You're never too old ....

Some of you might have noticed I'm not exactly a teenager anymore despite how I behave sometimes. Okay so fine I'ts been a good 12 years since I last qualified as a teenager but doesn't mean I'm not entitled to still enjoy a good young adult novel. I have been known to scoff somewhat at the adult women who frequent the childrens' section to read exclusively young adult fantasy and I'm aware I'm not a million miles away from them but I'm allowing myself a free pass for two reasons and it's not because I'm biased or have a tendency to go easy on myself. Excuse number one I also read other stuff, lots of other stuff and secondly It's my job. Now I know I don't get paid to read the books in my section but I do get asked to make recommendations all the time and it helps if I've actually read the stuff as I'm a terrible liar and people can usually tell when I'm making stuff up on the spot.

 Anyway nothing in the shop was jumping out at me (in a strictly metaphorical sense) so I decided in the run up to Christmas I would read 10 or 15 teenage titles and thus would be able to give recommendations off the top of my head without a bother. I actually really enjoyed it and got quite into the spirit of it. I have this bizarre thing whereby finishing a book quickly gives me a sense of achievement and most young adult books are written in such a way that someone who normally reads grown up books will fly through them and so It took me no time at all to meet my quotient and I got to go around feeling all good about myself.

 Feeling adventurous I mixed it up a little reading fantasy and then something else be it teen drama or a fluffy romance. I started the final book in the mortal instruments series yesterday and I finished it a little while ago and I was almost embarrassed at how I couldn't put it down because its hardly the next great novel but I got so wrapped up in the story I wanted to see how it would end. Even though on some level I kind of knew. It was one of those series I had to push myself into reading but it's selling really well and someone had told me they got pretty racy and I had to know in case I was inadvertently warning people off a perfectly tame book. Having finished it , it actually wasn't that bad and it certainly wasn't the smut fest I'd been warned about. The only dodgy thing really is the love interest in the first two books is a guy that turns out to be the main characters brother which is a little dodgy to say the least and I was little concerned about where the story arc was going even though it turned out right in the end and there was no incestuous sex scenes  (thank God !!) but I found myself getting drawn into the world of demon hunting and I'd pick it up to read a page or two and find twenty minutes had passed and that I had really read two chapters. It was all well and good today when I had no work to go to but on other days when I'm still sitting on my bed in a towel with a job to go and almost running late then it's less than ideal.

 Even though I'm moving on to adult books again I really enjoyed the total escape from reality. I've also found that opening myself up to reading unexpected books has allowed me to uncover some hidden gems. Like the tragedy papers which is reminiscent of dead poets society or daughter of smoke and bone which is one of the most brilliant young adult fantasy novels I have read to date and something I'd never have previously chosen. 

 So I'm not a teenager anymore and I'll never be one again for the most part I'm pretty happy about that fact but occasionally It's nice to dive back into that world even just for a few hours with a good book or just escape completely so that I put the book down without knowing how much time has passed and wandering around feeling vague concern about something unnamed until I realize it was just a character in a book, that's normal, right ? 
or maybe it isn't but that's just me. 

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