The Three Book Curse

  

          This week’s blog may seem a little bit far-fetched but I need you to hear me out. I’ve made a discovery that I believe may prove the existence of dark voodoo magic in the book world. Maybe. It’s just a theory, and feel free to yell at me down in the comments section but it would be morally wrong not to let you in on such a major scientific revelation.

     

       So here it is: I believe that the third book in every dystopian series is cursed. I really do think that there is some kind of mystical nonsense going on here because no matter how untouchable an author may seem, as soon as they release that long-anticipated third and final novel, the entire series seems to just crumble into the dirt.

   

         Okay, so maybe that’s a little harsh. But seriously, I haven’t in a very long time read the third book in a trilogy and thought: ‘Yes, that was brilliant. That met all of my expectations and more!’ Every time I get my eager trembling hands on that final book the same thing happens: I buy it, so ridiculously enthusiastic to embark on what I am sure will be the most glorious, eye-opening, heart-stopping adventure I have ever been on and by the time I’m finished all I can think is… Meh.

  

          But, this wouldn’t be science without a little evidence now would it? Well, sadly I can provide you with quite a lot. The best example I have of this would be Suzanne Collins’ ‘Hunger Games: Mockingjay . The series had so much promise. Everyone was talking about it! When the second book came out the whole world was setting itself alight with ‘Catching Fire’ excitement. Walk into any high-school during the hunger games craze and I can guarantee you would see at least five three-finger salutes, seven Katniss braids and two furious battles over who was best: Finnick, Gale or Peeta? But sadly, after everyone had finally blazed their way through the third and final book there was an overwhelming sense of disappointment.

  

          The book wasn’t bad by any means but, let’s face it, it wasn’t great. It wasn’t the shining golden trophy of a book that everyone had been waiting for, more a 3^rd place bronze medal. Bronze is okay, it’s still winning, but it isn’t exactly… desirable. At first everyone was shell-shocked. How could this possibly be? We began to grieve. Pretending it hadn’t happened. Denying with all our might that the book might be anything less than wonderful, amazing, golden. But, now that some time has passed, I think we can accept it – it really wasn’t very good.

   

         Why though? Why wasn’t it very good? Lauren Oliver’s ‘Requiem’, Veronica Roth’s ‘Allegiant’, Scott Westerfield’s ‘Specials’, Malorie Blackman’s ‘Checkmate’,  Ally Condie’s ‘Reached’…   The list goes on. How is it that so many promising series’ could plunge so horrifically into mediocrity?

  

          Maybe there is too much pressure on the writer to finish well? Once you’ve written two of the most astounding books you’ve ever written it must be very difficult to muster the same incredible amount of writing-brilliance from inside to do it for a third and final time. How in the world do you come up with an ending that will do the series any justice? Everyone’s watching and waiting for you to write a book so good that it could compete with the bible in greatness. How the hell do you do it? You don’t. Maybe it’s impossible.

           But as I professor in the science of reading I have done my research and I know that this just doesn’t prove true. No, the blame for this book-based tragedy should not be placed on the writer but, in fact, on us, the reader. It is our fault. We just get too darn excited!

  

          We can’t help ourselves, especially with the dystopian genre! It’s new and modern with juicy plotlines and gorgeous love-interests. When books are this good, how can we help ourselves? Besides, it’s fun to get all hyped up! Dystopian fiction seems to be able to create a buzz like no other genre. Entire communities are formed in appreciation for the series’, stocked with enough fanart to put London’s National Gallery to shame.

   

         But we get so carried away with all our excitement that we accidentally give the series impossible, unreachable expectations. Two great books is enough to pull down the galaxy and put stars in our eyes. If the first and second books were that good then the third book has to be even better! The third book will be the book to end all books! Right?

    

        Wrong. It’s our greatest downfall. We fall in love with a series so deeply and passionately that we inadvertently destroy anything that could possibly come next. We crown writers as royalty when really all they are is just a few normal chaps and chapettes who quite like writing stories.

           We are the voodoo doctors who inflicted such a terrible, terrible curse. And we are the only ones who can fix things. We have to stop ruining things for ourselves. I’m not saying don’t get so excited, I’m just saying, put it in perspective.  Realise that what you want may not be the same as what the writer imagines and try and accept that. And if it really is awful that doesn’t have to be the end - Re-write for yourself! Fanficiton is the ultimate way to both get excited over a series and get exactly what you want out of it! It’s fun too!

  

          And with that, I close my scientific case. The research has been done, the experiment carried out and the evaluation written. It’s time to take my lab-coat off and put up my feet. But next time you start a new dystopian series be careful. Only you can save us from the terrible, frightening, Three Book Curse.

            

            

How to Cure the Reading Slump

The reading slump: a disease, exclusive to readers only, in which one cannot get their face stuck into any books for a stupidly long period of time. Symptoms of the reading slump include loss of interest, total boredom and an overwhelming desire to hit one’s self in the face with a large hardback from the cookery section.

        Yes folks, the reading slump, it happens to the best of us and it happens to the worst. It’s hideous, entirely unavoidable and up until now, thought to be incurable, but I’m here to make all of that change! Use my newly discovered method and you’ll be out of bed with your hardback-harry-potter bruises fading away in no time. So, let’s put our lab-coats on, grab our stethoscopes and get right down to the bottom of this horrific illness. Doctor Evie - reporting for duty.

  

       Firstly, why does the reading slump even happen? The disease seems so random and spiteful that even the most wiggly bookworms (I mean the kind of people who can flip between Charles Dickens and Diary Of a Wimpy Kid without even a couple minutes break to make a cup of tea) could easily be infected. You can wash your hands all you like, but there seems to be nothing stopping you from being poisoned as well. Or is there?

Well, if my research proves true, the slump is most likely to thrive in those who place too much pressure on themselves. Don’t force yourself to read! In fact, that’s probably one of the worst things you can do. There’s nothing worse than pressing yourself to crawl through a long, monotonous book just because you think you have to! Who cares if Johnny, Greg and Tabitha have all read ‘The Great Gatsby’ and you haven’t? Who cares if you don’t know what the hell an ‘Avox’ even is? Who cares?!

This substance may be of detriment
to your health. 

 Read because you want to, not because you feel you have to and I promise the slump won’t be hiding round your bookshelves any time soon. This, I think, is why the slump always hits me hardest when I’m trying to get through a novel for English class. Sadly, English class reading cannot be helped and this is when we need the cure! Cue Evie's medical science! 

        So, here you are. You’re sitting on the couch with your old battered school copy of ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ for the sixth time that week; you’ve just read the same sentence about sixteen times over when you decide you’ve had enough. You go to find a different book from your bedroom, but you’re not really sure what you’re looking for. You must have started and gave up on five different books before you realise… you’ve got it. The slump has hit, you are infected.

   

I prescribe one dose of Vampire
Fiction. To be taken twice
daily. 

      Sadly in this case, my first curing method– to read something different that you actually want to read - has not worked. Sometimes a simple change of pace can get you speeding along again but not this time. We will be using method number two – re-reading. Though a book may not be so riveting the second time around, re-reading still provides a comfortable experience with book you know for a fact that you like. It doesn’t take too much effort and attention and because you’re certain to enjoy it your reading enthusiasm will be boosted enough to take on any library.

  

       With a sigh, you pick up your old blue copy of ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ and settle back down for a long-haul read. But, to your horror, not even Augustus Waters can perk you up anymore. This calls for some drastic action!

  

       Method number 3: The bookshop. Immersing yourself in a place so thick with scent of stories and characters can be enough to make your page-turning hand start to itch. The bookshop is magical. I don’t know about you but I always get excited buying a new book, in fact, I get so psyched that I always have to start my new book as soon as I get home. You buy something new, trying your best to get buzzed over your purchase, and nervously make your way home. Surely this will get you nose back between the pages of a book?

 

Quarantine Zone. 

        Nope. It hasn’t worked. You’re back on the couch, ready to burn your bookshelf to the ground. I have only one more method left. It is the simplest, most effective, yet probably the most ignored method that there is:

   

      Just stop. Let it go. Put the book down and walk away. It may take a day, a week, or even only an hour but I promise you that eventually you’ll regain your appetite for words and paper and stories once again.  You need to make reading fun again for yourself and this is never going to happen when you’re trying to make yourself read when, obviously, you don’t really want to.

  

       Uncommonly known fact about the slump: It can smell fear. So, the longer you fret and worry over the slump’s horrific symptoms, the longer the slump will trap you in its vice-like grip. Forget about it, stop worrying. It’s inconvenient and annoying, yes, but it isn’t the end of the world – you’ll survive. Soon enough you’ll get your hands on something so good that it’ll be all you can do not to swallow it up in one day or less. Because the best cure for the read slump, is really very simple – time.

   

      And with that I conclude my scientific research. May all those suffering from the illness be benefited and healed by my discovery. Doctor Evie is over and out.

Nostalgia Reading

  

Gross. 

          If you have been keeping up with me on my twitter and facebook accounts, or read last week’s blog post (a review of Dash and Lily's Book of Dares) then you will know how much I love Christmas time! The cold, the food, the family… All of it – there isn’t a bit I don’t like (Except for mandatory Christmas dinner sprouts…)! But, I think my favourite part of Christmas is that lovely feeling of nostalgia that gets unboxed with all of the festive decorations. Christmas, for me, is a time to remember. I am the youngest of five (I know… How did I survive?) But seeing as all my siblings have grown up and left home for university, jobs and life in general, the only time we are all together in one place as a unit is Christmas. Despite the constant teasing they like to bring home as an early gift, it really is lovely to see them and quite often we spend long evenings after dinner, remembering all our different stories from growing up together.

           So, what with being in the Christmas spirit and all, that’s what I think I’m going to do with you all today – remember. I want to take a little trip down memory lane of some of the most important books to me growing up and just celebrate the fact that they existed, because without them I probably wouldn’t be here writing this blog now. Let’s get right down to it!

            Where should we start..? I think we ought to go right back to the very beginning and talk about one of my absolute favourite picture books – ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ by Roald Dahl. For those of you who don’t know, ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ is a book about a very boastful crocodile (obviously… It wasn’t going to be a giraffe, was it?) who absolutely loves to eat children. The story follows all his attempts at doing just that.

 As a kid, I never realised just how weird and twisted ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ really was, I was just happy to be read a story with such great illustrations. When I was five my oldest sister (and main babysitter) was nineteen and she had a love for creepy things, which is why she always read me this book in particular. I remember quite vividly that every time she read the book to me in bed, she would make little innocent baby me put on my creepiest, most disturbing voice and read the line: “if you listen carefully, you can hear their bones go munch and crunch”… Sister, I blame you for any strange child-eating behaviour I may develop as an adult! Than you very much. 

            As I grew up a little bit and became much too mature and sophisticated for picture books and Quentin Blake illustrations (Though, I never did truly outgrow his wonderful pictures…) I suddenly decided that I wanted to read all sorts of ‘classic’ books - the older, the better. My lovely Mum took it upon herself to go rooting through our most ancient belongings to find me her copy of ‘Nancy and Plum’. Yes, it was beaten and brown with age, but it had been my Mum’s favourite when she was a kid and that was enough to launch eight-year-old me into the first chapter. It truly is a gorgeously sweet book, following the story of two orphan sisters, Nancy and Plum, at Mrs Monday’s wretched boarding school. The story starts in a barn on a snowy Christmas Eve (the most charming setting I think I’ve ever read) and every time I read it, it just makes my heart swell. Ever since I first picked it up, I have read it at least once per year at Christmas time and the book holds so much nostalgia for me now that I can’t help but cry when reading its festive goodness!

  

          It wasn’t too long after that that I came across my first ever ‘banned’ book. It was my older brother who told me that I wasn’t allowed to read ‘Angela and Diabola’ by Lynne Reid-Banks. Apparently, the story was horrifically, inappropriately disturbing – especially for a tiny ginger-haired kid like me – and I was not, under any circumstances, to read it. He practically gave it the kiss of death. Of course, as soon as he seemed to have finished with it, I snuck into his room and stole it from his bedside table.

 I read secretly for the next two days, devouring the words with a mischievous smile on my face. It was a children’s book, but in truth it was dark! It was all about a young couple and their difficulty bringing up their two twin girls – one was the most perfect girl in the world, and one the most evil. The book certainly was a change from my usual sunshine fairies and ice princesses and I loved every single bit of it. I went on to read it a countless number of times, happily rereading it between every other book. It may have been just to spite my older brother, but I know for a fact that if he hadn’t forbidden me from reading ‘Angela and Diabola’, I never would have read it.

  

          Those were three of the most important books of my childhood, the ones that even now when I read them I feel that same familiar burst of excitement that I did when I was younger. These books have helped shape my personality and my reading tastes and I just love each one of them so much. I know that when I am an adult, and I have munchkins of my own, that I will read them these books and maybe they’ll like them just as much as I did. Either way, there’s something about these books that just makes me feel so nostalgic and Christmassy that it’s all I can do not to have a little bit of a weepy moment.

  

         Anyway! I’m getting all emotional now, so I best go find something a bit cheerier to do, sip eggnog or roll around in some tinsel or somethin… But, I’d love continue this conversation down in the comments! I want to hear all about your nostalgic books! Which books hold the most memories for you? Tweet me, facebook me – I’d love to know.

            And to all the rest of you – Have a very merry Christmas!