Sweet 16 - Tentative High School Revisited Reading TBR

The first thing I thought when I woke up New Year’s Day was how in two months it’ll be twenty years since I turned sixteen-years-old. How. In. The. BLOODY. FUCKIN’. HELL! Did. This. Happen? No. Seriously. Where was I in the last twenty years?

Anyway, for whatever reason I kept thinking about this blind leap through time. And as I started grudging around looking for something to start the new year reading (while fussing and sipping coffee), I eventually slumped into nostalgia. I thought about how R. L. Stine's Fear Street Cheerleaders series introduced me to the Whodunit of reading. I thought about how much I grew from ages 13 to 18 being a loyal and dedicated reader to K. A. Applegate's Animorphs series from its debut in '96 to its end in '01.

Needless to say, the reflections on my teenage reading kept coming. I thought about how I tried to emulate many of my favorite authors by writing similar stories to theirs back then. And, well, I thought about time and how it goes by so fast. As well as how memories keep us warm and remind us how special our lives really are when things don't always seem so sweet in the here and now.

That's when I got up to create a TBR reflecting my readings back in and around 1999–give or take. Authors like Naoko Takeuchi [Sailor Moon], K. A. Applegate [Animorphs], R. L. Stine [Fear Street], and T. A. Barron [The Ancient One] all came to mind. Luckily, I’ve kept all my early readings and decided to pull a few out to compose a sort of Sweet 16 Tentative High School Revisited Reading TBR to take on between my regular reading.

Let's kill some cheerleaders with R. L. Stine, baby!

And if not to read, just to look at them as I contemplate turning thirty-six next month. Which keeps boggling my mind because turning sixteen seemed like just yesterday.

So these are the books/authors who shaped my love of reading. A revisit seems long overdue. I hope I gain a new perspective on the books that I can share here. Though my patience will absolutely be tested! For one, I haven't been the biggest re-reader since high school. And two, as an adult, I'm riding on pure familiarity of the stories and nostalgia to help me get through any possible teenage angst. Hence why I don't read any of today's Young Adult. I don't have the patience for angst.

That one year I wanted to be a skunk for two hours like Cassie

Either way it's going to be a challenge. But it's a challenge I want to take part of. With so many changes going on around us as we grow, why not hold on and remember the things that helped make us who we are. SO HERE GOES! 2019 starting with a revisit to 1999. A little backwards. But who ever said I did anything right?