Reading as a kid in the 80s

I had two older brothers who were reading stuff for school and who also just bought books for home, so I read a lot of Stephen King, animal farm, catcher in the rye, all that stuff before my time in school. Uncle Tom's cabin, little house on the prairie books... I also loved anything by RL Stine. I would read late into the night, turning off my light when I heard my parents coming... I'd spend all summer break reading. My mom would tell me to stop reading and go outside ffs. Because I read so much I was classed as gifted; my math skills sucked so it was the thing that really jumped my scores way up. In third grade, I had an interview to go to some sort of boarding school for a gifted program. I remember I had to get dressed up and an uncle had to drive me and my mom over downtown somewhere for this interview. I go into a room and there's three people there asking a bunch of questions, and then they asked me what have I been reading lately. Unfortunately what I had been reading lately was Gerald's Game by Stephen King. For those of you who don't know, it's a husband and wife that go away to a Maine cabin and during kinky sexy time, the husband handcuffs his wife to the bed, and then he has a heart attack and dies. She is stuck on this bed for days and she starts hallucinating etc. And my 8-year-old ass is describing this to three grown adults.... Needless to say I didn't get into that program lol. I often wonder if I had been reading a different book at the time, if things would have been different.