PROMPT One.

(image from flickr user moonjazz)

This concept doesn't click for me... Guilty pleasure can apply to food, but not reading. Never reading.

When I was a kid, it took forever for my relatives to really believe that I wanted books. Girls were supposed to want purses and dolls and jewelry 40 years ago.

In elementary school, I don't remember anyone bothered by my reading -- except a librarian who didn't believe I read so fast. That was fourth grade, and I was systematically going through every Nancy Drew book they had. I brought back one book that morning, got another at library hour, brought THAT back, and wanted a new one. I'd already read all the Sherlock Holmes I could find.

No one ever made me feel guilty about reading anything. In most cases, they just couldn't grasp why I wanted to read so much. That was the problem.

Rather peculiar, because my parents are readers. Mom's Andre Norton and Heinlein books are still in a hall bookcase now. I got her anthologies like _Amazons!_, _Arabesques_, _Faery_, etc.

I briefly avoided romances simply because I'd read hundred-plus Harlequins -- when I was ten, I wanted to see if they were all the same. [They were.] After that, I was reading sf/f exclusively for a year or two. But I never felt guilty about reading romances, or any other genre. It took me a while to figure out what sort of horror I liked, because authors like Tanith Lee tend to mix genres, and I was used to that blurring.

So... guilt, no.