Development of a Reader:Why Do You Read What You Read?

My brain is fried. Not from Nano--though that hasn't helped the brain mush--but because my kidlet has decided to completely switch his personality on me overnight. One day this past weekend he woke up and decided everything he ever loved/enjoyed is now everything he hates. So we're dealing with monster, raging tantrums 2-3 times a day for the last few days. I'm starting to wonder if I should call an exorcist. *sigh* We're going to the doc's tomorrow for his 3-yr old well visit, so hopefully she'll have some insight. Everyone say a prayer that he's in a growth spurt or something and this is temporary. I miss my lovely, happy child.

So, I thought it would be fun today to do a rewind post. Below is my very first post I ever did on this blog--when I was speaking into the void and  had no followers. Hope you enjoy and I look forward to hearing about your own journey to your reading tastes...

Why Do You Read What You Read? (My very first post.)

As I start this blog, I found myself wondering how I became such a book-obsessed dork and why I prefer certain types of stories to others. Looking back, I've decided that reading development is kind of like that Plinko game from the Price is Right--certain people and book experiences bump you in one direction or the other. Some of us land in the $5000 slot and become lifelong readers of every type of book, others land in zero and miss out completely, and many of us fall somewhere in between finding a particular reading niche. 

Here's how my Plinko game went:

4th grade: Inspired by my mother's love of mystery novels, I start reading James Howe's Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery  series and Betty Ren Wright's The Dollhouse Murders .

 

Result: A love of stories that scare me and make me laugh. This also leads to me being  convinced that my room is haunted by an evil stuffed monkey that has sat on my shelf since  toddlerhood. Monkey gets evicted to the attic, I sleep on the couch for six months (seriously.)

5th grade: My teacher, Mrs. Hymel, starts reading a chapter a day of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time  to the class. I'm hooked. I go to the library to get the book because I can't tolerate waiting for her to finish. I proceed to read the rest of the series in rapid succession. When I'm finished with those, I move on to The Neverending Story  by Michael Ende

Result: My love for both fantasy and series books is planted.

6th grade: We're assigned to read Where the Red Fern Grows

and Bridge to Terabithia . Amazing literary books. But both tore me to shreds. I had just lost my grandmother who I was extremely close to and books involving deaths just shattered me.

Result: I develop a respect but also a wariness for literary fiction. In addition, I acquire a lifelong aversion to novels that kill off the dog. I go on a binge of R.L. Stine horror books (such as The Baby-Sitter (Point Horror Series)) and Roald Dahl  instead. I also began to indulge my budding interest in the paranormal. My science fair projects for this year: ESP and Poltergeists.

9th grade: I dig through my mom's book collection and pull out V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic  and Petals on the Wind . These books were depressing, full of drama, gothic, darkly romantic, and totally addictive. (Ironically, they are now be re-branded as YA.) But why do I remember these? Because in the second book there was (wait for it) sex. Gasp. I was a very naive at fourteen and found this to be so scandalous. This is the first time I remember hiding the spine of the book while I was reading in public just in case. Of course, I went on to read like twenty more books by Ms. Andrews.

Result: Discover that romance + sexy + darkness = awesomeness

10th grade: I realize that most of my favorite horror movies started as books. I go through a Stephen King and Anne Rice phase. I also read a "based on true events" book called The Black Hope Horror: The True Story of a Haunting  that scares the bejesus out of me. I have to remove the book from my room at night so I can sleep.

Result: Decide psychics, monsters, vampires, and ghosts are by far way cooler than  normal humans.

9th grade-12th grade: My teachers beat us over the head with the classics because that's their job. I know now these books are works of art, masterpieces, etc. But as a teenager, I thought all of them (outside of Shakespeare and Poe) were big giant suckfests.

Result: I raise the stock of the Cliff Notes company (allowing me to ace all English tests and papers) and am further turned off by the term "literary."

And what do I do with the time I should be using to read my assigned books? I write my  own romance novel because clearly there is no chance of actual romantic interludes in my own angsty life. A hundred and fifty typed pages of sappy teenage indulgence is born and titled Kismet. My male protagonist bears a striking resemblance to Joe McIntyre of New Kids on the Block.

College: I start off with a double major: Psyc and English, but feel overwhelmed. I drop English because it's not as "practical", but still sneak in a few classes. LSU offers a Vampires in Literature class. How frigging cool is that? Not only do I get the chance to read stacks of vamp novels, I get the chance to write short stories about them, too.

Result: Regret dropping the English major. Promise myself that once I get settled in my psychology career, I will try to write in my free time.

So now, years later, where does that leave me?

Reading and writing the same things I grew to love as a child. My Plinko chip landed in the voracious reader of genre fiction slot. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not closed off to the literary side, but honestly its not the first thing I pick up. 

So, I'm curious. What books from your past guided your tastes? Can you remember that first moment or first book that really hooked you on reading? Or something that turned you away from a certain genre? 

Outlander: A Review (finally!)

Title: Outlander

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical Romance/Time Travel

Rating: ★★★★

Back Cover (from Amazon):

The year is 1945 and Claire Beauchamp Randall, a former British combat nurse, is on holiday in Scotland with her husband, looking forward to becoming reacquainted after the war's long separation. Like most practical women, Claire hardly expects her curiosity to get the better of her. But an ancient stone circle near her lodgings holds an eerie fascination, and when she innocently touches one of the giant boulders, she's hurtled backward in time more than two hundred years, to 1743.

Alone where no lady should be alone, and far from the familiar comforts of her other life, Claire's usual resourcefulness is tested to the limit. The merciless garrison captain so feared by others bears an uncanny resemblance to the husband she has just left behind. Her own odd circumstances expose her to accusations of witchcraft. And the strands of a political intrigue she doesn't understand threaten to ensnare her at every turn.

But of all the perils her new life holds, none is more disquieting than her growing feelings for James Fraser, the gallant young Scot she is forced to marry for her own protection. Sworn by his wedding vows to keep her from harm, Jamie's passion for Claire goes beyond duty. As she struggles with the memories of another lifetime, she is forced to make an agonizing and fateful choice, and learns ultimately that a man's instinct to protect the woman he loves is as old as time.

REVIEW:

Okay, so I'm sure you guys have noticed Outlander sitting in my "Reading Right Now" window of my sidebar for what seems like forever. This book is LONG--650 pages. I am not one that has a problem with a long book. (One of my favorite books ever, It by Stephen King, is 1000 pages if I remember right.) However, this is the first book I read on my new Kindle and not being able to see the dent in pages as I read made it seem longer.

If I'm completely honest, there were points in this book that I wanted to stop. I would be right there, ready to quit, then the action would pick up and I would stick with it again. I am one of those people that hates to not finish a book. It pains me. This book has a huge following and I have heard so many people recommend it, so I felt like I needed to push through.

So was it worth it? Totally. The characters are wonderful and the love (and banter) between Claire and Jamie is epic, for lack of a better word. After staying in their story so long, I feel like they are family members. I told my husband to not be surprised if I started answering questions with "Aye" and calling my son a "bairn" or "wee laddie" because I felt like I had been living in the Scottish highlands for weeks, lol.

Things that made me happy:

--The male protagonist, Jamie, is such a great character. He's not a bad boy. He's tough, stoic, and fiercely loyal. But also very sweet (and innocent in many ways). It makes him beyond endearing, not to mention sexy.

--Claire is a tough chick is can go toe to toe with the tough highlanders. The banter between her and Jamie made me laugh out loud at times.

--Even though this is a series, it did not end on a huge cliffhanger. Some things were untied, but the end was very satisfying. If after 700 pages, I landed on some major unfinished business, I would have been more than a little peeved.

--I felt like I visited another place in time. This was my very first historical romance, so I didn't know what to expect. But in the end, it was if I had taken a journey.

Things I didn't love:

--This book did not need to be this long. Many things could have been cut. Descriptions could go on a little long. I skimmed a lot of those pages.

--The beginning was slow, then there were a number of points in the book that dragged.

--Keeping up with all the different plots, historical references, and political intrigue was a bit difficult at times

--Sometimes the fact that the two got caught in so many bad situations was a bit unbelievable. It's like the first season of the show 24 when Keifer Sutherland's daughter kept getting herself in trouble--"what terrorist is Kim going to get captured by this week?"

Favorite Quotes:

"No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere." --Claire

"Murtagh was right about women. Sassenach, I risked my life for ye, committing theft, arson, assault, and murder into the bargain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my manhood, kick me in the ballocks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humiliating things that have ever happened to me, and ye say ye love me." He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Finally he rose and held out a hand to me, wiping his eyes with the other. "You're no verra sensible, Sassenach, but I like ye fine." --Jamie

Overall: Do I recommend this? Aye. (Sorry couldn't resist.) I think this is a winner. I fell in love with the characters and am tempted to go on to the next in the series (which I think is 880 pages, whew). Although, I will need a break. This book has convinced me that I need to open up my mind to historical romance, something I never gravitated toward before.

Have any of you read this? If so, what are your thoughts? What's your favorite historical romance?

Character Therapy

Characters are the hearts of our stories. We don't fall in love with plot (usually), we fall in love with the people. So when creating the characters for our stories, we need to pay careful attention to create three-dimensional believable ones. Our characters should have full, rich backstories of why they act the way they do. (Even if this backstory does not make it into the actual book, we need to know it.) If we treat them like real people in our head, then hopefully they will translate as authentic people on the page.

When I start crafting my characters, I often begin with a simple sketch. This usually involves a big circle with the characters name in it, then branching arms as I list their qualities. Very high tech, I know. However, once this is done, I'm only left with a two-dimensional person. Okay, the guy is pig-headed, impatient, paranoid, etc. But why? This is where the work comes in. What made him that way? None of us exist in a vacuum, we are the way we are because of our experiences. So how do you dig deeper and find out?

One day when I was struggling with this, I started rifling through my psyc books from college. Then, I stumbled upon a paperback I bought when I first started interning as a counselor at the college counseling center. I was in panic at the time because I didn't feel prepared to offer people therapy yet, so I started looking for books that would help explain things in layman's terms. A cheat sheet, if you will.

I still feel sorry for those who were subjected to my inexperience during that year. The students knew they were seeing a grad student, but still, I was terrible. My first marriage counseling session with two grad students ended with the guy throwing his wedding ring at his wife (after she admitted to cheating with their roommate) and storming out with a threat of suicide. (I stopped him from leaving with the help of my supervisor, he was alright--although, I wasn't.)

Anyway, I bought the book Think Like a Shrink

to help. (Insert snort at the name--I know.) However, this has now turned out to be an invaluable resource for character backstory building. The chapters are barely a page long and cover the reasons why people act like they do. Some of the title chapters:

 

Those who don't remember their childhood may want to forget it

The ills of the mothers, or fathers, really are visited upon the children

Boundaries define people the way borders define countries

The way people feel about sex is critical to their psychology

Women do not suffer from penis envy nearly as much as men do

Needy people immediately create chaos in relationships

Don Juan had an absent father

An extramarital affair is less important than what led to it

Beware unsolicited denials

We can tell alot about people by the way they say goodbye

What is one the outside is often the exact opposite of what is one the inside

Vain people marry accessories

Those who can't get comfortable in their own skin may claw at others

People regress to earlier behaviors under stress

Doing nothing can be very pushy

I don't agree with everything this guy says. He can be a little Freudian at times, but a lot of it rings true. And anytime I pick it up it gives me great ideas for characters. I highly recommend it.

So what do you do to make your characters three-dimensional? Do you interview them? If so, how do you decide on the answers?

This Magic Moment

What separates a novel from being just good to being great? We can talk about plot points and characterizations and originality. All of those things, of course, count for a lot. However, what seems to really define the difference for me is if I remember parts of the book (or movie) for years to come. I could enjoy a book, feel drawn in, feel satisfied when I'm done, but if you ask me in a year or two and I can't remember much about it, then maybe the book wasn't great (or maybe I'm my long term memory is just getting worse--always a possibility.)

So that got me to thinking about what makes a novel particularly memorable. In Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb's Your First Novel (a great resource, btw), they argue that a novel is memorable because of the moments an author creates. They define five main types of moments that make a story stick with us for long after we've closed the book.

1. Opening Hearts

These are the moments that are either filled with joy or sorrow. These are often the heartbreaking moments that make us cry.

ex.) In Titanic when Rose has to let go of Jack's hand in the water. In Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet awakes to find Romeo dead.

2. Instilling Fear

These are the moments that scare the bejesus out of us. These scenes are the ones that make us get up to check and make sure that we've locked the front door.

ex.) In the movie The Ring when the little girl steps out of the tv. In Stephen King's (who is the master at this type of moment) The Shining when the wife finds the stacks of typed pages that say "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

3. Raising the Temperature

These moments, for lack of a more delicate way of putting it, turn us on. This doesn't necessarily mean sex; it could be a simple kiss, but it hits a hot button.

Ex.) In the Mortal Instruments series, the scene with Jace and Clary in the fairy court. In Charlaine Harris' Sookie books, (hmm, there are so many, where to start), I'll say in the fourth one Dead to the World, the shower scene with Sookie and Eric. (By the way, did anyone see True Blood last night? Talk about raising the temperature, whew. :) But I digress.)

4. Getting a Laugh

These are the moments that make us laugh out loud while we're reading, even though we're in the middle of the airport and everyone turns to look at us. My husband gets particularly annoyed with me when I hit these in a book because he feels left out on the joke.

ex.) In Knocked Up when the friend walks into the delivery room and she screams in her most demonic voice for him to get out.

5. Winning Victories

This is the part of the book that we're all waiting for. The hero gets the girl/guy, the murder is solved, the bad guy is caught/killed, the war is won, etc.

Ex.) The examples are all over the place. Every book and movie has one of these, it's the climax. But the key is to make the reader really care about getting there. We have to feel personally invested in the outcome. If not, we're left cold.

So what do you think? Do you have these in your own book? Are these types of moments what make you remember a story? Also, what are some of your favorite moments that stayed with you long after the end of the book or movie?

Wordle--A Unexpected Tool for Revisions

A while back, someone mentioned wordle.net in the comment section of a blog I read (I can't remember which one.) This tool creates a word cloud of any text you paste in the program. Aside from being fun to do, it lets you paste your whole novel in the box. The resulting word cloud will tell you which words you overuse (those will be the largest words in the cloud) in your novel. Great for getting the big picture. I realized after I ran my first novel through it that my characters were sighing a whole lot. :) Here's an example using the text from this blog. Click on the box and it will bring you to the wordle site. Enjoy!

My Top YA Picks from the last 6 months

My plan is to review one book per post so that I can give each book proper attention. However, as I work through finishing the first book I plan to officially review, I thought I would touch on my favorites from my past six months. Because there were some great ones. I'll tackle my YA picks first and cover the "grown-up" genres another day. These are the ones that stood out amongst the pile (i.e. garnered a 4 or 5 star rating on the groupie scale):

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Back cover: Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.

Okay, so for a girl who loves a happy ending, this didn't have one. BUT you know that this novel is about suicide upfront, so you're prepared for it, which makes all the difference. This story drew me in immediately and never let me go. Having worked with teens who were considering suicide, this novel was especially poignant for me. It reminded me how a few little missteps, comments from peers, turns in the wrong direction, and misunderstandings can sent a vulnerable teen spiraling downward. Great read for adults and teens. ★★★★★

Wake

and Fade (Wake, Book 2) by Lisa McMann

Back cover:

Not all dreams are sweet.

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....

As a reader (and writer) I'm not a huge fan of long, drawn out descriptions. I don't need to know every detail of the room. Only tell me about the curtains if they're going to be used later to wrap up a body or something. I find myself skimming those passages in many novels. But, I also want to get a sense of place in a story. So, I often find myself struggling in my own writing on how much descriptive detail to provide. This is why I am so impressed with Lisa McMann's novels. The book is chunked into small time dated passages that contain hardly any detailed descriptions, but somehow she provides exactly what you need. I have a crystal clear picture of the action in my head and the action is constantly moving forward. No stopping to smell the roses. Prepare to read these in a single sitting. They are hard to put down. ★★★★★

Marked (House of Night, Book 1)

by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Product Description (Amazon.com):

The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire--that is, if she makes it through the Change. Not all of those who are chosen do. It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

I love this series. It's bestselling and on every Target shelf, so I won't go into a long review. Just know that if you like fun, sexy, dark, vampy books, you won't be disappointed with these. ★★★★★

Prom Dates from Hell (Maggie Quinn: Girl vs Evil, Book 1) series by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Back cover: Maggie Quinn, Girl reporter. Honors student, newspaper staffer, yearbook photographer. Six weeks from graduation and all she wants to do is get out of Avalon High in one piece. Fate seems to have different plans for her.

High school may be a natural breeding ground for evil, but the scent of fire and brimstone is still a little out of the ordinary. It's the distinct smell of sulfur that makes Maggie suspect that something's a bit off. And when realTwilight Zone stuff starts happening to the school's ruling clique—the athletic elite and the head cheerleader and her minions, all of whom happen to be named Jessica—Maggie realizes it's up to her to get in touch with her inner Nancy Drew and ferret out who unleashed the ancient evil before all hell breaks loose.

Maggie has always suspected that prom is the work of the devil, but it looks like her attendance will be mandatory. Sometimes a girl's got to do some pretty undesirable things if she wants to save her town from soul-crushing demons from hell and the cheerleading squad.

Maggie Quinn is the girl I'd want to be if I were ever forced to attend high school again--the girl who always has the best sarcastic remark for the moment. The writing is laugh out loud funny and fast-paced. There's even a little dash of romance (which further develops in book two Hell Week) for those of us who like that kind of thing. :) Added bonus: the monsters/demons are actually bad, not the love interest! Imagine that. ★★★★

Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1) by Scott Westerfeld

Back Cover: Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Westerfeld creates a dystopian world that seems on many levels frighteningly possible--a

world where everyone is surgically changed to be "pretty" when they turn sixteen so that all are

equal. This series has a little bit of everything: sci-fi, adventure, romance, and warnings about

the direction our current society is headed in. Although, for me, the series dragged a little in the

middle with a bit too much hoverboarding descriptions for my tastes, the journey was well

worth it. ★★★★

That's my list. What's yours? I would love to hear some of your recommendations or

opinions on my choices. Drop a comment and let me know.

Why do you read what you read?

As I start this blog, I found myself wondering how I became such a book-obsessed dork and why I prefer certain types of stories to others. Looking back, I've decided that reading development is kind of like that Plinko game from the Price is Right--certain people and book experiences bump you in one direction or the other. Some of us land in the $5000 slot and become lifelong readers of every type of book, others land in zero and miss out completely, and many of us fall somewhere in between finding a particular reading niche. Here's how my Plinko game went:

4th grade: Inspired by my mother's love of mystery novels, I start reading James Howe's Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery series and Betty Ren Wright's The Dollhouse Murders .

Result: A love of stories that scare me and make me laugh. This also leads to me being convinced that my room is haunted by an evil stuffed monkey that has sat on my shelf since toddlerhood. Monkey gets evicted to the attic, I sleep on the couch for six months (seriously.)

5th grade: My teacher, Mrs. Hymel, starts reading a chapter a day of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time to the class. I'm hooked. I go to the library to get the book because I can't tolerate waiting for her to finish. I proceed to read the rest of the series in rapid succession. When I'm finished with those, I move on to The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Result: My love for both fantasy and series books is planted.

6th grade: We're assigned to read Where the Red Fern Grows

and Bridge to Terabithia . Amazing literary books. But both tore me to shreds. I had just lost my grandmother who I was extremely close to and books involving deaths just shattered me.

Result: I develop a respect but also a wariness for literary fiction. In addition, I acquire a lifelong aversion to novels that kill off the dog. I go on a binge of R.L. Stine horror books (such as The Baby-Sitter (Point Horror Series)

)and Roald Dahl instead. I also began to indulge my budding interest in the paranormal. My science fair projects for this year: ESP and Poltergeists.

9th grade: I dig through my mom's book collection and pull out V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind . These books were depressing, full of drama, gothic, darkly romantic, and totally addictive. But why do I remember these? Because in the second book there was (wait for it) sex. Gasp. I was a very naive at fourteen and found this to be so scandalous. This is the first time I remember hiding the spine of the book while I was reading in public just in case. Of course, I went on to read like twenty more books by Ms. Andrews.

Result: Discover that romance + sexy + darkness = awesomeness

10th grade: I realize that most of my favorite horror movies started as books. I go through a Stephen King and Anne Rice phase. I also read a "based on true events" book called The Black Hope Horror: The True Story of a Haunting that scares the bejesus out of me. I have to remove the book from my room at night so I can sleep.

Result: Decide psychics, monsters, vampires, and ghosts are by far way cooler than normal humans.

9th grade-12th grade: My teachers beat us over the head with the classics because that's their job. I know now these books are works of art, masterpieces, etc. But as a teenager, I thought all of them (outside of Shakespeare and Poe) were big giant suckfests.

Result: I raise the stock of the Cliff Notes company (allowing me to ace all English tests and papers) and am further turned off by the term "literary."

And what do I do with the time I should be using to read my assigned books? I write my own romance novel because clearly there is no chance of actual romantic interludes in my own angsty life. A hundred and fifty typed pages of sappy teenage indulgence is born and titled Kismet. My male protagonist bears a striking resemblance to Joe McIntyre of New Kids on the Block.

College: I start off with a double major: Psyc and English, but feel overwhelmed. I drop English because it's not as "practical", but still sneak in a few classes. LSU offers a Vampires in Literature class. How frigging cool is that? Not only do I get the chance to read stacks of vamp novels, I get the chance to write short stories about them, too.

Result: Regret dropping the English major. Promise myself that once I get settled in my psychology career, I will try to write in my free time.

So now, years later, where does that leave me?

Reading and writing the same things I grew to love as a child. My Plinko chip landed in the voracious reader of genre fiction slot. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not closed off to the literary side, but honestly its not the first thing I pick up. So, be warned that most of my reviews on here will fall under genre fiction.

So, I'm curious. What books from your past guided your tastes? Can you remember that first moment or first book that really hooked you on reading? Or something that turned you away from a certain genre? Leave a comment and let me know.