My first childhood crush was Percy Jackson. Looking back, it made sense that I loved fictional characters more than real life people– I was that child that would sneak flashlights in their room at night to read, only to have my mother burst in the room and ground me from, yes this is true, reading.
The Percy Jackson series marked my first love for fictional worlds, and the first world I desperately wished I could escape to. I wanted to arrive on half-blood hill for the first time, receive my godly parent, and play capture the flag with the campers. And it was in these books where I first declared competition with another character, Annabeth Chase.
From a young age, I’ve heard from all the adults I care about that I was “gifted,” so I strongly identified with it and made it a cornerstone of my personality. I’m extremely competitive by nature, so when I see a character that is smarter than me, I become jealous. Annabeth was the epitome of what I wanted to be: smart, beautiful, cool, and got attention from guys (especially Percy). When I would take a test in school, I would wonder what Annabeth would get if she took it. When I advanced in school, I would guess how far Annabeth would be.
I find it strange that I did this–I don’t identify with characters, I compare myself to them. I still sometimes do this, but I’ve noticed that when I become more confident in myself, I do it less. I care way less about being “gifted” now; there is so much more to a person than that. Now, I think that Annabeth is one of the best written female characters of all time.
Like most other high schoolers, I thought school killed my love for reading. However, when I decided to try reading again over quarantine, I decided to get back into it the way I got into it in the first place– the Percy Jackson series. As I dove back into the familiar world of the New York Summer camp, it felt like coming home. Reading has helped me build my imagination muscle, and it has gone too long without use. After I finished the series in three days, I did something I haven’t done in 3 years– I picked up a real book.
Now that I’m older, my tastes have expanded past fantasy books. I came to discover non-fiction is actually really entertaining (if it’s written correctly), biographies are like meeting a friend that you didn’t actually have to make an effort to get to know, and even if you’re reading a crappy romance novel to pass time, you can actually get something out of it.
I don’t think anyone grew out of reading or lost their love for it. With the right book, anyone can read it cover to cover although they might not have read seriously in a year. Diving back into reading was surprisingly natural for me. I didn’t have a special someone that inspired me to read, or that story of “adults said no but I did it anyway.” I simply wanted to be entertained, and compare myself with fictional characters.
