Lost in the Pages

I'm sure that from the standpoint of most retailers, I'm probably not the ideal consumer. I'm pretty good with the coupons, I'll drive across town to save 20 cents on a gallon of milk, and it's not uncommon for me to "visit" a product multiple times before I buy it (if I ever do). When stores use "loss leaders" to get me in the door, I love to go in and grab just those sale items and not get sucked in to any of the surrounding regularly-priced merchandise. I'm a trifle on the frugal side, is what I'm getting at.

There is one commodity for which I am the target audience, however: books. I know that when I'm writing one of these, all I really want is for "all of you" to read it and enjoy it -- whether that's engaging with my premise, nodding in recognition, or just getting a laugh. The one thing I can promise from the other side of the reading experience is that I will throw my whole self into it. Sure, I have the tendency -- exacerbated by years of blogging -- to reserve a corner of my mind for the metacritical, "am I really enjoying this? why or why not?" sort of evaluation, but on some level I'm still able to disappear into a book.

I'm also extremely brand-conscious; once I've enjoyed your book, I'm camping on your doorstep waiting for the next one. So last week I got my hands on Faye Kellerman's 20th Decker/Lazarus mystery (OK, I should probably admit that as usual I got it at the library, so in that sense I'm probably not entirely what an author is hoping for) and, having read probably the previous 19, I was ready to dive in.

I was interested by the mystery but it was the 2nd plot, the love story, that really absorbed me. I found myself rooting, trying to anticipate where it was headed next, worried that something was going to go wrong; even when I was finished I found myself wondering what would happen to these characters after the book was over (am I the only one who does that with fictional characters?).

Now it's possible I was influenced by the fact that the romantic couple were... a 15-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. When you combine my ability to pull a book up around my ears with my ceaseless fascination with my youth, I might have over-identified just a little.

Because when I started to come out of my tunnel, I started to think, wow, this is really sticking with me; I wonder what the rest of the world thought about it...

...and discovered that the world as a whole thought that the book wasn't that great. That the mystery wasn't that mysterious, and in any case got kind of short shrift. That the mystery story and the love story intersected in all too convenient ways. And all the more that maybe it wasn't too awesome to have a love story between a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old that... ah... perhaps took on more adult aspects than were strictly necessary. Not that I depend on the opinions of others to know what to think, but it was useful to get a little more rounded perspective (and maybe get my head out of my... book, a little).

We all bring our personal Stuff to whatever we read or hear or watch, even relationships with others -- or so I've heard from people who have relationships with others. But in retrospect I probably should have stayed sort of outside the book a little more. And by the way, if you happen to read the book: kids, don't try this at home.