In The Act of Reading Along

Reading is a solitary act in adulthood.  That is one of the great benefits of being a reader, you needent any friends or additional influences to entertain yourself.  We read silently, in corners of café’s and in worn overstuffed arm chairs.  We drink a beverage of choice and munch happily on popcorn or carrot sticks.  We read in our own worlds, so that we can fully explore the worlds in our books.

Henry getting down with some kid lit on his own.

When I embarked upon an informal Read-A-Long with Mr. Kaleb Nation I didn’t question the act of reading at someone elses pace (is that spelled wrong?  It looks wrong… grrr I need my spell check back!).  I have, afterall, spent the better part of my life reading what I was told, when I was told to.  I am accustomed to taking breaks in books- it is infact a habit which I cannot seem to beak post-Graduation.  So I didn’t question reading along with Mr. Kaleb as he explores Maggie Stievater’s Shiver.  I thought it would be nice to have an immediate response to the material I just read.  It’s almost like going to class, and just listening to the conversation.

But it’s hard!

Reading with someone else is highly frustrating.  I say this not trying to demean Mr. Kaleb’s speed, for he has a life too, but this is taking freaking forever.  Shiver is by no means a book of high literary merit, it’s chapters are three or four pages long and after 8 chapters I’m averaging about 2-2.5 pages a minute (twice my normal reading speed), meaning in 2 weeks Ive read about 15 minutes worth of this book.  When I hit the last page of the last chapter for that week I am struck with the same emotion I had when we were forced to read in class in elementary school.  Intellectually I could, and can, understand the slow nature of other’s reading, but UUUHHHHHGGHGHGHGHG- HURRY UP!  All I can say is at least it’s not popcorn reading.

[Sidenote: For a really interesting article about popcorn reading CLICK HERE.  I am not the only person who thinks it's evil.]

As for the book itself, 8 chapters in I’m thinking Shiver is going to take a while to get used to.  With multiple narrators (thankfully clearly defined at the chapters onset) you’re getting a lot of different stories about the same events.  Which would be great, if I could keep track of what events were happening (HURRY UP ALREADY!)- I think a rereading may be in order at the end of this experiment.  I like the voices, they seem decently real, thought I want to know if anyone can write a good YA drama without really messed up parents.  I mean, most of the parents I’ve ever known were pretty alright, and the kids with messed up parents weren’t falling all over themselves to get involved with supernatural folks- as far as I know.  I’m also saddened that YA books always seem to have strained peer relationships.  While I know that the teen years are ripe with strife about friendships and personal development and all of the things that give us the YA genre, I had fantastic friends in high school, who for the most part not only changed my life for the better, but also got carried into my adult world- these are the people I call in the middle of the night, and I’m hoping that literature is once again illustrating the exception and I am the rule.

Well, back to reading I go… Hurry up Mr. Kaleb!  PLEASE!

P.S.   It’s not too late to join Mr. Kaleb in his Shiver adventure.  Grab a copy of Shiver and check out the ShiverGuy website.