But none of that really explains how someone who spent most of her life completely convinced she hated reading ended up creating an entire website dedicated to books, does it? Well, for that, we have to go back a little. The truth is, books and I never quite got along. I hated reading as a kid, and that opinion followed me well into adulthood. I tried over the years. Really, I did. I gave classic novels and historical fiction a chance and even ventured into my mother’s Harlequin romances, which teenage me quickly dismissed as my mother’s “porn.” But nothing I tried could hold my attention for long. Reading felt too much like homework, and I honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly do it for fun.

It probably didn’t help that I have the attention span of a squirrel on its third espresso and absolutely no patience for what I consider “fluff.” I’ve always been a just-give-me-the-facts-and-get-to-the-point kind of person, so long descriptions, pages of unnecessary detail, or anything that seemed to take forever to actually get somewhere irritated the hell out of me. As soon as something started dragging, my attention was usually gone right along with my patience.

Of course, I know now that this particular personality flaw was never exclusive to reading. I’m just as bad when someone is telling me a story or explaining something that happened. If they spend too long circling the point instead of getting to it, eventually I’m going to lose patience and blurt out, “Just get to the point!” Apparently, books were simply the first victims of a problem that has followed me my entire life. Back then, though, I didn’t know any of that. I just assumed I hated reading, decided books and I weren’t meant to be, and remained perfectly content with that conclusion up until a few years ago.

Then I bought my daughter, Sam, a special edition of To Tame a Shifter by A.K. Koonce, and apparently that was the beginning of her corruption of me. As she told me about the characters and storyline, I found myself actually listening instead of politely pretending to listen while my brain wandered off—which, if I’m being fair, happens more often than I’d like to admit. Except this time, I had questions. Wait… did you say dragons? Really? Then what happened?

After enough questions, Sam finally had enough of me and sarcastically said, “Why don’t you just read it for yourself?” So I did. And I freakin’ loved it. I couldn’t put the damn thing down and ended up binge-reading the entire book. By the time I reached the end, instead of being relieved that I was finally finished reading, I didn’t want it to be over. So naturally, I went looking for more of A.K. Koonce’s books, and just like that, I went headfirst down the supernatural rabbit hole.

That was when my daughter-in-law Emily discovered I was reading about supernatural creatures and decided to enable my newly developing addiction by introducing me to the Zodiac universe by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti. She told me to start with Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac, then move on to Zodiac Academy, and finish with Darkmore Penitentiary. She mentioned that there were vampires, shifters, dragons, and several other supernatural creatures, so she quickly had my attention. It didn’t take long before I was completely obsessed. I was texting and calling Em whenever I needed answers, had a theory I needed to discuss, or just needed someone to listen while I lost my damn mind over something tragic that happened to a favorite character.

Unfortunately, Emily is both the best and worst person in the world to read a series behind because she absolutely refuses to give away spoilers. No matter how desperate I was for answers, all she would tell me was, “Keep reading.” Woman, I called YOU because I need answers, like, NOW. What can I say? Patience has never been one of my better virtues, especially when fictional lives are hanging in the balance.

By the time I finished the Zodiac universe, I had become ridiculously attached to the world of Solaria and the characters who lived there. Well… except Lionel. I genuinely hated that man. I hated him so much there were times I wished I could reach straight into the pages and smite him myself. But I also learned something nobody had bothered to warn me about: apparently fictional people can completely take over your life, emotionally traumatize you for thousands of pages, and then have the audacity to leave you actually missing them long after you close the final book.

So I’m sure you can imagine how excited I was when I heard the Twisted Sisters were taking us back to Solaria with Zodiac Academy 10: On the Cursed Day of Christmas, releasing October 13, 2026. An entire Christmas adventure unfolding throughout December and leading us straight toward Christmas? With these characters? Oh, hell yes. I literally happy danced and fangirled so ridiculously hard. It took me all of thirty seconds to debate whether I should preorder it. Did I really need these characters back in my life causing even more emotional damage and further destruction to my bank account? Probably not. Was I going to preorder it anyway? Abso-freakin’-lutely. Click. See you in October, my loves!

Of course, supernatural creatures were only the beginning. It wasn’t long before Sam caught my interest with Jeneva Rose’s The Perfect Marriage and The Perfect Divorce. What quickly followed was the Into Darkness series by Navessa Allen, starting with Lights Out. That was when the door to the dark side didn’t just open for me—it was ripped completely off its hinges. Suddenly, my dragons, vampires, and shifters were sharing shelf space with quite a few fictional men whose moral compasses were either highly questionable at best or completely buried with the body at worst. And that, my friends, is pretty much how I became the collector of fictional red flags you see before you today.

Somewhere among all those supernatural creatures, morally questionable men, plot twists, cliffhangers, and fictional chaos, I finally realized something that probably should have occurred to me years ago: I didn’t actually hate reading. I just hated being bored. Apparently, my inner BookDragon had been hibernating all those years, waiting for the right stories to interest her. Once I found them, reading went from something I actively avoided to something I genuinely loved, and she’s been happily hoarding books ever since.

These days, I’ll pretty much read anything that keeps my BookDragon entertained. Apparently, she has a thing for HEAs, fated bonds, badass FMCs, emotional roller coasters, and enough plot twists to keep her guessing. I’ve also learned that while a genre may be what catches our attention, ultimately, it’s the storyline that has to keep it. We still get bored very easily, and if a book hasn’t caught and held our interest by the end of chapter three—maybe five if we’re feeling generous—it’s probably headed straight for the DNF Abyss.

But if a book does manage to grab and hold my attention, I’m all in. I tend to get ridiculously emotionally attached to the characters, collect Book Boyfriends with questionable morals, hold grudges against authors over fictional deaths, and sacrifice my sleep just to find out what happens next. I’ll laugh with the characters, cry with and over them, question their choices, yell at them, and even threaten my Kindle as though any of them could actually hear me. After spending most of my life not reading at all, I somehow skipped right over casual reader territory and straight into completely obsessed.

There’s another reason books have become genuinely important to me, though, and it’s something most people aren’t aware of. I live with advanced DDD and fibromyalgia, which means chronic pain is simply a part of my everyday life. Reading gives me an escape from that. For a little while, I can disappear into another world, get wrapped up in somebody else’s chaos, and focus on something other than my own pain. So the authors who give me that escape—and especially the ones whose stories make me genuinely feel something beyond the pain—become very special to me. You’ll often see me acknowledge those authors and their stories in my reviews because they may never fully realize what they’ve given me simply by giving me somewhere else to be for a while.

Of course, somewhere along the way I also discovered that I’m apparently incapable of finishing a book and quietly moving on with my life like a normal person. I love talking about books almost as much as I love reading them. I need to share the drama, debate the theories, complain about those nasty cliffhangers, discuss who I loved, who pissed me off, who emotionally traumatized me, and which fictional alpha-hole I wanted to slap the crap out of. Eventually, all that talking led to conversations with authors, opportunities to read their ARCs, and the chance to share my genuine thoughts and reviews with them.

Somewhere amidst all that chaos, Sassy Reviews was born. At first, it was simply my little corner of the internet where I could talk about the books I loved, the ones that emotionally destroyed me, the ones that made me question my taste in fictional men, and occasionally the ones that made me wonder what the hell I had just read. But the more I talked with authors and other readers, the more I realized I wanted Sassy Reviews to become something bigger than just a place for my own reviews. I wanted to create the kind of bookish space I would want to be part of—somewhere readers and authors could actually find each other, connect, and share their love of books. Somewhere along the way, that became the mission behind everything I’ve built here.

So here we are. I went from spending most of my life completely convinced that I hated reading to becoming completely obsessed with books, owning an entire bookish website, and having a TBR that I’ll need several additional lifetimes to finish. Clearly, things have escalated. Now that you know how this whole ridiculous adventure began, welcome to Sassy Reviews. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, have a look around, and stay awhile. And if you leave here with seventeen more books on your TBR than you arrived with, I accept absolutely no responsibility. You can blame Sam. She started this.