Once again it’s time for the weekly Sunday Brunch with ZA Maxfield! This week, we have two awesome friends joining us! Please welcome Michael Kudo and Megan Slayer!
This week’s question is: “Looking back, which book would you counsel yourself NOT to read, and why?”
***BIG NEWS*** From now on, instead of the ebooks we’ve been awarding as prizes, I’ll be giving out a $5.00 Amazon gift card so readers can use it for the ebook (or other Amazon purchase) of their choice. All you have to do is comment below for your chance to win!
Last week’s winner is Jbst! You should receive an email from ZAM about your prize. Congrats! =)
First, let’s hear from Michael!
One book I would counsel myself not to read and why…hmm. I actually have a few novels in mind. Now I know what the mother from The Good Son felt like.
I’d have to say Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It’s probably a controversial answer as most fans I know of the series really enjoyed it. It was bittersweet because it was long awaited and it was the end of a wonderful series. My issue with the novel is as soon as you turned to the first page you were subjecting yourself to hours and hours of tension and sorrow, leaving the reader an emotional husk of their former self.
Without spoiling too much, I was really upset when a specific major character died and I felt like some of the deaths were random and just icing on the already messed up cake – except icing is delicious, so not icing on the cake…maybe diarrhea. We’ll go with that. It was a brilliant novel, I just wish I could have told myself to not read it and just imagine Voldemort had a stroke and everyone lived happily ever after with no death or sadness.
I like that ending better.
Purchase Red Rose (Blood) from Wilde City Press on September 10.
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Now on to Megan’s answer!
Over the course of my life, I’ve read plenty of books. Most of them stuck with me and I’ve cherished them. Honestly, I can’t remember the ones I really disliked, but there are a few I’d rather not read again. Two immediately come to mind.
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World is one and Marley and Me is the other. Why? Seems like those two books would be sweet, lovable books that would touch the heart. In some ways, both books delivered. I’m a cat person from way back. I want to rescue all of them and will probably end up being the crazy cat lady when I get older. I’m cool with that. I’m also a dog person. Let’s just say in my house I live in a tidal wave of fur–three dogs and three cats. The fur adds up.
Each book was moving and sweet in their own ways. In Marley, I got to see this goofy dog show his true colors while being a crazy, yet perfect dog for the family. He won them over with slobber and devotion. In Dewey, I read about the cat who nobody wanted, but ended up becoming beloved by an entire community. There were moments of tears and laughter. One of my own dogs, a black lab mix, could give Marley a run for his money with his antics, so in that respect, the book hit close to home. Dewey hit close to home because I’ve got an orange cat who has his moments of being a real pistol, but still owns my heart.
So why not want to read these books again? Simple. I know the outcome. Most books about animals don’t have a happy clappy ending. The inevitable must happen. I had a friend once tell me she refused to get another dog because dogs become part of the family and if they are part of the family, then you love them. When you love something that’s alive, at some point it will die and you’ll be left wanting more time with that person or animal. She’s right. It’s a risk. A kitten won’t stay a kitten forever and that kitten, who is now a cat will eventually get old. I don’t like thinking about the getting old part. With Dewey and Marley, I got emotionally invested in both stories. I didn’t have these animals, but it sure felt like I knew them by the time I finished the book.
I can’t read either book again. I hate reading through tears, even when I know that’s what’s going to happen and should prepare myself. I can’t do it. Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it doesn’t make much sense, but I’d rather not read those books again in favor of spending time with my own fur babies. That old line about if I knew then what I know now… I wouldn’t have read them. I respect the writers and love the books, but I won’t read them–not again.
Think I’ll nab one of my cats and hug him. He won’t like being hugged, but it’ll make me feel better.
Buy Links for Complication: Resplendence Publishing | All Romance eBooks | Amazon
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Thank you to Michael and Megan for joining us this week!
This is a tough question, I am a re-reader of books, for example I’ve re-read Drawn Together 3 times already :). I guess one set of books I would have told myself not to read is the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Had I known that the movies were going to be made I would have just waited. These books took me ages to get through when I was younger, all the world building and characters. Usually the books are better than the movies, for me I found the movies more enjoyable than the books.
Kisscut by Karin Slaughter is a book I wish I never read. I enjoyed all her other books that I read, but the subject matter of Kisscut was just too disturbing for me. She does too good a job of getting into the heads of the perpetrators and the ending is not what you would hope for. As a mom, I worry too much already and even though it has been several years since I read that book, I still obsess about it (in a bad way) during sleepless moments.
I read the first book in The Flesh Cartel series and learned that I just can’t read that kind of book. I did follow the reviews to get an idea of how everything turned out but that book was not my cup of tea.
The Inheritnce Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I got completely invested through 4 books and then the end was just crap.
There are some that just upset me too much, like THE BOOK THIEF (even though I knew it wouldn’t be a laugh riot, I wasn’t prepared for that much devastation–I cried so much that I can’t imagine how teenagers read it in school) and RILLA OF INGLESIDE, where Anne’s son Walter dies in WWI (for years I’d check to make sure that the shadow of a cross wasn’t over my bed–that foreshadowing freaked me out that much). As for a mere “this book took precious time from my life” experience, that honor(?) goes to THE LIFE OF PI. It started well, but after a while I thought “this is going to be just him and the tiger, isn’t it?” One-hundred chapters (I kid you not!) that felt like they were taking place in real time. As I read, I thought, “There has to be a bang-up ending, right? No one would string readers along this much for nothing, right?”
[crickets]