I can’t say there was a moment when reading changed my life, but it certainly has been a constant. My mom was a librarian in the small town where I grew up, so as a child, I spent a lot of afternoons after school in the public library reading (or playing Oregon Trail on the computers) while she worked.

I am a big believer in reading what you enjoy. If you enjoy the challenge of reading a difficult book, do that. If you read to relax and de-stress, put down any books that don’t grab you within the first chapter and try another!

My go-to genres are realistic fiction, short stories, DIY, and cookbooks. Since I have a little one, I read many picture books and easy readers, too. I also enjoy graphic novels: memoirs, literary fiction, and non-fiction, especially. I like digesting topics that are unfamiliar to me through the graphic novel format. It makes the topics more accessible than reading a dense piece of non-fiction that I’d probably avoid!