Reading.

When I was at school, people would always ask me how I could not absolutely hate Twilight.

I never thought it was that bad. Just to prove my stuck up classmates wrong, when I went home for the summer, I pulled down my special edition anniversary copy and started to read. And here's the thing.

They weren't wrong. It's a pretty poorly written book in many ways. It's a little immature, a little simplistic, and the story itself doesn't really lend itself to any really intelligent or interesting conversation. It's a love story, with a love triangle, written for teenage girls (and boys). And I think the reason why I don't hate it, is because it did exactly what it set out to do: entertain.

Now, you can have an entertaining book that's a fantastic piece of writing. Fahrenheit 451, for example, among a myriad of other books that I think are good stories and good novels. However, I have nothing against entertaining stories that aren't the most amazing piece of literature you've ever read. I love reading New Adult sports romances, where the nerdy girl inevitably falls for the unrealistically attractive quarterback, a jealous girl inevitably ruins their unlikely relationship, and there is inevitably a happy ending. I love the stories about neighbors, old friends, older sibling's best friends - you name it - falling in love. What can I say? I'm a hopeless romantic.

So I am experiencing this adrenaline rush because I just finished a really good book. The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye is a story set in an alternate 19th century Russia, where magic exists and the power is given to the Imperial Enchanter, an easy position unless there are two potential enchanters, wherein a competition of sorts decides who lives and who dies. It has a great cast of developed and interesting characters, a wonderfully vivid world, and is well written. It also ended exactly how I predicted it would halfway through the story. Ex-act-ly. To the T.

And I didn't care one bit.

I'm writing this with a huge smile on my face, my fingers flying over the keys. I've tweeted Evelyn and am researching book 2 and having a good giggle in my room at 12:22 in the morning. Because, despite being a good book, it was just so damn entertaining. It exceeded my expectations. It has made me so, so happy.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot of ways you can read. There's also a lot of reasons why you read. I read to watch a movie in my head. I read to smile, and laugh, and read lines of dialogue to myself with a horrendous English accent (despite the fact they're Russian) in the darkness of my room at the break of dawn after staying up all night. I read to cry sometimes. I read to feel like I've been changed in some substantial way. When a book succeeds in giving me the feelings it and I desire, it makes me happy, even if I'm crying or swearing or left begging for book 2.

So to all my classmates in college that scoffed when I said my favorite book was The Fault in Our Stars, I just wonder, why are your favorite books your favorite, whether it be Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Stephanie Meyer, Stephen King - whoever?

We read because it makes us happy.