fiction. We read “popular bookstore” fiction.
I discovered romances (and genre fiction in general) when I went back to school in 2004 for a library science degree. We were required to read a romance, a mystery, a western, and so on in one particular class. It was great fun; and the assigned romance was Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy. It was a revelation. Sara Donati’s Into the Wilderness was next, followed by all of the then published Outlander books. The rest, as they say, is history.
As a newly minted librarian, I was frantic to catch up in many genres but romance reading was my favorite (it was work-related!). And AAR played a huge role. I went looking for the “seminal works”. AAR’s Top 100 lists, message boards and book reviews stretching back a decade or more were exactly what I needed – some guidance into what were considered “the best” authors and titles. Those Top 100 lists have provided many, many hours of reading enjoyment, figuring out what appeals to me and what doesn’t. And the icing on the cake was a community of readers who like to talk about romances.
I loved MRS. MIKE as a teen, but I haven’t re-read it for 40-plus years and I’m worried that if I did I would see all the cultural appropriation and “otherizing” of native people. I’d rather keep my memories of the book as a sweet romance set in the northernmost reaches of Canada than re-read it and see that the “suck fairy” has visited since 1972.
Oh yes! Many of the titles I mentioned have been raked over the coals – and rightfully so – for any number of issues. But of the hundreds of books I read before I turned 20, they are some of the “romantic” titles that stand out for whatever reason decades later. Like you, I can’t bring myself to reread them. I’m sure I’d be appalled.
I have not read the Nancy memoir, but it sounds hilarious. The pandemic has turned me into a complete puzzle freak (like, I’ve lost count of how many I have done), and I just finished a Nancy Drew one, with all the old covers. Thinking back about all my favorites and Nancy with her titian hair and green pantsuits was pretty awesome.
Hmmm . . . would you be surprised to find out
“Ned Nickerson was not the love of my life. In fact, my heart belonged to another. I first met Frank Hardy in the summer of 1925 . . . . I had just solved the Mystery at Lilac Inn . . . ”
It is worth tracking down. And the correct title is Confessions of a Teen Sleuth. Author Chelsea Cain.
Thank you for this. It’s funny how reading changes through our lives. I have also always been a reader but I can look back see how it has changed over time. Lloyd Alexander cemented my love of fantasy when I was around 10. Historical romance was my love in my 20’s but now in my 40’s I have a hard time with a lot of it. During the past few years I have discovered a love of non-fiction books about mountaineering and crazy science stuff. (And I don’t really even hike, so the mountaineering surprised me as much as anyone.) 2020 has been the year of Webtoons. The art and serialized storytelling has just worked for me where other books have not. I generally circle back to my favorite genres of mystery and romance but I love finding new books/genres that fit me now.
What a lovely tribute to reading Blythe! And to Mike too.
When I was very young, I remember looking at the Sunday comics and thinking “I have to learn what those marks mean!”
My tastes have changed over the years but I read something every day. I know some friends say they get burned out by reading, but I can’t imagine that ever happening to me. There are just too many books!
My favorite scene about being a reader was an old episode of The Odd Couple. Felix and Oscar were staying at a retreat where no reading materials were allowed. Just before bed, Felix went into the bathroom and returned to the bedroom with his toothpaste tube. He told Oscar “I need something to read!” Oscar said “Let me have it when you’re done.” Could totally sympathize.
I’m chuckling over the Odd Couple, how true. You can always tell us readers at the breakfast table we are the ones reading the back of the cereal box while we eat.
I started my reading journey in the mid 1960s with The Happy Hollisters (five young siblings who solved mysteries wherever they went, kind of like The Bobsey Twins). In elementary school I found the Little House books and biographies. By the time I was a teenager, I graduated to pulp fiction – mysteries, bestsellers, sci fi and fantasy, and gothic romance. I adored Anya Seton, Daphne DuMaurier, Victoria Holt (Phillipa Carr), and JRR Tolkien. Then there was Rosemary Rogers, Shirlee Busbee, and other romantic adventure stories. In my 20s, I was working full time and going to school at night, so science fiction short stories were all I could find time to read. After I earned my under graduate degree, I was so burnt out that I did not read for a couple of years (needle point and cross stitch took up the time I previously spent reading). In my early 30s, I rediscovered reading and found Mary Balogh, Jennifer Blake, Johanna Lindsay, and Sandra Brown romances at the local library. I’m turning 61 in another week or so. I’ve been on a steady diet of Romance for the past 30 years. Historical romance is my catnip. I do read other genres, nonfiction (history usually), mystery, and the occasional literary fiction. As they say, reading is FUNdamental.
So sorry for your loss. :-(
My reading journey was facilitated by parents who liked to read, kept books in the house, and gave books as gifts. Everything from accurate age-appropriate science to books on crafts. Going to the library was a Big Thing in the summer (not least because we lived too far away from it to walk), ordering from Scholastic was a Big Thing during the school year, and my sister & I both got a chores-based allowance from age 10 that we spent almost entirely on books. The first books I remember buying for myself? A boxed paperback set of The Chronicles of Narnia, which I still have.
I read Mom & Dad’s mystery novels from age 9 or so, plus masses of Nancy Drew, animal stories, and adventure stories. At age 12 or so I discovered romance thanks to my grandma and the hoard of Harlequins in her basement.
College was masses of history and literature (first major: English; switched to French for a minute, then swerved to History largely due to a professor I really liked) and – for entertainment – romance, science fiction, and mystery. I started writing my first novel in graduate school, inspired by a project about daily life for a winemaker in pre-Revolutionary France.
It took me six years to finish my master’s degree because of working full-time and because my first thesis advisor had to step back for personal reasons. Also my first topic basically couldn’t be researched in pre-internet Georgia; I would have had to go to England. So I switched topics and ended up writing about author Frances Burney. Lots more history, lots of social & historical theory, lots of other 18th and 19th-century romance to be read.
After that I moved to California. Read mostly mystery and SF for years. Read screenplays and movie-related stuff because I was living with a wannabe screenwriter. Worked, worked, changed jobs a lot, worked, learned how to dance, fell in love with another ballroom student, booted out the wannabe, went broke, worked, things improved. Dove back into romance.
Started self-publishing in 2012. Wrote, read, wrote, read. In 2015 I started reading M/M romance. In 2018 I started writing it. Am currently trying to force myself to read more nonfiction because not being able to experience life means getting tired of the inside of my own head.
Where did you go to grad school? (I was also in Georgia, also basically pre-internet) – UGA.
@Alexandra Caluen & Blythe: I wanted to ask the same thing. I’m a Georgia Southern grad—but I graduated so long ago, it was Georgia Southern College, not Georgia Southern University, when I attended. Lol
Georgia State University :-)
What a coincidence! I got my undergrad degree at the University of Georgia.
Go Dawgs.
They are my favorite, even though I’ve now had my kids all go to different schools. I went to UC Santa Barbara for my undergrad, and they did not have a good football team.
I became a voluntary reader (as opposed to reading for school) later than the rest of my family. I read very little in childhood & never read most of the classic children’s book. I got started with the Tom Swift Jr. series early in my teens, went from that to science fiction, and several years later to fantasy. F&SF was my primary reading until my late 30s, when I started reading romances based on sibling recommendations. I’m familiar with Sturgeon’s Revelation from many years ago in the F&SF field: 90% of science fiction is cr*p because 90% of everything is cr*p. I just never thought to apply this to romances before I started reading them, and I think the percentage of good romance books is well above 10%. The beginning of my shift to reading romances in large numbers really got started in 1993. I was at a point where I felt a strong need to lighten up, and most of my usual F&SF reading then wasn’t very lighthearted. I got started with traditional Regencies, so the first romance with explicit sex was a surprise (shock). After enough reading, I came to accept all levels of sexuality in romances as long as the activity fits the characters and story. My tastes have expanded from my Regency start to include all sub-genres. (Paranormal Romances and Urban Fantasy somewhat overlap, as do Science-fictional Romances and Romantic Science Fiction and Fantasy Romances and Romantic Fantasy.) My current fiction reading is about 2/3 romances & 1/3 F&SF, with a tiny leavening of mysteries or other fiction. So far this year my most-read sub-genre is contemporary romances. My current non-fiction is mostly newspapers & magazines and The Great Courses in audio & video.
I started recording humor ratings for romances I read not too long after I started reading in the genre to help guide my own bookstore visits (assuming that authors funny once were a good bet for funny again—which I found to be true often enough to be useful). My complete list of books read with humor scores high enough to recommend is at http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/romwhumorlist.html.
Wow, that’s a great and extensive list Mark! I had a fun time scrolling through it. So many names I haven’t heard of in a while that I used to read like Dara Joy, Bettina Krahn and evening Julie Tetel. So much fun, thanks!
I’m a boomer (born 1957—I truly was a Disco Dolly in the late 1970s). I can’t speak for anyone other than myself, but I do suspect that most of the people (regardless of age) who comment here were probably, like me, voracious readers from an early age. I was a real magpie, reading anything & everything, usually reading above my age and comprehension level, but I had parents who rarely censored what I read. Romance was always there—whether Georgette Heyer’s regencies, historical fiction (Anya Seton’s KATHERINE, all those books by Jean Plaidy and Margaret Campbell Barnes), gothics (Victoria Holt), mid-century women writers, like Elizabeth Cadell or Angela Thirkell, who didn’t always focus on romance but usually had at least one romantic subplot in their books. There were, of course, books by Barbara Cartland and the Mills & Boon/Harlequin romances, but they were utterly denigrated as reinforcing outdated gender roles. Like many in my generation, I consumed mass quantities of bodice-rippers when they first arrived on the scene in the 1970s—even being aware of the unknowable/rapey heroes, we still got sexually-explicit material written by (mostly) women, about women, to be read by women. But I was always reading other things too: I went to college and earned a degree in English, so I read and enjoyed much of the “dead white guys—and a few dead white gals” canon. Genre fiction was a big part of my reading too—in addition to romance, I especially enjoyed murder-mysteries and police procedurals. I married fairly late in life—my husband is also an avid reader, although he prefers non-fiction, but does enjoy mysteries too—and had my children even later (I was almost 41 when my youngest children—twins—were born). During the time I was raising my kids (the 1990s through the 20-teens), my reading went through a change: I had gotten burned out on bodice-rippers in the 1980s and had almost stopped reading romance at all when (in the early 1990s) a coworker gave me a bag of regencies by Mary Balogh and Edith Layton, among others. As soon as I read Balogh’s THE OBEDIENT BRIDE and Layton’s THE ABANDONED BRIDE, I was hooked back on romance. I loved that regencies were on the shorter side, so that I could read in between all the things going on in my life as a wife, mom, and working full-time. As my kids got older, I found my tastes changing once more—this time to contemporaries (driven in part by my reading so much on the kindle and how many contemporaries were freebies or 99-cent specials). Like so many things in our lives, each of our journeys are unique, but each of us share certain touchstones—love of books and reading being the main one here.
Like you, I had parents that rarely censored my reading and I pretty much read almost anything I could get my hands on. I think voracious readers are just born somehow although I have to say while my parents were pretty strict about what they bought me regarding toys- they never, ever refused to buy me a single book that I recall. On family trips where we drove, I would have us in every book store we passed up and down the East Coast trying to find books in whatever series I was reading.
I would leave the library with a stack of books in my arms piled higher than my nose and I am afraid I racked up a number of book fines over the years for not being able to part with a new discovered favorite sooner.
First, I’d like to say how very sorry I am for your loss and that I am happy you still find joy in your reading even if the genres have changed.
I think we were often reading twins-I adored the Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood! I still remember her red plaid school bag and how she would save her pennies to buy gifts for her Mom and her best friend like the tea set and the violets! So charming. I devoured all of the Nancy Drew books along with the Little House series and anything else I could lay hands on. Outdoor readers for the win! Beverly Cleary was also a big favorite especially her teen books like “Fifteen” and “The Luckiest Girl” later on. Combined with all the classic books like A Little Princess, Anne of Green Gables and others.
I read the possibly even more embarrassing “Wildfire” teen romance books in the 80’s with titles like “Superflirt” and “Dance With Me”. I also discovered Barbara Cartland books (a romance gateway drug) sometime around here and Victoria Holt/Jean Plaidy and a love of gothic romances.
During later high school and college of course I read “serious” books as well (like Jane Austen and The Brontes), but thanks to an older relative I also discovered “real” romance books reading her castoff category romances, Danielle Steele books and genuine “bodice rippers” like Kathleen Woodiwiss and Laurie McBain.
Through college and then while getting my doctorate, I hid my paperback romances lest anyone think I was “silly” or not serious enough, and for many years they were my dark secret. A habit I never gave up through the changing times and tastes.
I can say finding book groups online and then AAR had a profound impact on me and how I viewed my romance reading. Suddenly there was a community of like minded individuals who knew Outlander was a very special work and that despite what Stephen King said there were romance authors producing amazing work.
Thank you for being a part of AAR since it’s early days! Thank you for your contributions. It’s lovely to see your name here again.
We are triplets!!!!
Multiples big time!
This doesn’t surprise me at all! LOL. I would have been disappointed if we weren’t.
I know some people date their reading eras by Sweet Valley High, The Babysitters Club or Goosebumps books but mine is sadly those Wildfire Teen romances and others of their ilk!
Yay! I love thinking of all of us avid readers scattered everywhere, hoarding our books and never dreaming there would be a day when everyone could meet online and discuss all those books that no one else we knew was reading.
Regarding Beverly Cleary (also a childhood favorite of mine), she is 104 years old! We should all be so lucky. :)
That’s amazing! I didn’t know that. She’s such a great author and never was patronizing to hear young readers.
Thank you!
I read Wildfires, Sweet Dreams, and Silhouette Teen (I can’t remember whet the real name was for those) too. Definitely a gateway drug!
Looking back they were incredibly sweet even though they sometimes tackled some serious subjects. I feel lucky to have grown up when I did because I feel like I was able to have a very separate childhood, teenage years and then adult life. I think (IMHO) childhood has been gradually shortened over the years. My time was also far less structured than I think it is for kids today. I had a lot of time to read and daydream and explore on my own, particularly in the summer.