Books Are Addictive

I know I’m not the only one that feels this way, but whenever I start reading a good book it’s so impossibly hard to stop. Books have this magic to them that just draws you in like a moth to a flame, it’s strange. When reading a truly good book, the world just melts away and you forget where you are. You’re a part of the story and the story sticks with you. I read somewhere that when you read a book, you absorb some of the personal qualities of the characters in the stories. For a while I though that this was silly, but the more I thought about it the more I believed it. I’ve read so many books with strong, sarcastic, stubborn female characters that I’ve absolutely loved, and surprise surprise, I have those qualities. Sure, part of obtaining personality traits has to do with how you grew up and the people that were, and are, around you, but I strongly believe that that only goes so far. I believe that a person will obtain qualities of people that they look up to or that they strive to be. As a young reader, many of my role models were strong female book (or movie) characters and funnily there is a trend to my favorites. I have been drawn to love independent, witty, sarcastic, tough blondes with a special soft side. I think that I love those characters because I see myself in them. I think that fact also makes me want to be like them because, well, I feel like I can be. I think that one of the core reasons that books are so addicting is because we see ourselves in the characters and in the pages. We see that people like us are struggling too, and we see that strong characters can break and still be loved. We see that everyone has a vulnerable side, and that that doesn’t make us any less human, it just makes us more human. Books have a magic that can bring the most contrasting and unconnected people together by showing us that we are all more alike than we realize.