Today is my 4th wedding anniversary with my amazing husband and in celebration I wanted to do a post on how my husband got started reading YA novels.
Nearly two years ago, I took my very first MD board exam. For 6 weeks leading up to it I studied 12 hour days 6 days a week, and then at the end of all that I took an 8 hour exam. I put all of my emotional energy into studying for that exam and had convinced myself that all the pain would be worth it if I made a certain score… but I didn’t; oh sure I passed it, which is definitely a huge accomplishment but all I could focus on was that I had failed in my goals. It was the first time in my academic career where I couldn’t have just “studied harder”, I literally couldn’t have put more work into the exam if I had tried, and I was devastated that I wasn’t good enough.
I stopped eating. I slept more hours than was healthy. I couldn’t stop feeling worthless and like I was going to be a horrible physician. My husband didn’t know how to reach me, I wouldn’t talk to him about it, but he knew something was wrong. He also couldn’t convince me to go talk to someone about it (honestly, doctors make the worst patients).
At some point, I asked my best friend for book recommendations. I hadn’t read for pleasure in YEARS, but I was so tired of feeling nothing, that I wanted to escape into another persons life. She recommended The Shatter Me series, which I adored, and then when I finished that she recommended the ACOTAR series, which I completely sold my soul to.
My husband noticed how much I was reading, and was desperate for a way to connect with me, and so he started listening to the ACOTARs audiobooks. And he loved them too! Plus he was able to talk to me about them and through the books we were able to resolve a lot of the problems I was having at the time.
Since then my husband has been a huge fan of YA audiobooks and has read several books that I haven’t read! He frequently hounds me for new books to read and always wants to talk about his feelings about certain characters or plot developments. I definitely think it’s made our relationship richer and given it even greater depth.
So my advice to all you single people out there is that if you find someone who will read the books you like just to make you happy, marry that person. They’re obviously the best!
Doctor's Orders 