A Library full of Second Chances

I was never one of those people that read books. Not that I was illiterate or anything, I just didn't do it. My grades in English reflect that heavily. Sure, I would read a book for a class assignment, but the simple truth was I just didn't enjoy reading. That is, until an odd red headed man changed that. You see, Gerard was the kind of guy that could slip into a book and completely lose himself, a feat I thought could only be achieved with strong liquor and the right drugs. Gerard was the kind of guy that had thousands of quotes in his head from every book under the sun. He could babble on about every author from Ralph Waldo Emerson to J. K. Rowling, and more often than not he would. Gerard was that guy that always had a book tucked under his arm wherever he went. Gerard was that guy that soaked in the written word like a sponge with no physical limitations. Gerard was that guy that picked a seventeen year old kid out of his rut and made him understand the beauty of a story. That seventeen year old kid was me, and this is the story of how a hard cover book and a second chance can change the world, one hopeless kid at a time.