Throughout my younger years I never really had much of an interest in reading. I would attempt to read through the books that were assigned in school and rarely read books on my own, but I never got much enjoyment out of it. I always found it difficult to concentrate and get through a book, and usually after about thirty minutes of reading my mind would wander onto something completely unrelated to the book. By the time I could get myself to tune back in to the book I would have no idea what was happening in the reading. This wasn’t the way it was with every book, but it happened enough to where I decided that I did not enjoy reading, but this changed over the course of my tenth grade year.

I had done poorly in my freshman year English class, cruising through the year while reading as little as I could of the assigned books, and ending with a low C for a grade. My tenth grade year I decided that it was time for change and time to put forth some effort. So throughout the year I positioned myself in the exact same seat in an area of the room where I could be free from distractions in an attempt to get something out of the class. I set a goal to read all of the books assigned that year in order to avoid a repeat of the year before. One of the many books that we read during tenth grade year was Catcher in the Rye. I had heard about it before and knew it as one of the classic books that every person must read at some point high school, but I had no idea what it was about. Many of the books that I had read in the past for school that are considered “classics”, such as Shakespeare and The Odyssey were books that landed on the list of things that I could barely force myself to get through, so I was unsure what to expect with Catcher in the Rye and I was dreading having to start it. But shortly after starting it, I realized that it was nothing like any of those books. It was a book about a rebellious teenager that was easy to read and understand. I don’t really see myself as a particularly rebellious teenager, but just the fact that the main character and the only character who is really present throughout the entire book is a teenage boy made me feel like I could relate to it in some way that I had not felt with other books. There were so many things that I liked about it. I liked the main character, even if he was sort of a negative asshole, and I liked the way that the author made it seem like Holden did so much and was on his own in the city for so long, even though the entire book only takes place over the course of a few days. Once we finished Catcher in the Rye, we were given the assignment to act as a psychiatrist and diagnose Holden Caulfield. I always enjoy assignments like these that stray away from the typical essay that you are usually required to write after finishing a book, and I remember really enjoying this one. I wrote a three page paper, and went off about how Holden suffered from severe depression and was slightly crazy. The memories that go along with this book are good ones, and I’m not saying that this was the only book that I have read for school and enjoyed, but it was the first book that that really made me want to put an effort into enjoying reading more so than I did.

Not only did I used to hate reading in school, but I felt the same way about reading outside of school as well. At the beginning of summer of 2013, while I was travelling and out of town a lot I decided that I might as well try and read a few books. A few days after school ended late in May, I left for a two week long trip to Seattle and Alaska, and I brought along the book Lone Survivor. Lone Survivor is a true story about a Navy SEAL named Marcus Lutrell who has to fight for his survival after becoming trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. I can remember the day that I bought the book in eighth grade. I was at my aunt’s small book store in Frisco, Colorado and my friend Sam Hebenstreit had recently finished it and told me that I had to buy it. Over the course of about three years he was constantly trying to get me to start the book, and so finally after three years of ignoring it I did. The flight to Seattle left very early on a Thursday morning, so I spent the majority of my time in the airport sleeping, but I have always sort of disliked flying and I am never able to sleep on planes, so as soon as the flight started I had no idea what to do with myself. I was sitting in the window seat next a woman who I didn’t know and my mom. The flight to Seattle was a short one, but anything can feel like forever when you have nothing to do. I spent the first thirty minutes or so looking out the window at the desert and all of the tiny winding roads below, but after awhile it started to make me a little dizzy so I decided it would be a good time to start the book.

I spent most of the flight to Seattle getting into the book. It was a book that took some time to get into, and the first seventy pages or so were the author describing what had happened in his life prior to the climax. I felt so sucked into the book throughout the entirety of it. Marcus Lutrell talked about his life growing up in Texas and how he and his younger brother used to wrestle alligators in the swamps near their house. He talked about the things that caused him to want to become a Navy SEAL, and how brutal the training was in order to become one. That was as far as I got, and I left it alone for the three days that I was in Seattle for, but once I was in Alaska I quickly got back into it. I was on an eight day cruise in Alaska. It was a very small cruise ship and only had about ninety people and almost all of them were over the age of forty, so I had a lot of time to spend by myself. I remember going up onto the very top deck of the ship while everyone else sat down in the bar, eating hors d'oeuvres and getting drunk . There were rarely any people up there and there were several white lawn chairs set up around the perimeter of the deck, and so almost every night I would go up there and read the book. It was the summer and the sun was out until at least 9 o’clock every night, so I would spend at least an hour up there enjoying the cool damp air. This book sticks out the most in my mind, not only because it was an amazing book, but also because of what was surrounding me while I read it.

It is difficult to relate these two books because the experiences that I had while reading them were so different. One was a required book that I read for school and ultimately loved, and the other was a book that I read on my own a year later while trying to find ways to spend my time in Alaska. They were so different, but also so similar. These books both made me realize that it was much easier to enjoy reading that I had ever thought it was, I just had to look for right books. Both Catcher in the Rye and Lone Survivor taught me to enjoy books much more than I did, as well as fuel a much stronger drive to try and read more often.