I love devouring whole series. the Best days have been the ones where I’ve just dumped a whole stack of books next to my bed, made a nest out of pillows, and not moved until I’ve read every single one. By the time I close that final cover, I’m disoriented, half convinced that this isn’t the real world, and uncertain about which day it is. It’s the best sort of confusion. However, the problem comes when I want to talk about the books. Because, much as I adore books and reading (I am an author after all), I have a brain like Swiss cheese. I don’t remember the books I’ve read. And I certainly don’t remember any of the character’s names.
I feel like a bad bookworm at times. I genuinely love these books. I have such a good time reading them. But the details just don’t like to stick in my memory, like, at all. I was so excited to read Winter, the finale of The Lunar Chronicles. It was my most anticipated read for such a long time and I absolutely devoured it the moment I got my hands on a copy. But if you were to ask me what happened in the book, I couldn’t begin to tell you the first thing about it. Which is half the reason why I’m currently working my way through the whole series again. Just finished Cinder, and now moving on to Scarlet and loving it.
Being a forgetful bookwork can be super frustrating too. My sisters have much better memories for books than I do. We tend to read a lot of the same books. I give them excellent book recommendations. But when we start talking about the books, they’ll be discussing something that happened, or enthusing over a character, and I’ll be nodding along with less than half a clue about what they’re talking about, but pretending that I remember everything perfectly. I remember the main character’s names at least. Well, occasionally. It’s worse when they have fantasy or sci-fi names that are less than conventional. If you think that’s going to stick in my brain then you’re sorely mistake.
However, despite the many frustrations involved with being such a forgetful reader, there is quite a surprising upside to this whole situation, which I’ve just recently discovered. Struggling to retain book memories means that when I come back to read the books again, it’s almost like I’m reading it for the very first time. I don’t remember any of the plot twists in Winter, and I have the haziest memory of what went down in the climax, so when I do come to read it again, it’ll be like I’ve never seen this book before and I can enjoy it all over again.
It’s definitely very frustrating, not being able to remember the books I’ve read and loved so much. I love diving deep into the fictional worlds and immersing myself in the adventures. It’s less fun when I come to talk about them and only have vague memories of exactly what happened. But what I do vividly remember is just how much I enjoyed read these books. I I remember that they’re excellent books to recommend to other people. And I remember just how much I want to read them again, and that’s what counts. And after all, it does let me read them multiple times without becoming too familiar with the story. And in the end, anything that allows me to read books over and over again and love them as much as the first time can’t be all bad, right?
If you want to read a book that I’ve certainly not forgotten, why not check out my new book Frost Hands, available now in print and ebook from Amazon right now! Or add it on Goodreads. And let me know do you have trouble remembering the books you’ve read, or do you find it easy to recall the details once you’ve closed the cover? Let’s chat!
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