Summer and I have a love and hate relationship. On one hand, three months of absolutely nothing can get boring very quickly. And I meant very quickly. This summer, I spent more time than I’d like to divulge laying underneath the AC with the shades drawn and trying to move as little as possible due to the heavy, sticky heat.
But I also love summer because it leaves me with three months of free time to read. Reading was my first love. At a young age, I grasped reading eagerly and began reading every book I could get my hands on. People used to say it was unusual to see my sisters and I without our noses buried in a book. Right after the last day of school, we are quick to head to the library and pick up a teetering stack of books. This summer was especially filled with good books. During school, the books we read are always analyzed, highlighted, underlined, the sentences scrutinized and picked apart to find the core meaning. But summertime for me means lying on my back, reading word after word, not worrying about finding the true meaning behind the metaphor or why this punctuation impacts the significance of this phrase.
Summer means nose in a book, lying in my bed, the sunlight streaming through on a lazy morning, reading about quests and romances and mysteries and myths. There is a stack of books next to my bed, towering so high that they all come crashing down sometimes, spilling over the hardwood until it looks like a book carpet. I’ve reread some of my favorites, like Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys, or discovered new ones like What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold. One of my favorite books, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han, was turned into a movie this summer, which I eagerly watched. I have to admit, the book was much better.
And so, summer is coming to an end. Back-to-school sales are in full bloom, new school supplies are stacked neatly in a corner of my bedroom, and a closet full of new outfits are awaiting me. I’m excited for school, I am. I can’t wait to see my friends and new classmates and finally conquer math this year, but I’ll always be a little sad as September rolls around because my three months of reading time have finally ended.