Saturday, July 30, 2011

Reading in the middle

So I'm in the mood and mindframe to blog. So there will be many in short succession about varied things. Don't worry. Since I'm not a huge fan of typing, I'm sure I'll just hit the high spots and there will be lots of pictures.

But first, and moment of self discovery.

And a confession.

My name is Chiara Cameron, and I have never actually read a book from cover to cover.

Okay..not a novel. I read If you Give a Mouse a Cookie all the time from front to back. But its the long ones without pictures that get me. Which is probably why my 2 favorite types of books are cookbooks and psychological mumbo jumbo books (NOT textbooks) because you can start anywhere in the book and still get something out of it. I read the first 3 or 4 chapters and the last 2 or 3 chapters and then I bounce around the middle as I please.

My friends are baffled by this. They want to know how I can miss out on the excitement, the build up, the anticipation of not knowing what happens.

I think I know why. I don't like not knowing everything is going to turn out okay. I have to know how it ends so I can leisurely browse the middle with assurance that all things will turn out just swell. There is enough in my life I am unsure of, and quite frankly I need less excitement, build up and anticipation in my life. I'm swimming in it it would seem. I'm waiting to find out how my story will turn out, and its driving me nuts. If I knew, somehow, how it would all end, I could happily paddle around the middle and wait.

But tonight I realized the middle is kind of the point. By bouncing around the middle and picking up only random pieces of information I miss a lot. Like I missed the whole Bella and Jacob kiss on the mountain in Eclipse. I missed Katniss and Peeta finally joining forces in Hunger Games. I missed key points and moments because I already knew the ending and thought I got it and understood the whole thing. But I didn't. I knew where the characters were, but had no idea how they got there. I missed the character development.

And there it was...the explanation for my own middle story. If I knew how it ended, I would quit trying and just wait. I'd bounce around and miss a bunch of important stuff. I would fail to develop my own character. And even when I got to my ending, I wouldn't truly get it without experiencing all of the stuff in the middle.

So here's to the middle! Not saying I'll start reading books like a normal person...

2 comments:

  1. I skip ahead to the end quite a bit, cause I end up being really ... umm, critical of books. Especially if they're fiction. As in, fake. As in, maybe not really worth my time. But if I like the book, and I like the ending, I'll go back to where I was and read it all the way through. It makes the ending even better when I read it the second time.

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  2. Like! (that about sums it up!)
    --Susan

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