She has always been an avid reader.

One of her favorite things to do in elementary school was to go to the Scholastic Book Fair.

While there were many treasures at said book fair, she only cared about the books. She only purchased the books. Bookmarks be damned. Color pencils? Snorts. As if. Posters? Erasers? Shirley, you jest! So passionate about books was she that she even participated in the crème de la crème of reading challenges:

Oh, Pizza Hut. Read some books, and get a free pizza. You are brilliant and likely the reason she was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis when she was seventeen. To this day, pizza of any kind hurts her. Since she can no longer safely eat that delicious, carb-infused goodness, she has to plead with the almighty Panda Express to see if they’ll do an adult version of your childhood shenanigans. For every ten books read by an individual 18+, one free Orange Chicken entree. Come on, Panda! Get on this! There is a slew of cliterature enthusiasts I know would jump on this bandwagon!

By the time she was in the fifth grade, she was thoroughly done with Judy Blume and had moved on to what many would consider inappropriate. V.C. Andrews, anyone? Anne Rice, for sure! She feels very cheated that the internet was in its infancy, there was no YouTube, and she had yet to be introduced to Xanga back when her reading was more open to all genres, when she was more enthusiastic and had far more energy. Alas, it was the 1990s. Practically the Dark Ages. She missed her calling to be one of those fancy BookTubers or BookTokers. As Mama Rose would say, “I was born too soon and started too late.” Points for all you theater people who understand that reference.

By the time the internet entered adolescence, she was in her twenties and had started college. Once from 2001-2005 and again from 2011-2013 to complete her Masters. Ask any college student – whether they attend a traditional campus or online – the last thing anyone wants to do is add more reading onto all the reading, writing, studying, and crying (True story: cried a few times in college, and she’ll save that for a different post) they are trying desperately to complete. There was a period where she didn’t read much of anything unless it was part of a textbook. Even after she finished her degrees, her reading didn’t return to normal for quite a few years after.

The year 2020 has entered the chat.

2020: A/S/L?

To those of you old enough to understand that, how is your back doing? Are you getting enough fiber in your diet? Her last colonoscopy was circa 2018. When was yours? She wears bifocals now. Isn’t that wild?

Anyway, 2020 happened, and with it came a new love of reading; her passion for books re-emerged. With that renewed vigor for all things fiction, so came one of her new policies on reading. She is older now. She has finally realized it is perfectly alright not to finish a book she is not enjoying. Teenage Siemelle would never! Teenage Siemelle would kick older Siemelle’s ass because what if she stops reading a book that was for sure going to be excellent? To that older Siemelle says, ain’t no one got time to take that chance. So all of a sudden, she has been DNFing (short for Did Not Finish) books left and right. To the point where she knows she needs to dial it back a little. She paid for the books she’s refusing to read, after all.

Her New Year’s resolution is to finish all the books (physical and Kindle-based) she starts reading, even if they happen to be travesties of epic proportions.

This may be one resolution she can succeed at!

What do you think?

“We read to know we are not alone. “

– C.S. Lewis

Still Breathing,

Siemelle