I promise you this blog will be very fun and irreverent and we’ll all learn a lot more about ourselves and literature, but for now, you’re likely wondering why I decided to do this and it would be senseless to keep you guessing through five or six reviews first, so what the hell. Here goes nothing.

Some people run marathons or sail across the world to prove to themselves they’ve still got the endurance, stamina, and drive they had back in high school cross-country or college rowing or whatever.

I never rowed and only ran for my own enjoyment in the first place, but I did read my way through ten semesters worth of A’s throughout my various high school English classes, and then through four years of an English/Creative Writing degree. So, I’m joining this year’s Cannonball Read to prove to myself that I’ve retained at least a bit of my insane literary drive, and that, contrary to the belief of a certain middle school teacher, I am able to set goals and stick with them and achieve really great things, dammit.

In my daily life, I am an independent care provider, a contributor to The Impulsive Buy, a freelance jack-of-most-trades, and a completely hopeless wanderer. My hope is to have too little free time by the end of the year to finish my list easily. My dream is to hit the fifty-second book mark anyway.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time indoors, fleeing my deadly allergies to all Midwestern plant life. Naturally, as a consequence, I became an avid reader. 600 minutes of reading (The Six Flags Challenge)? No biggie. Book It (for pizza)? I owned, baby, and thank God for my high childhood metabolism. Battle of the Books? Um, second place… because my team let me down. Suck it, Jordan Schoolers. I won more cheap plastic crap than any other kid in the history of the local public library’s summer program. I even conquered the Reading Rainbow. Spoiler Alert: There is no pot of literary gold at the end, only library fines.

I guess part of me also just wants to remain faithful to that fanatical little girl who would’ve given anything for a peaceful, family-free reading nook, a shelf of good books, and a self-dispensing drum of mom’s hot tea with cinnamon sticks and honey.

Even in high school, I relished in my every-other-week library trips. I’d walk there during lazy summer afternoons with a big tote bag, fill it up and then people watch at McD’s afterwards over a shake and perhaps some trashy teen lit.

For awhile in college I was doing 200 pages a night, five nights a week, at minimum. Post-graduation I faced a period of burn-out, followed by the dawning realization that I was now free for the first time since before 7th grade Accelerated Reader to read whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, so I read the Harry Potter series. Finally. Then came the moment when I thought “Hey – I can read BAD stuff, too.” So I tackled Twilight.

And now I’m ready to get back to just reading a lot – some of it good, some of it flashy, but disappointingly bad. I am also ready to subject you, dear reader, to my flighty, rambling opinions of every single one of those books. Are you excited yet? Because I know I am!