Book Bandwagon

When it comes to books, I admit I am a bandwagon hopper. I love to read. Always have. And I wanted so badly to instill the same love of the written word in my only child. When all the critics began picking on Harry Potter, I had to read the first book just in case my daughter decided she was interested. I enjoyed it so much, I was one of the first in line each year at midnight when the next in the series came out. (I didn’t dress up, though.) Attempting to get my daughter interested in reading, I tried to encourage her to pick up Harry, but she just couldn’t see in him what I did.


A few years later my daughter borrowed the first Twilight book from her lit teacher and read the whole book in less than 48 hours. For her, that was an amazing feat as her attention span was …

Squirrel….

You get the picture. So, of course, I had to pick up the book and see what caught her attention. I am a much more experienced reader – I finished it in one day, it had me so captivated. We both quickly were engrossed in the rest of the series as well. (Not such a fan of the movies.) I was able to talk Team Edward and Team Jacob with the best of them!

Last summer, every lady at our campground was talking about The Help – of which I had never heard. When one of the ladies offered to lend me her copy, I quickly snapped it up. I finished it in two days – forsaking food and sleep. And I bawled through the entire movie, from the opening credits through to the lights turning back on in the theater. While my daughter has not yet read the book, she was a huge fan of the movie along with me.

So, when Shades of Grey started monopolizing conversations, once again intrigued, I had it on my Kindle in 30 seconds or less so that I could speak intelligently about it as well. However, this time I will not be reading the others in this series. Even though Grey fans insist the other books are not as racy. I am so thankful that I had it on my Kindle! No book jacket to give away my indiscretions! I read it on the plane during a recent trip and was so worried that someone might accidently get a glance at what I was reading. I felt like I was reading porn. Actually, I think I WAS reading porn! I am pretty certain I blushed on the plane, while shifting in my seat uncomfortably. But I made myself finish the book just in case I was missing what everyone was talking about. One thing that did come out of me reading this book – I have been slapped in the face with the differences between my generation and the teen generation now. My now 18 year old daughter read Shades for the same reason I did – wondering what the heck is the hype. I did not want her to read it – however she is not living at home so I don’t have much control over that anymore. A couple of days later she said she was about half way through and didn’t get why people were getting so upset about it. She didn’t think it was that bad. Here I was, worried that her innocence was being jeopardized by reading this trash and she was immune to it. I remember being embarrassed by Judy Bloom's book Forever – you remember – the one where the whole section about Ralph was highlighted in yellow and the page was folded back for quick reference and no one knew what the rest of the book was about? (How many of you are Googling right now!) When I expressed my surprise at her lack of disgust at Shades, she reminded me of how her generation is surrounded by Twitter, Facebook, MeetMe, Chat Roulette, and any other number of technological advancements that shove porn, sex, hate, and bullying in the faces of any young person who turns on the computer. It desensitizes our youth. I didn’t realize how serious this is until now. I don’t pretend to know what the answers are to this new reality. However, on the positive side – at least she is reading!