Honest to Blog: Book Nerd...of the Smutty Kind.

Well over the last year and a bit I have become quite the book worm. I never really read much as a child, I've always been more of a visual person so movies were always my friend. I never read unless I had to for school and even then I remember a lot of times I stuck to the Cole's Notes and just skimmed through English. Unless we were reading a book that grabbed my attention right away I wasn't really interested. In fact there is only one book that really comes to mind when I think about my four years in high school-The Chysalids by John Wyndham. I loved this book and got through it within a couple of days. When everyone else was answering question for Chapter Two and told to read Chapter Three I was already finished the book and re-reading it.

The book that got me back into reading was, and this will come as no surprise if you know me, "Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone' by JK Rowling. I can still remember being in the library of my High School and some classmates talking about how the trailer for the Harry Potter movie was just released and how excited they were. After asking what the movie was about and finding out it was about a boy wizard, I was like "pass". Then I saw a movie where they featured the trailer for the first movie in the series. Knowing my friends were going to eventually see the movie and seeing that the trailer wasn't entirely horrendous I decided to borrow the book from my sister and read it. I was HOOKED. I read through the first four books in no time. When I finished the fourth book I would just go back to the first one and reread them all again. Over and Over. I was obsessed, with both the books and movies. I went to the midnight showings for five of the movies, as well as the midnight book release of the last two books in the series, but this was just for Harry Potter, I still wasn't into much else book wise. Sometimes I would find a book in the Young Adult section that I would read but that was it.

Eventually I told my sister Karen about how I only really read HP and she in her big sister way scolded me for not reading other things. I eventually picked up a couple other books and would read them and really like them, and through the years have read a number of books. Richard has tried countless times over the years to get me to read some of his favourites, but alas I could not do it. We just differ on what we like in books too much that I couldn't get through his books.

But it hasn't been until the last couple of years of being a receptionist that I got back into reading, and found a genre I like. I like my books to have fun characters, and I want to get into the story right away. If it's gonna take me a hundred pages of font size eight to get to the real story then honestly I have better things to do. It's like I have A.D.D and I need a story to grab me in the first couple chapters.

I mainly stuck to the Young Adult section of books. I've read the 'Twilight Series' and Stephenie Meyers other book 'The Host'. I really jumped on the bandwagon of the Twilight Series and it wasn't until reading the fourth book in the series that I realized just how crappy it was. That's my opinion. If you read it and liked it then more power to you. It took me a long time to realize I didn't like it and that most of my interest in it was because the pages must have been laced with drugs that made me addicted to it. That or I was just really attracted to Robert Pattinson and didn't care about the actual story. I mean come on, we're talking about the guy who played Cedric Diggory in HP4. What's not to love? Again a period of no reading followed this until one day my nephew told me about a book series he'd read and enjoyed. He explained the premise and eventually I was introduced to 'The Hunger Games' series, which I devoured and loved.


Having read the Twilight Series with an ending that made no sense, all the rave was on the new 'mommy porn' that was Fifty Shades of Grey, previously written as a fan fiction of Twilight. I don't know what possessed me into buying that first book. I've read fan fiction before and came to the decision that I hadn't found anything I really liked in a long time. But there I was in a Chapter's lineup with Fifty Shades of Grey in my hand knowing that the person who was about to ring it up was going to know I was buying Porn. So here I was at the till most likely blushing profusely and giving some lame ass excuse that it was a joke gift for a friend. I went home that night and started reading. Ignorning my husband's protest for dinner I read and read. Yes the book may be silly and based off of Twilight fan fiction, but if Stephenie Meyer had written her characters like Christian and Ana I would still be reading Twilight.

I had finally found my genre. Smutty Romance. I like happy ending books where girl meets boy and there's some drama but eventually everything works out. I was later introduced to 'The Blackdagger Brotherhood Series' from my sister and a friend. Took me a while to get into the series but I was promised that while that series took sixty odd pages to really get into, once I got there it was all going to be worth it. And boy was it ever! I was first scared because the series was so large (that's what she said). We're talking eleven books plus a novela, people. This was going to be no easy task, but I had a job answering phones for eight hours a day, with a lot of free time. Its crazy to admit but I was able to get through that series in just under two weeks.

I discovered the website Good Reads, and after buying my first Kobo book, I kept getting emails of books I may like because I read Fifty Shades. From here I was introduced to Alice Clayton, Colleen Hoover, Christina Lauren, Maya Banks, Mia Sheridan, and many others. All of these authors are fantastic but like Horror Genre Movies, Smutty Romance has some real downers and I was also introduced to some really craptacuclar books.

Last Year I challenged myself to the Good Reads Book Challenge by trying to read 30 new books, but finished the year by only reading 27. Granted I did read a lot of these books over and over. To me reading a good book is like watching a movie. Sometimes I love a certain scene in a book and I will read it over and then put the book down. Sometimes I will need to read the book all over again. This happened a lot with Colleen Hoover's stories. I've become a huge fan of her writing style and love how fleshed out her characters are. So in a way I did read over 30 books last year, but I only read 27 new books.

I'm putting myself to the challenge of once again trying to read 30 new books. With my promotion at work I don't have the time to read during the day, therefore most of my reading now gets done at home. So I feel like 30 new books is a reasonable challenge for me. I already have books on my list and on my Kobo that I want to read, not to mention some new releases from the the authors listed above that I'm excited to read. I'm looking forward to another year of losing myself in books and characters, and maybe actually completing this challenge.

Oh and if you ever want to see what I've read or connect with me on Good Reads, just look to the left of the blog. I have my challenge posted at the bottom as well as a button at the top that will take you to my Good Reads page.