Spoiler Alert

So I liked to read as a kid, particularly when personal pan pizza was involved. I carried around a book most everywhere I went, read in the car, on the schoolbus, everywhere. But for years, almost every book I completed was read out of order.

That’s right. I was one of those people who read the last chapter or final few pages of a novel before the beginning.

To be fair, I read a lot of series’ as a kid. The Baby-Sitters Club was a staple at my house, as were the Sweet Valley Twins. I had a basic idea of the characters, settings and even the plot before reading that damning final chapter.

But it wasn’t like I was reading a lot of mysteries, where I couldn’t wait to find out whodunit. And I wasn’t like Harry from When Harry Met Sally, whose morbidity prevents him from ever assuming that he’ll live long enough to finish a book. Nope, I was simply impatient.

I mostly grew out of this phase, though I don’t remember when. Maybe around the time the majority of my reading ceased being for pleasure and began being for assignments—I didn’t so much care how they turned out. But to this day, when reading something particularly riveting (currently The Hunger Games trilogy, so you can commence making fun of my penchant for YA lit), I find my fingers twitching to turn to the next page before I’ve finished the present one. I’ll notice my eyes flicking paragraphs downward, only to have to force myself to go back and catch up.

I’m impatient. But I’m improving. And maybe one day I’ll come to the realization that some things, like a really good story, just take time.