BOOKS THAT NEED TO BE READ

It's 2021.

As I wrote the last chapter, I didn't think I'd come back to this book again. In between January 2020 and December 2020, I lost the bond that I had with Wattpad, and with books in general in a way that I can't explain, but I will try to.

Let me start by thanking all of you for such a great number of reads. While writing this book, it was meant to help me remember my favorite books and help other people find these hidden (now not so hidden) treasures. I'm glad if this book helped you in any way and hope that it continues to help you.

MY WATTPAD JOURNEY

There was a time in my life (I was around 13-14 years old - that was 7/8 years ago), where I couldn't breathe without Wattpad. Right now, while writing this, I was calculating how many years it has been since I was on Wattpad and I was SHOOK. I can't believe it's been so long.

Anyway, when I first discovered Wattpad (I read Fifty Shades of Grey, deleted the app, read The Arrogant Professor, deleted the app and re-downloaded it to read After), I was hooked. I read 3-4 books a day. I read during the day and night, regardless of what time it was. When I would hear my mom's alarm go off at 5 am, I'd rush to my room from the sofa so that she wouldn't know I was reading on my tablet. I would skip tutoring sessions to come home and finish books (others skipped to go do things that teens do, I would skip tuition to go read. Wow.).

When my tablet broke, I started crying immediately since I couldn't read for some hours. My parents rushed to the store to buy me my first phone so that I could continue reading. I was addicted. During my time on Wattpad, I have read over 2000 books (I'm proud of myself) and these books have shaped me into the person that I am today.

I might have been born only once, but I lived over 2000 lives and I'm so grateful to Wattpad.

When I started reading on Wattpad, I was obsessed with high-school books where the bad boys fell in love with the freaks. Then when I left high-school, this genre wasn't appealing to me and I switched to books where the main characters were in college or were working. There was a gradual shift that I wasn't even aware of, in my taste of books.

I have many Wattpad accounts. Since I was reading so much, the app became heavy and would take so much space. Instead of deleting the books (since I was keeping track of the number of books read), I simply created another account, and this way, I created like 10 accounts, one after the other.

Once last year, I tried to read a book that I read when I first joined wattpad (I can't remember the name) but oh boy, the vocabulary. The vocab was a catastrophe. The sentence, grammar, the story plot in itself was shit. It's hard to believed that this was once one of my favorite books.

I have changed as a person, my beliefs have changed, I have learned a lot and grown a lot. Not only in age, but mentally also. Which is why half of the books on Wattpad in 2020 don't even interest me. I was slowly losing the bond with Wattpad.

Nevertheless, there were still some books which I absolutely loved (the ones mentioned in this book). However, in 2020, you had to pay to be able to read books. I think that it's unfair that readers weren't compensated for their efforts and love that Wattpad took initiatives to help them, but at what cost?

3/4 of Wattpad books have been snatched out of our hands. Our favorite stories are unavailable to us and we can't read them. Today, as I scrolled through the app, all the stories being displayed are paid books and I don't know how to search for books that are free.

When Wattpad stopped being free, I think I completely lost the bond I had with it. It's not something I did voluntarily. It's something I had to do since I didn't have any option. I couldn't read books here, so I found other alternatives. (I switched to TV series instead of books).

I hardly read any books in 2020, and this year equally, I hardly read any book. Sure, once in a while I feel the urge to bury myself in a book and I come back to this book to find something that will suit my mood. Just like I tried to do today. Unfortunately, almost all the books I've tried to search for have become paid or have been taken down. It saddens me so much. 'The Girl He Never Noticed' is a book I literally grew up with, and now it's a paid book. Ugh I'm so pissed off and sad.

But anyways, this is kinda why I don't respond to comments on the chapters because I hardly even open Wattpad anymore. I stopped updating this book for this very reason.

I would love to have your opinion on this and would absolutely love to hear how you're doing.

Thank you for reading this book, for voting and commenting.

I love you all.