The fantastic world of Fantasy Books!

I apologize for the slightly corny, if not entirely juvenile title but my tired brain couldn't come up with anything else. Why am I tired, you may be wondering. Or not. Let me answer the query regardless. I am tired because I have a cold and have sneezed at least a million times today. My body may give up if it has to endure another one. Anyway, I started writing this post because I wanted to break the cycle that alternates between feeling pathetic and feeling dead. Soooo, let's talk about something else, shall we?

I have been reading a lot these days, thanks to being unencumbered from the mundane burdens of the earthly world (that's an unnecessarily convoluted sentence; can you tell my mind is under siege of the mighty Common Cold yet?!?). Apart from the Harry Potter series, I had never read and enjoyed a fantasy book. Not even "A Game of Thrones". I tried picking it up once but couldn't get through even 100 pages. I tried watching the TV show based on it but even that couldn't spark my interest. I don't know what it is about GoT that makes my brain reject it so summarily.

I have never come across a book that I couldn't finish once I started. Even the ones I didn't like very much, I always found it in me to see them through. I don't like to leave books only half read. It feels like I'm abandoning them, like I'm leaving a conversation midway. That would be rude, right? Walking away when the person speaking to you is in the middle of a sentence? That's what it feels like when I'm putting down a book without finishing it. But, not with GoT.

I want to make it clear that I tried. I really did. I thought there must be something wrong with me to not be able to find a book even remotely interesting, when it has the taken the world by its throat. Almost everyone that I know raved about it. Went on and on about the plot, the brilliance, the sheer genius of this story. And so I tried. I gave it a shot. But, despite my sincerest efforts, I couldn't bring myself to feel the hype, to care at all. And then I gave up. I may try again in the future and maybe if the time is right, this series will engulf me the same way it has the universe.

I seem to have veered away from the topic, so let's get back on track. Fantasy books. I have never been able to enjoy this genre, except for Harry Potter. Then again, nobody has a chance against The Chosen One or The Golden Trio, so that's understandable. I'm only human. I remember reading Inkheart and Inkspell when I was younger. Those were good books. I actually enjoyed this series as well. But not enough to really get me into this category.

Well, all of that changed this summer. To my complete surprise, I now find myself utterly engrossed in fantasy reads. So let me tell you guys a bit more about how my heart grew to love stories of fantastical lands.

As is well known, I love reading other people's blogs. Especially if they are book blogs. I follow some really great ones for advice on which book to dive into next and for general enjoyment. So for quite some time now, everywhere I looked there was talk of this one book - "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas. There were other books too; books like "Red Queen" by Victoria Aveyard and "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare. Beautiful pictures of such books would fill my Instagram feed with people gushing about how amazing these books were. And even though every major book nerd was talking about these, I was hesitant to bite the bullet because they were all fantasy books. I told myself I wouldn’t like them, that the fans who were going crazy for these were different from me. We couldn’t possibly have the same taste when it came to fantasy reads.

Then I came across reviews for "A Court of Mist and Fury" - the sequel to ACOTAR. I got to know that ACOMAF was a thousand times more irresistible than the considerably irresistible ACOTAR. I got to know that ACOTAR is a retelling of the famous age old story of Beauty and the Beast. And that had me hooked. I no longer could think of excuses to avoid this genre. I decided that I had to try out at least this series, if not the other books that bookworms like me were losing their collective minds over. I happily went over to Amazon to place my order for this well-loved book. But , fate had something else in store for me. To my absolute horror, the book was sold out.

I was devastated. I mean, for years I ignore the powerful world of fantasy and now when I'm all but dying to take a bite out of it, it refuses to grant me entry. I could have gone over to other shopping sites, could have bought it from Flipkart or some other. But, I didn’t want to. When it comes to books, I prefer Amazon to any other website. For various reasons, I prefer Amazon to any other website. Placing an order elsewhere is very much like a betrayal in my mind. So, I did what I had to do. I ran a Google search for the pdf version of this book. Thankfully, I found a copy and devoured the book in one night. After I finished ACOTAR, I immediately placed an order for ACOMAF (on Amazon, of course).

So, in a nutshell, ACOTAR made me a fan of Fantasy books. I have since then read various others, including Red Queen, and I have to say, I am now a devout believer of this genre. I am really loving reading so many great finds. It's like discovering a treasure that was hidden in plain sight. I am constantly realizing that if I hadn't picked ACOTAR up, I would have missed out on so many other gems. It makes me eager to try out other genres as well, in the hope that I may be able to appreciate different types of wonders. Truly, reading is such a rewarding experience for me, if I could get away with doing it for the rest of my life, I would. As it is, that is all I have done these past few weeks. And I couldn't be happier.

Okay so, this has turned into an unintentionally long post, I am just now realizing. Well, if any of you got this far, first of all congrats. You have a lot of patience to be putting up with the ramblings of a half-crazy brain. Second of all, I think what I have been trying to say really is that we should all say yes to things more often. It gives us a chance to find new "favorites", other than the ones we already have. And that's a lovely thing, isn’t it?