iBooks on Apple products is a beautiful platform for readers who enjoy reading on electronic devices. I, on the other hand, am not really a fan of ebooks. To me, it takes away the fun of going to the library or bookstore, scouring aisles to find the right genre, picking up a book and reading the blurb on the back or inside cover, smelling the old musky scent of the pages or even the feeling of having a stack of books by your night stand.
But one day, as I was sitting in Algebra, waiting for the bell to ring and my professor to start talking, I went on my phone. Most people scroll through Instagram or Twitter. Maybe they send a couple selfies on Snapchat. I had the full intention of doing that but I decided to open up iBooks. It was a different experience for me because I never, and I mean NEVER use ebook platforms. The formatting was different, there was no old musk smell or the satisfaction of going to a bookstore. Once I figured out how to search, I searched for free books to read (because I’m cheap and who really has spare cash in college?)
There were SO many free books to read. Most were lame romantic ones, where the cover is some blurred background and a lumberjack looking shirtless guy poses scandalously with a skimpy tight clothed female, her hands on his abs like there’s no other place she can put her arms. After endless scrolling one book in particular, caught my eye.
False Impressions by Sandra Nikolai. The name itself grabbed my attention, as well as the blood red color of the cover. I read the summary, it sounded pretty good so I decided to take the chance to read the first chapter.
And boy was it something. The first sentence made me want to read more. I was hooked! I wanted to know why and how and who and everything cops ask themselves at a scene. It was your basic “husband and wife are trying to get pregnant, husband is not happy so he has an affair then ends up dead and wife looks like a suspect” scenario. I may have spoiled some of the story but honestly you could figure out it was heading in that direction the second you finished reading the first sentence of the first chapter.
The cops get involved and they immediately with no evidence suspect the victim’s wife because who else could it possibly be. Wife’s boss is always the sexy man who comes to her aid at all times, the one her colleagues want her to hook up with but politely declines even though she secretly wants to and then he sets her up with some fancy shmancy lawyer who he had in his back pocket to her defense. It’s a cliche I tell you! But it’s still good. You want to see what is different about this book with the rest in the genre. Swipe after swipe.
Before I knew it, I had the first chapter finished. In the middle of class. While the professor was talking. I was on my phone. Reading. But they didn’t know that. I looked up from my phone to see what we were doing: Graphing Linear equations. Great. Graphing. You give me all the algebra and formulas in the world, I can do those, no sweat. The moment I see a graph, I freeze. Don’t know the first thing. And what do I do? I don’t pay attention to the class, and go back on my phone and continue reading.
New characters. A foreseen plot twist. Crime jargon. Everything needed to make a crime book. I ignored everything cheesy about the book and kept reading. Something about it made me want to continue even though a lot of the plot was predictable. Nine chapters in and I still couldn’t tell you who or why but I can tell you how! I got a lot more to read in this book but I bet I can tell you who did it by chapter twenty-two.