a good read

anyone who knows me will know that i'm obsessed with fiction.  as i wrote earlier this week, fiction isn't easy for me to write, but it's what i love.  it's no surprise then, that fiction is what i lean towards in my reading preferences as well.

books are a comfort to me.  they can be a vice, yes, because i will always use them as a way to procrastinate, but they 're also an invaluable stress reliever and an escape, a channel for frustration and a blanket to pull over my head when the frustration of school or work or life in general just won't go away.

i can remember the first book i ever read and enjoyed ("the curse of the mummy" by r.l. stein).  i can remember the first series i read ("the fear street saga" by r.l. stein), because even then i needed that continuation, that update on the lives in the characters after their stories ended.  these books, which probably won't be immortalized in the grand scheme of things, taught me how some authors could grab my attention while others couldn't.  i can't honestly say that i read the most stunning literary works that ever existed -- even now, when fear street and christopher pike are far behind me.  lord know that i'll never read most of the "classics," and it's not because i don't appreciate them.  they just don't appeal to my imagination in ways that the books i love do.

i love the exploration of relationships.  parents and children.  siblings.  friends and rivals.  lovers.  i love that exchange of words that you can read and know that that's exactly how it would have played out in your head.  it's those same words you would have screamed when you got fired, the laugh that would have escaped from your own lips at some snide remark, the anger you would have felt clawing past the hurt and shock when you were betrayed.

i love the setting of a scene.  when a room you read is perfect in every way, and you can sketch it out if you had to, when you can see the city as the character sees the city, when the details are all there for you to pick and choose from.  i love when there's flexibility enough for you to change what suits you, when the expressions, or the distracted movements of a character are so the way you see them, that these people, this situation, this world is as real to you as any other.

this is where i escape when i need to. i pick up the problems of my favorite fictional person because i know that in three hours, when i finally finish their story, the problem would have been solved and the world would have been righted again.

there's just enough drama to satisfy my need for conflict, and there, at the very end, is that ever reliable and eternal resolution.