How do you feel when and after you read a book?

I feel like crap when I have to read something longer than a paragraph or two. I like brevity and short summaries that get to the point. I have not read a book in years, honestly. When I do read a book, I just don't find myself motivated enough to ever finish it. I usually stop after a few chapters in because I find the book boring.

I'm in my third year of law school, and every year there is a lot of readings in the casebooks. I, somehow, manage to get through those big casebooks. It's a pain. There have been times I have sat at the library on my phone the whole day without flipping an entire page. Usually, at this point, I have enough experience and can understand what is going on without reading all of the details. There have, also, been times where my casebooks have sat on the shelves the entire semester because I just could not find the motivation to read.

Causal reading or reading more than enough to understand a point has never been a passion of mine, and it likely never will be. Luckily, in law, there are such things called case briefs, which are no more than a paragraph or two.

After I read a book, I kind of feel energized. I feel happy that I finished, but just sticking around long enough for me to finish the book is a big challenge for me.
 
@Vigilance you know what? This is what I felt like when I wanted to read Stephen King in sixth grade. After two pages I gave up and to this day never tried again. He just spent ages making up a backstory, which is in most cases irrelevant because the important information is delivered in between the lines. Rather it should be, at least in fiction.

I always thought non-fiction would be tedious, and loving being proven wrong I found it depends on the writer's humour and my interest/foreknowledge in the topic. I think those casebooks of yours could be rather intriguing. Setting minor goals (like a daily quota) could help alleviate some of the boredom. It helped me through some of Sherlock Holmes' cases.:sleeping: Not that I assume Doyle is anything like the cases in your books.
 
@Ginny

Casebooks are only interesting when there is clarity. Otherwise, you are spending hours and hours trying to piece concepts together to figure out what the heck the standard is in order to prove a certain cause of action. You also would likely have a hard time finding the elements to the cause of action if there is no clarity. Sometimes, you need to piece even more concepts together to create an overall standard and 'test,' combining various language from multiple cases. This actually gets me motivated if I am interested enough :).
 
Ginny said:
Here is a quote from one of my favourite books. I think it describes most closely what I feel after I have finished a book, specifically those I love the most.

"She’d stretched out reading them as long as she could, but it was May now and she’d just turned the last page of the last book. That’s all there is, she thought, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them with her arms. She felt indistinctly morose, unsettled even, as she often did when she’d finished a favorite novel. Even when the ending was happy, it was like a death or at least a going away for a long time, this having to say goodbye to characters she’d come to know and love.

In fact, she wasn’t sure if the happy ending didn’t simply make her feel worse. It was the sort of happy ending that tied up everything neatly and never actually turned up in real life, where endings, if they happened at all, were messy, and love wasn’t always rewarded or punished: sometimes it just faded away into the background, part of the great clamoring mass of unanswered questions that eventually you just had to learn to live with if you wanted to grow up."
​
What are your feelings about reading beloved books?
Click to expand...

I don't read a lot of fiction but when I do it usually has some intertwining emotional depth.

Here are a couple I more recently read:

- The Alchemist
- The Time Travelers Daughter
- The Lovely Bones
- Illusion
- As God Commands (not religious - but also haven't finished yet).

I enjoy a good book; not so much a bad one.
 
Last edited:
Ginny said:
Here is a quote from one of my favourite books. I think it describes most closely what I feel after I have finished a book, specifically those I love the most.

"She’d stretched out reading them as long as she could, but it was May now and she’d just turned the last page of the last book. That’s all there is, she thought, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them with her arms. She felt indistinctly morose, unsettled even, as she often did when she’d finished a favorite novel. Even when the ending was happy, it was like a death or at least a going away for a long time, this having to say goodbye to characters she’d come to know and love.

In fact, she wasn’t sure if the happy ending didn’t simply make her feel worse. It was the sort of happy ending that tied up everything neatly and never actually turned up in real life, where endings, if they happened at all, were messy, and love wasn’t always rewarded or punished: sometimes it just faded away into the background, part of the great clamoring mass of unanswered questions that eventually you just had to learn to live with if you wanted to grow up."
​
What are your feelings about reading beloved books?
Click to expand...
It depends on the book/story, some can really put me in a contemplative mood and make me all spaced out.
Others tend to trigger my imagination to the point I feel like writing something myself or at the least start day dreaming about what I would do.

I really dislike books with a negative ending though, those make me feel upset, like I wasted my time. Mostly because there is enough bad stuff in the world already, I like books where despite hardships the character flourishes. After all, why go through something if the ending is going to be bad?
 
It am
Ginny said:
Here is a quote from one of my favourite books. I think it describes most closely what I feel after I have finished a book, specifically those I love the most.

"She’d stretched out reading them as long as she could, but it was May now and she’d just turned the last page of the last book. That’s all there is, she thought, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them with her arms. She felt indistinctly morose, unsettled even, as she often did when she’d finished a favorite novel. Even when the ending was happy, it was like a death or at least a going away for a long time, this having to say goodbye to characters she’d come to know and love.

In fact, she wasn’t sure if the happy ending didn’t simply make her feel worse. It was the sort of happy ending that tied up everything neatly and never actually turned up in real life, where endings, if they happened at all, were messy, and love wasn’t always rewarded or punished: sometimes it just faded away into the background, part of the great clamoring mass of unanswered questions that eventually you just had to learn to live with if you wanted to grow up."
​
What are your feelings about reading beloved books?
Click to expand...
It feels like i can finally rest my mind but yet im sad that the book is finished and i might never find another story like this ever again. The feelings and mood are no more but it will usually leave me a heartfelt moment about it.
When im reading my fave books i tend to get lost in it and imagine the situations to get a better grip of the scene, and im always intrigued by what the character's lives are like and how they interact. I would also read as much as i can as im usually immersed in the moment when im near a climax or interesting part of the story.
 
Give me a good book, and you won't see me for days. :m092:

There have been a couple times when I have skipped mealtimes because of how immersed I can be. I think the most disheartening thing is when you finish a good book and then you are like, "Meh. Back to reality."

Every year, I do like to re-visit my favorite books, and read them all in entirety again. Although you don't get that one feeling when you first read them, you will never get bored of them.
 
@JennyDaniella - I relate!

When I'm reading a good novel I will find any excuse to read, and will read for the entire day if I can.
If I am not hooked on it, I will just read before bed like a normal person.

When I finish a good book I feel withdrawal. I don't want to leave the story. Sometimes I flip back and re-read favorite passages, or look online to see if anyone has written blog posts about it, or made fan art.
If it isn't a good book, or has a terrible ending, I can't get rid of it fast enough.
 
Asa said:
@JennyDaniella - I relate!

When I'm reading a good novel I will find any excuse to read, and will read for the entire day if I can.
If I am not hooked on it, I will just read before bed like a normal person.

When I finish a good book I feel withdrawal. I don't want to leave the story. Sometimes I flip back and re-read favorite passages, or look online to see if anyone has written blog posts about it, or made fan art.
If it isn't a good book, or has a terrible ending, I can't get rid of it fast enough.
Click to expand...

This is same for me too. Sometimes it's so hard when a really good book ends! I wish the story would continue. Of course good imagination helps, sometimes continuing the story in own mind. Sad moment, lol. The fanart part!! I have always thought of being only one who googles it.
 
@flower - You are not alone. Hahaha.
I especially enjoy reading theories and thoughts about a book, but it's so much fun to look at fan art because it shows how other people envisioned the characters.

Have you ever seen the blog where the artist makes composites of famous protagonists with police sketch technology? I hardly ever agree with the outcome. The James Bond one is especially unnerving. If you search the blog there are dozens of these composites. (If you go to the archive and hover over the images it will say who the character is in the hashtags.)

http://thecomposites.tumblr.com
 
Asa said:
@flower - You are not alone. Hahaha.
I especially enjoy reading theories and thoughts about a book, but it's so much fun to look at fan art because it shows how other people envisioned the characters.

Have you ever seen the blog where the artist makes composites of famous protagonists with police sketch technology? I hardly ever agree with the outcome. The James Bond one is especially unnerving. If you search the blog there are dozens of these composites. (If you go to the archive and hover over the images it will say who the character is in the hashtags.)

http://thecomposites.tumblr.com
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree!

Nope, I haven't. Thank you for sharing, looks interesting. I looked the link you posted and I don't like James Bond one either. It's fascinating how every person can imagine things differently.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top