Breaking down the reading rules
Until this year, it was rare for me to leave a book unfinished. That doesn’t mean I read every book I buy or check out from the library. After all, I’m a human being with two kids and a full-time job, and there are only so many hours in the day.
But when I do start a book, I usually finish it, even if I immediately know that it isn’t my cup of tea. I tell myself it will get better (sometimes it does). I tell myself that, even if I never end up liking it, I will at least be able to say I finished it. Sometimes I skim big sections in the interest of finishing it faster.
Whatever it takes, I have always tried to tough a book out until the end. It seemed important — like, if the author felt their story was important enough to tell, I should at least do them the service of reading their work until the very last page.
That changed this year. After the pandemic hit, I, like so many other people, was overcome with anxiety and frustration and just plain terror. I longed for an escape. And because I’ve always loved books, I looked for that escape in literature. I know a lot of people found it difficult to read this year, because of their mounting anxiety.
I totally understand that, but I needed to read. I needed to escape.
But I also found myself with way less patience than I typically have with books. I realized this a few weeks into lockdown, when I checked Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s “Fleishman is in Trouble” out of my local library using the digital library app Overdrive. By all accounts, this is a very good book.
However, I just couldn’t get into it. I pushed myself through page after page, although I just wasn’t feeling it. I kept waiting for the story to pull me in. Then, about 40 pages in, I realized something — I’m a grown up. If I am not enjoying a book, I am under no obligation to finish it. That’s especially true in these times, when joy is in shorter supply than usual.
I decided to stop reading the book. Again, I am sure there are people who love this book. I mean no disrespect for the book! I might come back to it at some point. But there was something about it that wasn’t hitting with me, and I bailed.
There was a point in my life when I might have felt embarrassed by that, but, right now, I feel fine.
After that, I made two reading rules for the rest of this bonkers year. One was that I didn’t have to finish a book if I wasn’t enjoying it. The other was that I would only try to pick books that I wanted to read, not books that I felt I should read. The latter category includes weighty classics that I have always meant to get to and never have. Sorry “The Count of Monte Cristo” — this was not your year.
Instead, I dove into into mysteries and romance and young adult novels, and it felt really good. Reading became one of the few reliable ways for me to decompress. It was a true hobby and almost never an obligation.
This doesn’t mean I didn’t read anything interesting or challenging. There’s this misconception that books can’t be both substantive and engaging. But I can’t think of any book that held my interest more strongly than Rumaan Alam’s eerie, dread-filled thriller “Leave the World Behind,” about a beach vacation that slowly devolves into something terrifying.
It was a finalist for a National Book Award and a critical darling, but it also was a can’t-put-it-down blast to read. (It’s legit scary, though, so be warned.)
Other favorites this year included S.A. Cosby’s crime novel “Blacktop Wasteland” (imagine if Ryan Gosling’s character in “Drive” talked more and had a ton of family baggage), and Jean
Kyoung Frazier’s slim, heartbreaking “Pizza Girl,” about a pregnant teenager who bonds with a suburban mom.
Some of these books weren’t easy reads, but they kept my interest and engaged my soul. They never felt like homework. They felt like escapes. And, honestly, in a year of such anguish, who doesn’t want to get away?