3 Things I Finally Realized about Reading "Hard" Books

What does it mean to enjoy a book?

Let’s travel mentally back in time to two weeks ago, when I was debating finishing The Berry Pickers, not because it wasn’t/isn’t a good book but because it was not a rollicking reading experience. It didn’t hold me by the hand and demand that I turn the pages, or make me laugh, or give me just enough twistiness to engage me with puzzle-solving and prediction.

It did not, as I said in that post, “hit that wild sweet spot of better than scrolling but not much harder.”

Why did I finish this lousy book and set aside this good one?

I finished The Berry Pickers. And I enjoyed it. You could say I enjoyed having read it more than actually reading it, and that would be accurate, but also unfair to me or the book, because it makes me sound as if I’m only pleased about the look—as in, I’m pleased that I am a person who reads smart award-winning books.

That’s not what made me happy at all. In fact, I would say I tend to identify as “a person who refuses to read big award-winning books unless she also likes and wants to read them” which is also why I am not in a book club.

No, what made me happy was the happy ending, which wasn’t a traditional happy ending as such (the dying person still dies, not even a spoiler, it’s never a question). There was no satisfactory moment of all the wrong people realizing how wrong they’d been either. Instead, it was an ending of finding forgiveness in what we knew—because we’d been along for the ride—was a truly unforgivable situation. It was about accepting, and living happily with, the fundamental unfairness of life.

Which is a theme I love in non-fiction, even if I mostly prefer my fiction to be more along the lines of The Blonde Identity. Mostly? Hmm. I read a lot of books, so “mostly” is probably fair. I tend to be a person who subs in a cheery, easy-to-digest book for most other entertainment. So yeah, I love a nice distracting plane book. But I don’t want them all to be that way.

My colleague Jennie Nash and I were discussing the question of theme and point—and cause and effect and the ways protagonists need to drive the action— as writers in an episode of #AmWriting recently, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow came up. I liked it, I said, but the sudden shooting midway through the book really bugged me, partly bc I just wasn’t there for that and also—how is that a writer giving her protagonists agency? How is it cause and effect, even if actions of the characters kind of led to it—they only led to it because other people, outside the plot, were nuts.

How is that fair? How did that work?

Oh I loved it, Jennie said. Because the whole theme of the book is that life is random, like a video game.

Ding ding ding.

I’d never thought of that. Because—although I read the book—I resisted, as I nearly always do, thinking hard about it.

So here, finally, are the three things that I’ve suddenly realized about reading “hard” books.

1. Understanding the theme or point makes it more enjoyable.

Listen, I’m not reading for English class here. Ever. I found those classes somewhat maddening because of the way they demanded that I take my fun—reading—and make it work. But they were right (how I hate that). Even a nice distracting plane book better be good and well written and have a theme/point. The big difference—and a reason why they are so much easier to read—is that the author is allowed to bang you over the head with it.

2. Sometimes the ending is what colors back over the whole reading experience.

To my point: The Berry Pickers. Also, Death of the Author, one of my recent favorites (that does a little more hand-holding by making the reader work to figure out what’s happening and setting up a lot of tension). Even The Wedding People. The way these books come to their endings informs the entire rest of the book by adding meaning to the events in a way that real life does not, unless we put it there ourselves. (This is also why a disappointing ending is SO disappointing.)

3. Taking the time to think about what’s behind the story doesn’t break the wall.

I’ve always maintained a stubborn belief that that “English-classing” a book would ruin it. This is particularly crazy given that I often dissect a book’s writing and plotting in order to understand better what made it work so well, but I’ve resisted this more internal stuff, fearing it would kill off my ability to fully enter and embrace the characters.

It does not. Turns out two things can be true at once: I can know these are fictional characters and still live their struggle fully. Sometimes it doesn’t quite click that way (I loved James, but never managed to escape the awareness that this was a work of art with a very specific intent as well as a story). But mostly it works.

So, will I/we stick with a few more hard things here and there with this knowledge in my pocket? Be a better reader as well as a better writer?

I think so. Stay tuned.

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Currently reading:

The Match, Sarah Adams and What Does It Feel Like, Sophie Kinsella—both of these are at the point where I could finish them, but probably not before bed—the Kinsella bc it’s a tough hang, subject-matter wise and The Match bc i need more time than I often allow, but I know I’ll finish when I pick it up next (fwiw if you love a good Sarah Adams, it’s a good Sarah Adams.)

Life in Three Dimensions, Shigehiro Oishi

A book I have been asked to blurb.

Next up: (I got this wrong last week, sorry, I will probably continue to get it wrong): probably the latest JoJo Moyes, although I am going to a bookstore tonight and have The Story Collector on my list, and there is a new Emily Wilde… and The God of the Woods still awaits. And I kind of forgot that I’m reading What Comes After. I dunno, man. I know I said I would read hard things… Thoughts on that one from anyone who has read it? I also promised a bff I’d read the Grady Hendrix pregnant “unwed” teenage witches book. It’s a mood thing!!