Follow Friday (12)

Follow Friday is hosted by Parajunkee’s View and Alison at Alison Can Read. If you want to participate, it's easy. To learn more and enter, check out: Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. Join the fun and make some new friends!

Q. Talk about the book that most changed or influenced your life (was it a book that turned you from an average to avid reader, did it help you deal with a particularly difficult situation, does it bring you comfort every time you read it?).



I don’t really ever remember being just an “average reader”. As a kid, I was always reading or even telling my own stories. But perhaps the piece that most changed me was when I was thirteen. “Romeo and Juliet” by the good ol’ William Shakespeare. This was the eye-opener into not only classic reading for me, but also the amazing writer himself. I craved more of the beautiful language and rich stories after that.


Other influencing reads:


Harry Potter: This series got me more into the YA and fantasy genre. Before it, I was mostly reading adult (I know, strange, as a child I read mostly adult and classic, but as I got older I began transitioning to YA more instead). I continued reading more adult than YA until I was about eighteen or nineteen. Now I read more YA. Haha. But Harry Potter was a big influence through those years as I began my transition. It’s still so hard to believe that I was fourteen when the first book came out. Wow. Time flies.




Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss: Maybe this would sound funny to you, but it was “life-changing” for me, I would say. That was the first book I ever learned how to read when I was four. I still love it. Haha. It was this book that got me into the wonderful world of reading and made me crave more. So, definitely a book that I would say that was influencing.


Stephen King/Anne Rice: These are author influences. I started reading them around the ages of 10-11 and it was about that time I began writing “darker” stories. I think it was their work that made me realize that the darker/horror-side of writing was more my style. I’d always loved hearing darker stories, but didn’t know if it’d be something I could write in until I tried. Reading their work helped changed/influence me to try the genres.






Happy Friday!