drop dead sisters

Cutting Through All That Sameness

Reflecting on the books I read this week, I was thinking about how many books there are out there that are just okay/good/fine. There’s not really anything wrong with the writing of them, but there’s just nothing special about them. There isn’t a character that you really connect with. It isn’t a story that you keep thinking about even when you aren’t reading it. It doesn’t make you feel anything out of the ordinary. Nothing makes them stand out from the rest. These books are what I call, The Pile.

The Pile is where all those books live that aren’t bad. They just aren’t great. And unfortunately, books from the Pile get publicized. A lot. They’re everywhere. Book Tube. Those summer reading lists in magazines. Your mother’s friend who wants to recommend you a book every time she sees you. They often sound good, so you add them to your TBR. And after you’ve read them, you realize they’ve had no lasting effect on you at all. They were just, okay.

I liken books from the Pile to network tv. Well, to be fair, most tv today. Appealing to the widest possible audience and giving up any risks or anything truly great in the bargain. You’re not going to find a Luther or Sherlock here. These are the shows where you don’t really have to pay attention to the details and can still understand what’s happening. The shows you can just have on in the background. That you can watch next week even if you missed this week and not have actually missed anything.

There’s nothing wrong with books from the Pile, just as there’s nothing really wrong with network tv. If that’s what you like, go ahead and read it (or watch it). But if that’s not what you like to read, if you come away from reading one of these books wishing that you hadn’t wasted your time, it can be frustrating. It’s not always easy to identify these books. With a book that’s bad, you know it, but with a book from the Pile, you might think, “Well, it’s not so bad, I’ll keep reading.” And then suffer the reader’s remorse that follows.

After a lot of thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that the way to think about it is: you shouldn’t be reading something just to get through it (most of the time). There are situations where finishing a book just to finish it is important (some classics, your book club book, etc). But generally, if you’re thinking about what you get to read after you finish this stupid book, you should stop reading right now. Because it’s not really good enough for a book to just be “fine”. There are too many books out there that are “GREAT!” that you could and should be reading instead. Why waste time just wasting time?

And I think what it takes to stop wasting this time, is hyper awareness of your feelings as you read. Check in every so often while you read: “How many stars would I give this right now?” “Am I enjoying reading this?” “Am I wishing I was finished and moving on to something new?” This challenge has helped me so much, just by making me really think about how I am feeling about a book after 50 pages. Consciously asking myself if I want to keep reading. This is great at weeding out the bad books. But in order to weed out the “just okay” books, you have to keep asking yourself these questions. Because if nothing better is happening after 50 pages, if you don’t love any of the characters, if the story isn’t drawing you in. If it’s just background noise, maybe it’s time to put it down and read something different. Something great.

Week 7 Update

This week I brought my TBR down by 6 books (read 4, 2 DNFs). But I did purchase one book, We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida which I had previously listened to the audiobook from the library, and am going to read as part of a Goodreads challenge.

That makes the current counts: