Absolutely. I actually haven’t read Perks of Being a Wallflower for this reason. Feels like it would’ve been a book I loved when I was a teenager, and I don’t think it would be as meaningful to me now. Had a similar thing happen with A Wrinkle in Time when I read it in college: it’s a great book, but I wished I’d read it as a kid for maximum impact.

I wouldn’t say any one book propelled me back into reading. I think it took time to rediscover how fun it was to read books and figure out which books were ones I’d enjoy. It was a gradual process, but a couple books that sparked early on were The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater and Vicious by VE Schwab.

Honorable mention to Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik for getting me into audiobooks.

So was I! Such weirdly perfect timing, though. I actually found it quite comforting.

I didn’t go into it thinking I would hate it, but I very nearly DNFed Masters of Death by Olivie Blake about a dozen times, including from the first page. But for some reason I decided to keep going, and I was quite surprised that I ended up liking it as much as I did. Gave it 3 or 3.5 stars, I think, which is a solid positive rating for me.

I always want to write reviews, but usually the only ones I actually do are for books that annoyed or disappointed me. Nothing quite like spite to motivate me to write!