There’s something I’ve been wanting to come clean about.
I’m not sure I read the way other people do.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t.
And I don’t think I ever have.
If you spend much time around Bookstagram and folks who review books, you’ve probably seen people talking about books in ways that sometimes make me wonder if we’re all reading the same thing.
Tropes. Themes. Theories. Symbolism. Character arcs. Anthropological meanings.
People notice things I never even thought to look for.
And sometimes I feel a little like I’m standing outside looking in, wishing my brain worked that way.
But it doesn’t.
It never has.
Looking for Meaning
I actually remember this from college.
Yes.
College.
I was a 40-something-year-old woman sitting in class when my professor read excerpts from a classmate’s book analysis, and I was completely lost.
The language was way above my head.
I remember listening to this analysis and thinking:
Did we read the same book?!
Because I didn’t get that the blue curtain was actually a diatribe on the socioeconomic conditions of the time.
I thought it was room décor.
And my professor ate it up.
He was beaming as he read the essay. Beaming.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting there thinking, Well, apparently I missed a class somewhere.
My own analysis got an A, but I think that was mercy more than merit. My professor was being kind because he knew how much I loved the material.
And I did love it.
I just didn’t love the comments he left on my paper.
“You’re just at the surface, but you haven’t quite broken through yet.”
And I remember thinking:
What?
To this day, no one ever really explained what that meant.
I did ask him at one point. I met with him about my then-ambition to be a college-level English teacher.
I thought, How lovely would it be to sit all day in a room full of people who loved books and talk about the characters, the stories, the relationships and all that.
Themes?
Tropes?
Anthropological observations?
Nuh-uh. I abandoned that dream as soon as he made it clear I wasn’t cut out for those types of conversations.
I Don’t Read Looking for Themes
I’ve never naturally read books looking for themes.
I don’t sit down with a book thinking, I wonder what the author is trying to say about the human condition.
I’m usually thinking, I wonder what happens next.
I’ve never been particularly interested in identifying every trope. I don’t naturally stop and wonder what a particular object symbolizes. And if there’s some deeper anthropological meaning tucked into Chapter 17, there’s a pretty good chance it went right over my head.
That’s just not how I read.
For a long time, I wondered if that meant I wasn’t reading deeply enough.
Maybe I wasn’t smart enough.
Maybe I was missing something everyone else understood.
Maybe I was just doing it wrong.
But the older I get and the more I think about it, the more I realize something:
Maybe I’m just a different kind of reader.
When I Love a Book, I’m IN the Book
When I love a book, I’m not standing outside it analyzing it.
I’m in it.
I’m seeing life through the main character’s eyes.
I’m sitting alongside them.
I’m wondering what they’re wondering.
I’m thinking about what they’re thinking.
I’m feeling what they’re feeling.
I’m completely invested in what happens next.
If it’s a mystery, I’m trying to figure out who did it.
If it’s a relationship story, I’m invested in the relationship.
If it’s a historical novel, I’m soaking up the setting and the history.
If it’s a ghost story, I’m probably sitting there thinking:
Why is the floor creaking?
And then, inevitably:
Why would you go outside to investigate that noise?!
And if you’re living in a haunted house?
Why are you still there?!
This is how I read.
I laugh.
I cry.
I feel.
I absorb.
I get attached to characters.
I get frustrated with characters.
I occasionally talk to characters who cannot hear me because, apparently, I’ve forgotten that they’re fictional.
And when I’ve finished a book I loved, I don’t want to sit and analyze it.
I just want to sit in the aftermath with all my feelings and just… abide.
And Then There’s Annotation
Let’s talk about annotation.
I don’t annotate.
Actually, let me be more specific.
I don’t even know how to annotate.
See: Things They Didn’t Teach Us in High School in the ’80s.
I see people with their beautiful annotated books, colorful tabs, carefully chosen pens, and thoughtful notes in the margins.
And I admire them.
Truly.
Meanwhile, I’m just trying not to spill my coffee on page 183.
Maybe someday I’ll learn.
Maybe I won’t.
We’ll see.
This Is Why Book Clubs Can Make Me Nervous
Book clubs actually terrify me. I feel wildly under-educated.
Especially when the conversation starts getting into themes and symbolism and all the things I didn’t notice while I was busy worrying about whether the main character was going to survive the next chapter.
But here’s what I do know.
I know what I like.
And I know why I like it.
I know character growth.
I know relationships.
I know when a story grabs me.
I know when a book makes me want to keep reading long past the time I should have gone to bed.
I love a good mystery and trying to figure out who did it.
I love a chilling ghost story.
I love the history behind a historical story.
I love characters who feel real enough that I miss them when the book ends.
Those things matter to me.
That’s my wheelhouse.
To the Readers Who See Everything…
There’s something else I want to say because I don’t want this to sound like I’m dismissing readers who approach books differently.
Quite the opposite.
To those of you who annotate every page, spot every trope, catch every theme, analyze every little detail, and see things in books that I completely miss:
I admire you.
Seriously.
Keep doing what you’re doing.
Because people like me need people like you.
Your reviews and discussions sometimes help me see something I didn’t notice the first time around.
You teach me to look a little deeper.
You introduce me to ways of thinking about a story that might never have occurred to me on my own.
And I think that’s one of the beautiful things about being part of a reading community.
We don’t all have to read the same way.
One person notices the symbolism.
Another notices the character development.
Someone else catches a historical detail.
Someone else is over there yelling, DON’T GO INTO THE BASEMENT!
And all of us are still reading.
So Here’s How I’ll Talk About Books
When I talk about books here at Clean Reads & Cozy Sips, I’m going to talk about them from my perspective.
I’m not a literary scholar.
I’m not going to pretend I caught every theme or understood every layer.
I’m just a woman who loves good stories.
I’ll tell you when a book made me laugh.
I’ll tell you when it made me cry.
I’ll tell you when I couldn’t put it down.
I’ll tell you when I loved the characters.
I’ll tell you when the mystery kept me guessing.
I’ll tell you when the ghost story gave me just the right amount of creepy.
And I’ll tell you when a book made me want to curl up with a blanket, a cozy drink, and another chapter.
Because that’s what reading is for me.
It’s an experience.
It’s an escape.
It’s a conversation.
Sometimes it’s comfort.
Sometimes it’s a little adventure.
And sometimes it’s simply a really good story at exactly the right time.
Maybe There Isn’t a Wrong Way to Read
I think I’ve spent enough years wondering whether I was reading the “right” way.
Maybe there isn’t one.
Maybe some people read analytically.
Maybe some people read emotionally.
Maybe some people do both.
Maybe some people annotate every page.
Maybe some people don’t even know what an annotation is.
Maybe some people read one book at a time.
And maybe some of us have several books going at once because apparently choosing just one feels like an unreasonable restriction.
We’re all readers.
And that’s enough for me.
So if you’re the kind of reader who sees every theme, catches every symbol, and has three different colors of tabs in your book, I hope you keep doing exactly that.
And if you’re the kind of reader who climbs inside the story, falls in love with the characters, tries to solve the mystery, cries at the ending, and closes the book thinking, Well, that was wonderful…
Hi. You’re in good company. And around here, there is always room for you.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a book to get back to.
And there is absolutely no way I’m going into that basement.
