Mr. Baker
Freshman English
23 August 2014
The Beginning of a New World
Ever since I was little, I loved reading. Before the bus came every morning, I would sit
with my mom, and we would enter a new world of fantasy. I never stopped reading even when
the school year ended. Especially during the summer I always managed to save time from sports
and dance to cuddle up with a great book. The second I started Divergent by Veronica Roth,
everything changed.
This was the kind of book I couldn’t set down until I finished it. I stayed up all night just
reading and reading it, as if it were an addiction. When I finished it, I moved on to the next book
of the trilogy. When I turned the last page of Allegiant, I was so shocked and upset. I don’t want
to give away the ending, but I was so into the book it was as if I were there with all the
characters watching and listening to everything Tris and Four said.
Never before have I felt so into a book. I realized that I had been reading the wrong types
of books. They seemed meaningless compared to the way Veronica Roth wrote Divergent. I
became aware that reading was so much more than proudly telling your teachers you read a lot of
novels. The quality of books is so much better than the quantity of books people have read.
Becoming aware of how much better reading could be when you choose the right book made me
never want to ever stop reading. Divergent made me change from a good reader to a great one.
More Like the Little Devil
In eighth grade, the whole grade had to read a book called The Little Prince. Usually I
don’t mind reading assigned books, so I had no problem with it. But right as I started the book, I
couldn’t help but fall asleep. Everything was a metaphor which made my head hurt trying to
figure out what it meant. Each night we had a worksheet on what we read in class and I had to ...