No Shame In Books




When I was younger, I was a very different reader than I am today. Today, I look for depth and read darker stories as well as fantasies. When I was younger though, I didn't want to read about problems. I wanted to dream about somewhere happy, where I could have a place.

I read a lot of books that are labelled "guilty pleasures". This can include so called "trashy" books like the cliched paranormals, and a lot of chick lit. You know, the type of books where everybody was rich and everybody was loved. The stories weren't about life changing things. Usually, they were very petty- it was about competition, jealousy, and there were often tonnes of designer brands.

Slowly, I evolved from those books. At some point, I had read every single Poppy book in existence, from Gossip Girl to the A-List, to Secrets of My Hollywood Life. I don't know what happened, but somehow I did a complete 180 and grew tired of those books.

Now, years later, when I look back at what I read as a tween, for some reason I feel a little embarrassed. These books were by no means classic. They weren't impactful or with exceptional writing. They were frankly, entertainment. And in some way, I feel a little embarrassed when I think of having read them, and other books like Twilight. Why was I so taken with something that was obviously unhealthy for me?

It was unhealthy. No, really. As if I'm not already an extremely competitive person. The books themselves were completely blameless, but I had these images of perfect and what life should be like and they were completely unrealistic. It wasn't like I needed a real book to show me reality; I needed a fantasy. Somewhere to escape to, sometimes. They were exactly what I needed, and I think they helped me a lot too. I learned pretty fast about the popularity/rumours scam, and my life has been very drama free maybe because I saw all the mistakes being made in those books and vowed never to make them myself.

The biggest issue I still have is why do I feel embarrassed for that? Why should I ever feel embarrassed for reading a book?

When I was younger, I used to read Warriors, this epic series about tribes of cats. It sounds a little out there, but I swear, it was brilliant. These books were both thrilling and heartbreaking. At some point, the quality of the series dropped a little and so my biggest memory of them is a conversation I had with my older cousin.


She was a teenager at that time and probably resented having to always entertain her younger cousin instead of hanging out with her older sisters. I was reading my book and she told me that one day, I would feel embarrassed for reading a book about warring cats. I told her I wouldn't- it was a legitimately good series.

To this day, I have never felt embarrassed about the cats, but again, why should anyone ever be embarrassed for reading?

There's a lot of snobbery that exists. I've heard stories of twenty-somethings being looked badly upon for reading YA. Hell, one of my friends even thinks YA is nothing but shallow romances. And these people are totally misinformed, but in a way it's hard to ignore them. I don't read classics, and I feel in some way I will be judged for that. Like, I'm supposed to be a bookworm so doesn't it make sense that I'd read the 'best' writing?

When I really think about it, I realize how wrong it is to be embarrassed for having read any book. Who gets to judge what book is classy and what isn't? Shouldn't I just read books based on what I like? At the end of the day, I read books based on my tastes for my own reasons, not so and so's reasons. So screw feeling guilty.

Don't. I know this problem also stems with me, because I can be an arrogant person, but I swear I'll try to stop it. We're allowed to have our own tastes, and I can't control if I don't like something, but I think the fact that someone is reading a book they enjoy should be encouraged, regardless of what it is.

Like people always say, insult the content, not the reader.

-P.E.

6 comments:

  1. We agree with you: There should be no shame in reading whatever makes you happy. (Same for TV or music.) That's exactly why there's such a variety of material out there!

    All 4 of us read a pretty wide variety of stuff, and now that we're more mature, none of them embarrasses us. (Not even the romance novels. :P)

    The only thing we'll say is that classics are classics for a reason, and you might find that you actually enjoy a few. After all, Harry Potter is probably going to be considered a classic someday, right?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha I know I need to get to reading some classics. It's just hard because they all have pretty unappealing covers and it's hard to know where to start. I also feel like I've been spoiled for most of the endings, and so it's hard to find something new and fun. I'm trying to be more open minded about all books though! So who knows, maybe I'll find a classic I love.

      -P.E.

      Delete
  2. Exactly! Well said :)

    Also, I still LOVE rereading the first two warrior series :) I will never be ashamed of my adventures with the clans!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so sad that I stopped that series. I remember loving it, but later on missing the original characters. And I didn't use Goodreads back then so I can't figure out how far I got. :(

      -P.E.

      Delete
  3. Very well said! We all out guilty pleasures, even if we shouldn't be calling them that either. I read and loved Twilight and I read a lot of the books in the Pretty Little Liars series till I grew tired of how they were dragged along without good reason (at least for me) and I love reading YA, and I'm also a huge fan of fantasy and science fiction, Discworld, Agatha Christie and I've read every single Jules Verne that is out there... Romance and contemporary books might not be my thing but that doesn't mean I have to make an issue out of what others like reading! I think the bottom line is that if we love reading, we should just focus on that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly! Do what makes you happy, and ignore what everyone else says. I read PLL too, but I also stopped when it kept going on, and on... In general, I try my best to promote what I love because nobody else has the same tastes as me. :)

      -P.E.

      Delete

What do you think?