Latest Celebrity Hollywood: Paper Roses

Lately I've been in a happy daze of reading and working and a little bit of socialization. My reading addiction was intense when I was younger, but in more recent years I go through dry spells where I can't find new novels that hold my attention as intensely as I like--books that make me laugh out loud and go breathless with excitement and press the pages to my chest for a moment of respite are what I long for and when I can't find them I'd rather not read. But this summer I've been on a dragon kick re-reading all of my favorite dragon-related novels that I loved when I was younger--even googling random plot details from novels when I can't remember the title or author until I find out either then hunting down a copy. The summer my family moved to Hawaii we spent a few weeks living in hotel before got our home and without our boxes to unpack and no friends I spent a lot of time at the nearest library. Reading for fun has always labeled me as a bit of a nerd, but with my favorite genre being science fiction or fantasy I always felt even more self-conscious about my preferences than if I had heavily read the classics or the rare popular series to achieve mainstream recognition. Anyway, I was checking out a big stack of books at the library one day and the friendly librarian processed all my books then said, "you know, fantasy is an under appreciated genre." His encouragement put me in such a good mood and were a turning point for me. I stopped caring what other people thought about if I was reading in my free time (instead of being a quote "typical teenager") and made me care a lot less about what people thought about what I was reading. Books are brilliant. Dragons are awesome. Neither should be considered guilty pleasures.