I am reading the book that Barbara passed along to me. I am not enjoying it (yes, you read that right), but I am continuing to read it and I realized that's one of my outcomes when I read. Here they are:
1. Totally can't even get into it. Read about 20 pages and give up and don't care.
2. Read about 1/3 to 1/2 until I realize I'm forcing myself to read it, put it aside saying to myself that I will finish it later which I never do.
3. Don't enjoy it, but somehow the plot and the characters compel me to keep reading as there is some sense that I want to know what happens to them.
4. Normal enjoyment where I may read 2 or 3 chapters a day.
5. Total manic page turner. Do little else in non-work, non-sleep time but read the book.
With this current book, it's #3. I want to know what happens. What I don't like about the book is that the woman has done something seriously wrong and she makes choice after choice that only makes the thing she did worse. And it frustrates me that she could have easily gotten away with it, and also that her decisions really don't make sense. I am at Chapter 8 and I was thinking well, maybe I should think of this woman as crazy -- then her actions/choices make more sense. Barbara and I are having lunch the week after next so we'll talk about it.
As to #5, I have twice read a book in one sitting. One I am slightly embarrassed to say was The Bridges of Madison County. Someone had passed it along to me; it sat for months. I had no idea what it was about other than it got criticized as chick lit and pap, but I picked it up one day and I found it very moving.
The other one just came up while I was in Oshkosh. A wife of a client who talks to me about books asked me if I had ever read a book called Crystal Palace. Hmmmm... didn't sound familiar. She started to tell me the plot and I said, "Do you mean Glass Castle?" Yes, and we both laughed. I started reading that book in bed one night and stayed up until 4:30 reading it. I literally could not put it down. It's a memoir of a woman who grew up with two dysfunctional parents. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed reading.
How about this alternative- you start the book, struggle through one, two, three chapters and can't get any further. You feel you really should enjoy the book so you pick it up again weeks or months later and get stopped at roughly the same place. I have books where I've followed ths pattern over and over before I finally give up.
ReplyDeleteI once convinced Stancie to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck with me. I think Oprah was doing it or something. We started at the same time and I felt pressure to continue. Stancie was whizzing through it and loved it. I felt as if I were being punished by reading it so I finally, with some guilt, gave up and told Stancie I can't do it.
ReplyDeleteLater I tried Steinbeck's Cannery Row and absolutely loved it. Sometimes I think it's not the book but our own mindset at the time.