The Book That Made Me A Reader

Everyone has a book that made them a reader. A lot of people would say a childhood favourite, maybe Harry Potter, maybe something a little more fantasy based. But what i’m saying is that everyone has that book that makes them in to a die hard reader. The book that starts it all.

The book that made me a reader isn’t a children’s book or anything i read as a child, that might be explained a little more in THIS post. The book that made me a reader in fact was One Day by David Nicholls.

I picked up One Day when i was fifteen and looking for books to start reading when i had found the confidence to read again. This was back when Carrie Hope Fletcher (now successful author of memoirs and novels alike…) was a girl who made YouTube videos for fun. Way back when, she used to talk about books a lot more on her channel, one of these books was One Day and i saw the cover and knew i had to read it. She described it to be a non-typical romance, and that sounded right up my street considering it was the first adult novel i would ever read. It sounded easy and interesting.

So i picked up a copy, went straight online and ordered my copy and started reading once it arrived at my door. I fell completely in love. I didn’t know up until that point that you could develop such a connection to characters that were on a page, to characters you could only imagine and most importantly, i didn’t realise someone could make you feel such strong things through a writing. It completely shocked me and is one of the reasons why i did my degree in Creative Writing. I wanted to make people feel emotions like David Nicholls made me feel.

The story itself (i’m sure you’re aware) is a romance between Emma and Dexter, it’s a classic ‘summer by the pool’ read, but i adored it. I wanted everyone to read this book right away, so i thrust my copy at my only other book loving friend, Sophie. We both fell in love with the characters and the premise, and therefore started my reading obsession.

I went on to read everything by David Nicholls, more chick-lit, realised i’m not a fan of chick-lit, moved on to The Fault In Our Stars and started to find my feet with reading. I cannot thank David Nicholls enough for helping me stumble in to this wonderful world of novels, characters and writing.

I wouldn’t say that One Day is your ‘classic’ book that makes people readers, but it holds a very special place in my heart. Just having this book on my shelf makes me excited about reading and reminds me of the feels i had starting my reading journey.