I started a book today.
It was well written, and had a characters I cared about, right from the start. World building was superb. And yet … I couldn’t keep going with it.
Too many bad things happened to the point-of-view character in the first two chapters. Nasty, horrible things. Beatings, starved, torture, being branded on the face with a hot iron. Worse, the world he lived in was the sort of place where that could happen to anyone except the truly rich (and sometimes even to them). Where the people in power treated those outside their circle as lesser beings, and did really nasty things to them.
I stopped at the start of chapter three.
I couldn’t read any further.
It’s starting to feel as if I live in that world already. I don’t want to read about it too.
I think it’s human nature to want to read positive stories when the world around us seems quite depressing. I certainly do, anyway.
I picked up another book, more light-hearted, and read that instead.
2 replies on “Not in the mood for reading dystopia”
I feel the way. I experience a lot of work related stress. I have stress in my personal life as well. It’s not all bad. In fact, overall I’d have to say that I’m blessed. But I need a distraction to deal with the stress – often. Literature, books, stories do that for me. I certainly don’t want to feel more stressed after reading a book. I understand that there must be some level of conflict to create the story but it does not necessarily have to be a depressing experience. I stay away from the overly negative stories. I want to feel better after my reading session than I did when I started.
Totally agree, Steve. At the end of the book you want to feel better than you did when you started reading it.