I spent my morning in bed and could not have been happier. Reading people! Clean minds everyone, clean minds. Reading? Maybe not quite strong enough wording. Devouring words; that's better. It's been a while since I've found a book that takes me away, completely cocoons me in its story. It's rare these days for me to find a good book that holds my attention. So, when I find one that I can't get enough of I am overjoyed. I've needed that reconnection, that re-balancing of life a good book can bring.
I'll admit, it's a little embarrassing that my current love of words comes from a teen fiction novel, but it's just so good! A little romance and little laughter and little thriller/drama and a little lose myself in the story. It's OK; I'm allowed to read it even though I'm an adult.
My adventures began about two weeks ago when I happened upon the first in the trilogy at a used bookstore. I am always looking on those discount carts at used bookstores never knowing what I'll find. The covers and titles are the things that usually catch my attention because it's rare an author's name will. For $1 I find a striking black cover with a purple tinged pillow and with a graphically striking title. I had no idea that it was a Young Adult novel until I brought it home.
All I was looking for was a "bedside reader"; something light that wouldn't drag me down, that wasn't something I had to read and that I could meander through a few pages or a chapter at a time before bed. It totally started that way until last Wednesday night when I went to bed way too early and was wide awake at 2:30am. I was about a quarter into the book by that time and figured a few pages might help me to relax enough to slip back into dreamland. I was wrong. Unannounced to me, I had just arrived at a part in the book that, within a page or two, had me hooked! I powered through all but 10 pages of the book before looking at the clock to see a blurry 4am staring back at me. Reluctantly, I put the book down and fell back to sleep for the few hours I had before my alarm went off for work.
10 pages. that was all this delicious book had left to give me. It gave me all 10 pages the next night.
At the end of the book is where I found out it was the first of three. Delight! They were even nice enough (teasing bastards) to preview a few pages of the next book in the trilogy. If I wasn't completely hooked before, now there was no turning back.
Used bookstore, library then full priced purchase. That was my mantra as I left work on Friday. Used bookstore, library then full priced purchase.
Used bookstore came up empty. No system to keep track of what's on their shelves made it more challenging. After coming up empty on the warm inside shelves, I dipped back outside to the street carts and flipped through tons of titles until my fingers were frozen numb. Desperate? Yup.
Used bookstore, library then full priced purchase. As mantras go it was a good one, until I set foot into Full Priced Book Kingdom and computer searched their stock for my title. *bing* One book left in stock of the second in the trilogy. Curious. *bing* One book left in stock of the third in the trilogy.
"Excuse me? Where is the Teen section?" The words escaped before I could stop them. "Upstairs and turn left, on the far side." Coordinates locked in.
You're only going to buy one. You're only going to buy one. Another good mantra that lasted about as long as it took to catch a glimpse - of both - on the shelf. "I'll take this one AND this one." I said aloud to no one in particular. Crazy? Probably.
Let's not talk about the Full Priced Book Kingdom price, shall we? My reasoning for the purchase, it cost only $1 for the first book. Hey, it's a good reason! How about current joy and pleasure of words? Another good reason.
Arriving home Friday night, even with the late hour, I sure gave it the ol' college try and got a few pages in before my eye got blurry and the book fell out of hands. Sleep, which brings us to this morning.
Sleeping in is delicious in itself, but knowing that when you finally wake up there is a book waiting to be devoured just makes it even better. A couple hours of reading started my Saturday off perfectly and has hopefully put me in a good frame of mind for the rest of the day. Yes, I would rather stay in and continue following the girl, now working undercover for the local police - along with her secret boyfriend who was part of an undercover drug bust in the first book, as she is pulled into people's dreams to find out if there is a sexual predator posing as one of her high school teachers and to find out if this girl is actually going to become blind like the old woman from the nursing home that died in the first book, but now visits the girl in her dreams to help her learn to be a better dream catcher.
You're hooked too, aren't you?
