My addiction to fiction began as soon as I could read.

I always loved books as

a child, however once school started I began resenting books. Having to constantly
stop every few pages in a book to fill out reading logs and to explain and dissect
what every little word meant and what purpose it had, seemed tedious and just
boring. I often felt stupid because unlike some of my peers, I wasnt good with some
of the assignments that revolved around Shakespeare and other popular authors
that we were forced to read, teachers too, seemed just as disinterested since they
had to read the same stories and present the same arguments year after year. My
View of books changed as soon as I realized that reading wasnt one dimensional.
I hated Shakespeare. I thought his stories were boring and it seemed like
every year in school we had to read something of his, all the stories presented to
me by English teachers seemed boring. They were Epics, authors that were held in
high esteem, and rightfully so, But they were from another time and I wasnt
familiar with their vocabulary and they made me feel stupid. I had a great English
class in 8th grade, that was when I realized how much I loved reading. It was also
when I realized how imaginative and wonderful books could be and how much value
they held, even the ones that werent necessarily considered great works of
literature.
In middle school I had my literary enlightenment. We began to read
some classics like Lord of the Flies and Fahrenheit 451 in class, while
others students were prepping for the end of the year exam which the school
was mainly concerned about. When we read Lord of the flies the teacher
gave us a very general assignment: we had to give a presentation to the
class on the book. This assignment gave us a lot of creative freedom, and my
group ended up recreating a scene from the book. We danced around an

imaginary fire (made from paper) with a pigs head on a stick. We discussed
the book openly in class, no paper assignments, no reading logs, just an in
depth analysis of the book in which the whole class was involved. I never
realized how literature can bring people together and that piqued a small
interest in me.
My love obsession and the nail that sealed my literary coffin was
The Raven. My English teacher had us memorize four paragraphs of the
poem. I glimpsed through the words, confused by words like wrought and
morrow. I thought this poem was just another jumble of fancy words that
were impossible to understand unless you were a literary scholar. I wanted a
good grade in class, so naturally I repeated the words over and over and over.
Slowly they began to take meaning, I started with the first paragraph, I
looked up the words I didnt know and I found that it was easy to understand
the poem. Here was a distraught man who was mourning the death of Lenore
while a black raven taunted and tortured him with the words Nevermore.
I loved the gothic romanticism. I remembered that The Simpsons
had done a parody years ago, that also helped me to better understand the
poem, and then I found movies with Vincent Price based on Edgar Allan Poes
works, then I realized my favorite director Tim Burton had done a short called
Vincent in which he also alludes to The Raven. I had never realized how
much literature was seeped into pop culture and I wanted more. I began
reading Poes stories and I was infatuated. I hadnt seen these types of
stories in school, we read only what was on every generic reading list. The
gore, the tragedy, the love, it was all so wonderful.

I didnt give all those other books and stories that were read to
us a second glimpse because they didnt interest me, not because I was
stupid. After that, in English class I just went through the motions, writing the
essays and filling in the multiple choice questionnaires that were usually
based on some small story in which you had to overanalyze everything, but
when I had time to myself I read Mask of the Red Death, Alice in
Wonderland, Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, etc. These books
werent read in class but they were dark, whimsical, and fantastic.
Once I had an appreciation for literature I went from books to
graphic novels and comics. Why couldnt we read Watchmen in school, or
batman: the killing joke which was a New York Times bestseller and it had
won an Eisner award. These books were fun, interesting and they raised
moral questions and the characters were as flawed and complicated as
anyone in Hamlet. That was when I realized that there were many variations
of literature and that not one was superior to the other, and I could explore
hundreds of thousands of worlds and time eras and alternate universes
through books, and thus gain a better understanding of my own world.
My literary enlightenment seemed to happen overnight. I could read
since I was young but that didnt mean I was literate. I didnt begin to
understand literature until I realized that I could read whatever I wanted and
not what others thought I should be reading. Now I collect books, ALL books,
from Dr.Seuss to Shakespeare (yes, eventually I came to appreciate his work.)
and I can whole heartedly say that there is nothing better than reading, it
feels like Ive met hundreds of people through books, like Elizabeth Bennet,
Lisbeth Salander, Bruce Wayne, Wiliam Legrand, the Baudelaires, all who

have in some way or another taught me the importance and value of the
written word.