It seems to me that I’m becoming more of a reader. This is new. Although I’ve always surrounded myself with books and carried one around, I never identified as a true reader. It was my younger brother Jesse who would pick up a book and read for hours. Almost never did I sit with a book and read non-stop.
I signed myself up for a book club with co-workers back in Boston. The book club organizer—also one of my friends—gasped when I told him that I hadn’t finished the book for the upcoming meeting. “Cecilia! Out of all people in this book club, YOU were the one I expected to have read it!” It was so dramatic. I laughed then, and I laugh now. I looked at him with a Who? Me? Face and said, “Collin, is that how I come off? You’ve got me all wrong, buddy!”
But all of that is changing. Now, I can more easily cuddle up with a book and read for longer periods of time. I genuinely surprised myself a few weeks ago when I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and discovered that I had read for more than an hour. I was so enveloped in the novel that I lost track of time. I felt as though I could go on for hours more. Is this what true reading feels like? If it is, then I have found something beautiful.
I fell in love with The Kite Runner and searched for books similar to it. I discovered The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali and The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi. I read both books this month and rated them 3/5 stars on Goodreads. Both stories were compelling, but Hashimi really had me turning pages.
I also read The Life of Pi by Yang Martel back in March, but I only finished reading it because I was determined not leave the book unfinished. The writing was not as great as most reviews claimed, and I wasn’t necessarily moved by the story either. I gave this one 2/5 stars on Goodreads. One of those stars was for effort.
Since I began reading more seriously, I realized that I am quite a harsh book critic. No book gets 5/5, not even The Kite Runner (although it was close) and no book gets 1/5 unless I really think the author didn’t deliver or did not support their argument if it was a non-fiction piece (I have one of those on my list).
I now await my next book, The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar. This will be the fourth book that I have read from a Middle Eastern author.