Reading a good book
I walked in a local mega-bookstore with my daughter.
“I love the way it smells in here,” I said.
“It smells like, um, paper,” she replied. “And it smells clean.”
That’s my girl.
We walked through the Bestsellers, the New Non-Fiction Hardcovers and the Bargain sections. We strode past the coffee shop and the gift wrap without stopping, on our way to the Independent Reader department. It didn’t take long to realize she is too old for those books. No more Beverly Clearly (not that she ever read Beverly Clearly, much to my dismay).
At almost 13, she’s reading books from the hotter than hot YA (young adult) genre, about girls her age and older who are troubled, happy, fat, thin, pimpled, rich and poor. Many of them have superpowers or at the very least, the ability to perform magic. Then there’s the vampire section, where she finally decided on a book with my help and approval.
I just want her to read a good book.
“This IS a good book,” she assured me, waving the book in the air to showcase the black, slick cover.
Even though I don’t get it, this is what YA’s are reading, at least YA’s like my daughter. It’s not Judy Blume, that’s for sure. Sigh.
Perhaps it’s just Judy Blume after midnight. With fangs.
I have resigned to leave the force-feeding – or force-reading – of classic literature and older books to her teachers. I happy that my daughter reads for pleasure, even if I wish she was reading Anne of Green Gables when she’s devouring Bras and Broomsticks.
Can you imagine a book about Anne’s bra? Or Anne riding all over Avonlea on a broomstick? It certainly wouldn’t be practical with one of the peasant-y, apron frocks she liked to wear, now would it? Sigh, I always wanted one of those dresses. My daughter, on the other hand, covets anything with a skull and heart combo and wears seventy bracelets on one arm.
Really, it’s not just about my daughter. I grapple with the same thing for myself. I want to read flowing literary ramblings and the highest form of published works. I so wish it lured me in and held me there. I think it would make me smart(er). Or at least look smart(er) as I weaved my way through the check-out line.
But I read, um, you know, commercial fiction. Sometimes a mass market paperback from a turning rack in the supermarket. I even read chick lit. Yep, I do.
So what defines a good book? Can you read a book, know it’s not good, but like it anyway? If it’s well-written is it good? Does liking it make it a good book?
Do I just need to get a life? Maybe I need to pull back on the morning coffee.
What defines a book as good? That is a tough question. I’ve read trash that is horribly written but I have loved it. I have begun to read well-written books that have been highly recommended to me and put them down because I hated it. My kids and their reading is another story.
My son, rarely reads, but when he does it will either be something that I think is really stupid (but reading is reading, I believe) or will surprise me by buying “real” books–Dostoyevsky, Twain, etc.
My 15 yr old daughter has always refused to read Anne of Green Gables or any of the Little House on the Prairie books. Makes me want to cry. On the other hand, this summer she has read Memoirs of a Geisha, The Red Tent, The Good Earth, is now reading The Thorn Birds (at my suggestion) and Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed.
Last year, I let her read The Lovely Bones, a book I loved so much that I had trouble putting it down. After I read it and wondered how I could love a book so much that was written surrounding a horrible topic. I guess, because it was well written. It really was a lovely book.
So, my answer to your questions–if you like a book, it means you liked it. If it is a well written book, that means it is well-written. Good is in the eyes of the beholder.
Suggest “Blood and Chocolate” to her. It’s a YA paranormal romance involving a vampire, written way before paranormals were hot. It’s NOTHING like the movie. I discovered it as an adult but it’s a beautiful book, she’ll love it.