If we were having coffee, I would tell you I have gotten caught up on my book list. I almost believed I was over reading books anymore. Now I think I just got out of the habit. I have a prompt today from Linda G Hill for Stream of Consciousness Saturday that relates to books.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “close eyes and point.” Grab the closest printed material to you when you sit down to write your post, open it up (if it’s a book, flyer, etc.), close your eyes, and point. Whatever your finger lands on, use that as your prompt.
SOCS
I am getting near the end of ‘All The Devils Are Here,’ by Louise Penny. So I picked up the book, opened it, and my finger landed in the middle of a sentence on ‘hand reached.’ This made me think of people reaching out a hand to each other. Which leads me to something I have been thinking about after reading three other books on my list,
‘The Glass Hotel’ by Emily St. John Mandel
‘The Witch Elm’ by Tana French
‘His and Hers’ by Alice Feeney
There is a thread connecting all three of these books. The last book was one from my book group and some of us picked up on this thread. It has to do with the flaws of many of the lead characters, (protagonists), that you would usually want to root for. Not that characters can’t have any flaws but when they have too many I find it hard to be in their corner. They definitely did not reach out to help each other. What was disturbing is how they almost casually, mindlessly caused harm.
Maybe, the authors are all in a negative mind set from all the bad going on in the world. But when I read a book, I don’t want to be made depressed at the end. Louise Penny does give us characters to root for. Don’t we need that right now?
Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer.
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 
I agree completely. Characters need a flaw or two, but if it’s serious, like casually causing harm, they need a wake up call that motivates improvement.
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A wake up call before the end of the book. 😀
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these sound interesting, and i’m still behind on my list)
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Yes, I feel accomplished finishing these books. You just need to start reading and you will get back to it.
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Well done catching up on your book list! I’m reading State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny. I hope it has a satisfying and not depressing ending. Thank you for linking up with #weekendcoffeeshare.
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I agree about characters — if they’re too perfect then I pan the book. If there’s too many flaws where it’s almost not redeemable, I’ll still try to finish the book. I guess I have this hope in me that they’ll turn around.
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I also agree about the characters in a book. If they’re hard to root for throughout the entire thing, it makes it hard for the story to be enjoyable and I find myself hoping all the way until the end that they will turn themselves around and when it doesn’t happen I’m rather disappointed and a bit sad. My TBR list is so long right now… 😅 I work nights and spend as much time with my kids as I can after they get out of school and on the weekends so I squeeze in reading sometimes in paragraphs here and there. What type of books do you usually enjoy reading? I hope you have a great week. 🙂
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I hope you have some breaks for yourself soon. It is good and important for you to give yourself some down time. I usually like mysteries.
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I agree. Characters can be flawed, but they have to have some redeeming quality that lets me root for them. If they’re irredeemably awful, I don’t care what happens to them, so I don’t enjoy the story (which is why I didn’t enjoy Gone Girl or Seinfeld).
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I didn’t like ‘Gone Girl’ either for the same reason.
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