Reading Was Once My Hobby

A pocketbook is a small type of book with stories such as romance, horror, comedy, or fantasy. Usually a single pocketbook consists of one story only that ends there. Some stories are long enough that doesn’t end with just one small book. It was like a series of stories just like with television series.

When I was a child, I always saw my sisters and cousins reading a small book. I didn't pay attention because I also had my hobby and I was still in grade school. Sometimes they let me borrow the pocketbooks for them, they were older than me so I have to obey.

Sometimes I tried to scan those small books because I’m a bit curious to find out but then when I saw that it was written in English I lost my interest because I don’t understand many English words.

When I went to high school, I saw my other female classmates also reading a pocketbook in our vacant class. I tried to talk to them and asked what was in that book and they were very busy reading but they ignored me and kept reading.

One day during a high school vacation, I was kind of bored and thought of just cleaning the house. I found 20 pieces of booklet. One booklet has a name written on the cover “Helen Mariz”. It turns out that she wrote the stories in the book.

I opened the book because its title is in Filipino. I tried to read a page. I'm going to like the story a bit because it was written in our language. The first page I read was about a kid who was just as fond of the game as I used to be. Until I realized that I was already reading a few pages long in that book. I forgot that I was cleaning our house. I finished the housework first so that I could continue reading the book.

Ever since I started reading pocketbooks it seems like I love it. There was no book I started that I didn’t finish in a day. If I have to do something like eat, wash the dishes, clean up and if my mother has something to do.

When I have free time, I read a pocketbook. I often read horrors if there are any. I like to read love stories because maybe I was a teenager then so I like such stories. My cousins noticed that I read a pocketbook more often. They often lend me what they have finished reading. And sometimes we even read a pocketbook together. So when our aunts and uncles passed by, they teased us and asked "You guys are reviewing again, when is the exam?" We ignored it because we were busy reading the pocketbook. We even shared a snack of what was like bonding with our cousins.

We didn't have a cell phone back then, so reading was our hobby. When my cousins are busy, I go under the trees to read. Until I get a job in Manila, I carry pocketbooks with me. I read when I can't sleep after work, during my rest day after I wash my dirty clothes. Even on public buses, I read when I go home to our province.

I just stopped reading the pocketbook when I got married and had a child. Since I had cell phones, I could not read such books again.

We have a saying that when you love to read pocketbooks it will be a long time before you get married. But that was not proven yet because at the age of 21 I got married right away.

Thanks for reading my simple article about my experience reading pocketbooks. I hope you enjoyed it. If you like reading pocketbooks too let me know in the comment.

Special thank's to the image i used.. https://unsplash.com/