Happy World Book Day!

I love books, always have done, ever since I was a small kid. I was lucky enough to be brought up by a Mum who is a true bookworm, and so was always being read to, and reading by myself. It was to a point where I was reading on twenty minute car journey's (without feeling sick, might I add), and I ran out of room on my shelves, so had to get rid of a load (which hurt, a lot). I read so much that by the time I was ten, I had run out of children's books to read and so started on Kathy Reiches - and I'm really not joking on that one either. At ten, I was reading Kathy Reiches' Bones series.
As a high schooler, I read nearly the entire Angus, Thongs, And Perfect Snogging books in two weeks, which inspired several more trips to Waterstones to pick up book-to-film/film-to-book adaptions. I had to slow down a bit for my GCSE's and A levels (and to start writing too, of course), but I still kept at it really quite diligently.
Even now, I'm a big fan of books, I want to be an author when I graduate, so of course I love books. As I write this, I'm listening to a song called Boys In Books Are Better by Carrie Hope Fletcher, because I relate to it so much. If you haven't heard that song, here's the link:

But what is it about books that I love so much? Well, that's a hard question, because there's so much. 

There's the escapism element, for a start. I love getting lost in a story line, being completely and utterly swept up in it all. I tend to read teen fiction and things about the supernatural, I love getting so lost in it, I forget that vampires/werewolves/whichever mythical creature is involved isn't real. 

Falling for the characters is another reason, because as Carrie above says, boys in books really are better. Who wants a real guy when you can read about Finnick Odair or Draco Malfoy? (I'm a Slytherin, what can I say?) Nobody! Fictional men may not be perfect, they may have their flaws, but damn it I love them anyway (even when most of them are dead... and not coming back). 

Finding strength in characters too, I have always looked up to strong female characters. So while I fall for Kili, Draco and Shane Collins, I'm also looking up to Katniss, Eve Rosser and Valkyrie Cain. I love to read about these brilliant outcasts, who come in and save the world. Sometimes I like to imagine that I'd be as amazing as them in the same situation, even when I know that I'd die within five minutes. It's fun to pretend for a little while, after all. 

Before I spend the next six years telling you all the reasons why I love books, I should probably wrap this up. Basically, I love it all. Books are an incredible thing. They provide hours of entertainment, introduce us to new concepts, inspire us, and so much more. And all of it with just words, just 26 letters, rearranged again and again, to make sentences, which make paragraphs, which makes stories. Honestly, where would we be without stories? Without Harry Potter, without Bilbo Baggins, without Skullduggery Pleasant? Nowhere, we would be bored, we wouldn't know what adventure and bravery was. 

But with books, we can sail the high seas, fight the Capital, stop Valentine. We fall in love, solve mysteries and crimes, travel to far off places - some of which don't even exist. We can do all of that and more. For someone like me, who's socially awkward and doesn't like to leave the house all too often, a book is a godsend. 

So what is it that I love about books? Everything, really. I love it all. Books are magical things, and if everybody spent more time reading them, I think we would all be that little bit more magical ourselves. 

RIP The Works

Not a writing tip or review, but a mourning of a good book shop instead.
Some of you may have heard, but The Works bookshop was hit with an arson attack in Maidstone recently, in the hour before another 5 cars were also set alight. The cars survived mostly and the owners are on their way to replacing their vehicles.
But The Works, oh The Works is wrecked. There is nothing left of the shop, I've seen it for myself, just a few hours ago. All that is left of the book shop is the charred shell, reminding me far too much of the Baudelaire Mansion from A Series Of Unfortunate Events. Shops on either side of the building have also lost their roofs, leaving most of the street cordoned off for safety of the public.
Luckily nobody was hurt in this terrible attack, apart from all the book fan's hearts. Everybody loves a cheap book, and that was The Works for us, good quality, first hand, cheap books. It's probably the single biggest threat to my best friend and my Mum's bank balance, with many trips in there ending up with a new bag filled with new stories to explore.
But now we have been robbed of that, because someone decided that they wanted to set the place alight and burn it down. Countless precious books have been lost, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Sherlock Holmes, hundreds of other classics, have been destroyed by fire. This has then subsequently robbed many of the chance to buy and then read these books at a lower price to normal. Sure, we still have a Waterstones, WH Smith and Amazon to order from, but there's nowhere for those of us on a tight budget to shop. And that is a tragedy. 
Not everyone can afford to buy full price books, and book lovers like myself relied on The Works to give ourselves books are a discounted rate. Sometimes places like Waterstones proved too expensive when buying an entire series of books, whereas The Works provided the same series in the same great condition for a fraction of the cost. That was a Godsend to us, it meant we could buy our books and not break the bank as much as a shop at another retailer would have.
The shop also proved useful when buying books for our education too. Not all of them (I can't say I found any of my uni course books in there) but I did find many of my A Level books in there. There was no wait time or P&P costs from Amazon, and they were generally cheaper there than at any other book store, which was useful as a 16 year old.
Book lovers aren't the only ones affected either, artists who bought their supplies at The Works now have look elsewhere, others looking for notepads and school supplies have to trek somewhere else to buy them. The people who worked in the shop are now out of a job, all because someone felt the need to set something on fire. What I'm trying to say is that the shop was a life line for many, and now it's gone for a long time.
And for what? Entertainment? A sick need to see flames? What was the point? 
There wasn't one, now people have lost their jobs, others have lost a shop filled with their passions, and a building has been destroyed. It's going to take years to get that back to normal, and it's because someone likes to light things on fire. The only positive in this situation is that nobody was physically hurt in the blaze. Instead we've lost a big part of our lives.
So to whoever did this, fuck you, if you like fire so much, get your kicks by lighting candles and fireplaces. Stay away from buildings and places of enjoyment for so many, you've robbed so many from their cheap book and art outlet, and took away several people's jobs.