Dear Reader,
I’m about halfway through a book I was really looking forward to reading. It’s…fine.
Listen, I read about ten books a month. They’re obviously not all going to be winners. I have no trouble deciding not to finish a book if I’m not getting anything out of it, but I read and finish a lot of books that are enjoyable but nothing special. I’m used to that. It’s awfully disappointing, though, when it happens with a book I expected to be one of the special ones.
There’s no reliable way to predict it. I am much better than I used to be about knowing which books I’ll actually like versus those I feel I should like. My taste is what it is, separate from what friends or social media or the literati tell me it ought to be. I’ve learned to accept that. I’m pretty good these days at reading a plot description and knowing whether or not a book will work for me, at least at the basic level.
It’s that something extra I’m not able to predict, the spark that lifts a book from fine to amazing. This book I’m reading now has a plot that hits many of my buttons–modern horror, a female protagonist, religious trauma. I dove in eagerly, expecting to race through. Instead: eh. It’s not bad, it’s just not great.
I suppose, in the long run, it’s better not to be able to predict that magic. If I could, it would cease to be magic. A formula would eliminate those astounding moments when a book I had no special hope for turns out to be incredible. Those moments are the reason I will always be a voracious reader. The more I read, the more often the magic happens.
Besides, if I knew which books were special, I’d stop reading any others. It would be like a picture book I had as a kid, when a girl got her wish to have Christmas every day. After a couple of weeks, Christmas became boring. It would be tragic to have the same thing happen with reading. I live for the spark I feel when a book sweeps me away. I wouldn’t want to lose that for anything.
That doesn’t change the disappointment I feel when a book that seemed perfect fails to live up to expectations. I guess that disappointment is part of the reading life as well. No flowers without rain, yada, yada, yada. It’s the price of admission.
So maybe I will finish this book in a hurry. After all, the next one I pick up might be magic.
Love, Melissa
Melissa Burnett 