By Hannah Lennon
Books have been my first and only true love in my life thus far. No person, no matter gender, sexuality, appearance, or personality has been able to evoke adoration and devotion in me like my favorite authors. It sounds sad, and sometimes I feel worthless because of it. In my 21-and-a-half-years of life, no one has ever complimented me in a romantic or lustful context or told me they love me in any way other than platonic. I’ve had anxiety around it, I’ve been depressed because of it, and sometimes even cry when I see myself in the mirror because I don’t quite know what’s wrong with me that makes people not like me. Is it my face? My personality? My weight? I don’t know the answer, but I know despite feeling unlovable most days, I’ve never felt like the ugly duckling while reading.
I loved books when I was little. I must’ve made my mom read My Chincoteague Pony every day for at least a year, and I had a Tinkerbell picture book that lived on my bedside table. But then, it was fourth grade with parent-signed reading logs for homework and the books had to have chapters; I learned to forge my mom’s initials because it was no fun to read when someone said that I had to. In sixth grade, we had to read Rocket Boys. I was on SparkNotes.com in the back of the class, bullshitting my way to an A+ in Socratic circle discussions because I sure as hell was not about to spend my afternoons reading a book about boys living in a coal mine town living through the Space Race when I’d much rather watch Teen Wolf and flip through magazines, I was getting a good grade either way.
All of a sudden, and I don’t remember when it happened exactly, but a spark went off sometime in eighth grade; my mind was ablaze with plotlines, characters, and worlds. If I’m being honest, I think it was The Hunger Games. The movie came out and I liked it. I thought Josh Hutcherson was cute so I decided to read the books because one of my friends said they were better than the movie. After that, it was Percy Jackson, then Divergent, then an endless list of titles I can barely remember now. I was in love with Peeta Mellark and Tobias Eaton, but Jason Grace from Heroes of Olympus had my heart. While my friends were starting to date, I was the weird girl who read fanfictions and felt the most at home between pages. My friends all had dates to prom while every boy I liked either never looked at me in the hallway or was a fictional figment of my imagination. I hated myself when I wasn’t reading.
I forgot about books for a while. I graduated high school, started college, had friends but no boyfriend, but I felt hopeful about it in a place other than my hometown. I went through the motions of college and all was well enough until Spring 2020. I don’t need to do a recap, but quarantine made reading fun again. It was Harry Potter. I don’t know why I never read it in middle school, but I found my brother’s old set and started reading. Quarantine didn’t give me a long-distance online relationship like the cute TikToks or personal time to have a glow-up; it gave me time to escape into fictional worlds where I saw myself as the main character because I hated living in this one.
Falling in love with reading again was a slow burn. Finishing the entire Harry Potter series took me over a year. Rekindling the “I love reading” fire took almost two years before any heat came from the flame. Now, in April 2022, I’ve read 13 books so far this year. Reading is no longer homework, an escape from bullies in school or from a pandemic-ridden reality, but a pastime with characters and magic that I adore. I still don’t know why people don’t like me romantically, I still find more solace in fictional men than real ones who don’t pay me attention, sometimes I cry because I don’t have a boy to tell me I’m pretty, and I’d still marry Jason Grace if he was real. But I feel welcome in books in a way that friendships and reality have nearly always failed. The stories books tell may be fictional, but the words on the pages are real.