Dropping Danielle Steele

I made a decision at 4 o'clock this morning. I was lying in bed with a migraine, thinking of my crazy to do list for the week ahead, when "the book" popped into my head. In the past six weeks, when I've thought of this personal challenge--52 books/52 blogs--it has intimidated me a little, energized me a lot, and made me much more disciplined in the area of time management.

This morning, though, I was filled with dread--the "ugghhh. . .I have to finish that book" kind of dread. Honestly, I haven't felt that way since having to read "The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in the Light of Christian Tradition" for one of my master's courses a few years back. (Loved the subject--not the book).

Yet there on the table lay the dreaded book, and at four in the morning with a migraine, it looked daunting.

"The Book," I should clarify, is Lorrie Moore's most recent release "A Gate at the Stairs." It is one of the books that I read about in the Kansas City Star a few weeks back, and I rushed to have it held for me at the library. I was thrilled when it came in weeks before expected, and last Wednesday I finally cozied down in my reading chair, hot cup of coffee at hand, both girls napping, expecting to be whisked away into protagonist Tassie Keltjin's life.

I knew I would love this book. After all, it is a coming-of-age story, set in the Midwest, told through the eyes of a farm girl who moves to a liberal university town. This book was right up my alley, so to speak.

But ten minutes and 18 pages in, I was thinking "Not exactly the page turner I expected." One hour and 87 pages into the novel, and I was antsy, thinking "Come on, come on, when's this story going to go anywhere?" One hundred and twenty seven pages in, and I quit.

The thing is, Moore's book was not going anywhere. Her characters were flat and boring--after 127 pages, I didn't feel anything for them. I didn't care if Tassie figured out who she was, what her life was about, and I didn't care whether the restaurateur for whom she worked as a nanny got into the groove of motherhood after adopting a toddler. Least of all, I didn't care if the restaurateur's older, academic husband decided to step into the role of husband and father. He was a creep, after all, and a boring creep at that.

When I was teaching, students would often come to me complaining about the book they had chosen to fulfill their free reading assignment. Sometimes they were shy, sometimes defensive, often nervous. After all, they were asking their English teacher's permission to NOT like a book--how dare they have opinions of their own about what constituted "good" literature.

I'd give a little shrug and a smile and tell them to put it down, give up on the book, choose another. My goal was not to get my students to love certain pieces of literature, but to love reading as a whole. After all, I knew that the girls who were reading, say, Danielle Steele books, eventually would move beyond that "genre," and move onto what I would consider better books. (No offense to any adult who reads Danielle Steele). So if they had to read 9 of Danielle's tawdry romances in a row to get to that point, it was all good. At least those girls were reading.

So at four in the morning, I gave myself permission to quit. Because after not liking four out of the last five books I've read, I really, really need to read something enjoyable. If I'm going to make it through 52 books this year, I need to not dread reading.

So does this post count toward my 52? I haven't decided yet. Maybe it will count as half, or maybe there will be a week when I will read two books and write two posts to make up for this week. Maybe not. We'll see how the year goes.

**************************************************************************************

So, dear readers (all 7 of you, according to my "followers" list), how do you feel about putting a book down? Do you feel like you have to finish, to mark it off your list (or to write it on your list)? What do you do when you're midway through a book, and you know you don't like it? I'd love your input (maybe it'll alleviate a bit of my guilt)!

Oh, and admit it--have you ever read any Danielle Steele?! I have!