Happy February, and I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Last week was my birthday, and I got taken out to a nice Spanish restaurant to have dinner with family. It was a wonderful time, seeing my brothers was great, and even seeing one of my nephews! But as I’m sitting here digesting paella and flan (yes, it had a candle in it and the staff all sang), I was thinking about how my reading preferences have changed over time.
As a young reader, I grew up before MG and YA was a thing—books were either for kids or not, and obviously I wanted to read the kind of books that weren’t for kids. Hey, they had a lot of interesting information in them! After college, I took a long break from reading, but once I became disabled, I started diving into reading again in an effort to find something to occupy my time.
When I first got back into reading, I read a lot of YA books. Mainly fantasy and mysteries, but I also loved reading historical fiction. But over the last year, I started reading a lot less YA books and focusing more on adult books. And since then, I’ve shifted into fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction, but also delved into romance and nonfiction. I’m curious to see what I’m going to think might have changed at this time next year.
What about you? Have your reading preferences changed over time or stayed the same?
Categories: Sunday Bookish Discussion
Leah's Books 
Nice post 🎸🎸
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Thank you!
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I always loved fantasy and mythology. However, growing up only loved one classic (but that was just the beginning of that love- A Christmas Carol only started that love; just had to wait for the right book to heighten it). Fantasy, classics, and mythologies are the main genres I read now- they just expanded over time
In terms of genre- in high school, a little more close-minded. I accidentally thought ALL tragedies were pure sad (oops, didn’t realize I was using the definition of melodrama on them). But heres’ the strange thing- there was one tragedy I did like- I only thought “The Iliad” was just a myth, nothing more. Thank god in the first year of college, Les Miserables entered my life (not only did you make me really start to love classics but tragedies as well)
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I’m so glad that you’ve kind of fallen into genres that you love and have taken off from there. It’s always so cool to open our minds and try something different – that’s how I started reading romance, after I realized the genre had improved since I was younger.
Isn’t it cool when you read something for school and then something clicks and you’re like, “Hey, I like this! I want to read alllll the books!” – it seems like you had that moment with theater, and have the beauty of reading the story and seeing it brought to life on stage.
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Les Misérables- you heightened not one, but two different types of storytelling. You see- “A Christmas Carol” was the beginning of my classic journey and “Wicked” was truly the start of my musical theatre journey. So, Les Misérables would heighten both of them
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So what you’re saying is that Les Mis is the perfect combination of classics and musicals?
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Les Mis- only the nickname used by the musical theatre fans of the show
If I was referring to the book alone- probably would just say Les Misérables
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Mine definitely shift. At the library, I was responsible for ordering materials from birth through YA, so I read a lot of them too. Especially YA. But that’s been tapering off, and especially now that I’m no longer there and ordering them. Genres shift like wildfire 🔥 I go in seasons and spells, binging one for a bit and then not touching it for ages while I visit others before returning again 🙃
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Oooh, I like that! I read so much more widely when I was going to the library, especially if a book cover that’s eyecatching.
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when I was younger I read a lot of Dean Koontz and Stephen King. I wouldn’t touch those books now. Too scary for me. However, I’ve always read romance. It’s a constant for me.
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It’s funny, growing up I read so voraciously that I had to keep switching to new areas of the library so I didn’t run out of books! I remember reading Michael Crichton and some Stephen King, but my childhood and early adolescence was spent reading as much VC Andrews as I can get my hands on. I don’t think I could read another one of those books again.
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