Monday, January 31, 2011

What makes you fall in love?

I'm not talking about with a person in real life (although that could be an interesting discussion), I'm talking about falling in love with characters, a world, a plotline--with a book.



What makes you fall in love with a book or a series? We all know what that's like. The insatiable need to keep reading, to find out what happens, to breathlessly await the kiss, or the epic battle, the triumphant ending... while still wishing you could go slower and savor the wonderful world you've escaped to. It's different for different people, a book that one person just adores might be one someone else didn't like at all.



So what is it for you? What are some of the books at the top of your list? Books you wish you could have the pleasure of rereading as though it were the first time all over again? I'd love to know!

16 comments:

Mary E Campbell said...

I just finished rereading Anne Of Green Gables - again - I'm not sure how many times I've read it, but as soon as I finished I wanted to pick up the second book and read it again too.
The thing is I didn't love this book when I was young. I thought it was boring until I grew up a little. Sometimes it takes a little maturity to really love something. I love the way L.M. Montgomery makes everything feel alive. A house, a brook, a meadow. She makes me see things differently - I love when a book does that.
I love Anne - I want to be Anne or be best friends with Anne - books that make me want to be the character and want to know the character - get me every time.
I like how I feel when I read it. I feel good. I feel inspired to do good.
If a book can make me want to be a better person without preaching - I love it.

I need range of emotion. I want some laughter, some tears, some heartbreak, some love - definitely some love. And some inspiration.

Stephanie McGee said...

I wish I could go back and read Jane Eyre before having it spoiled for me by general knowledge. To experience the highs and lows with Jane again.

Harry Potter. David Eddings' books. Tamora Pierce's books.

I need to be able to empathize with a character in some way. I felt for the MC in Mandy Hubbard's "You Wish."

But another book that was and is hugely popular had an MC that I couldn't care less about. She was the high school queen bee and I just couldn't like her. I read a chapter and put the book down.

Shari said...

I don't know. There are so many! But I love character-driven stories. There's just something about getting to know a character and feeling their experiences as if they were your own.

Melody said...

There's lots! But the ones I could read over and over and over again, still savoring every word, are the Attolia stories (THE THIEF, THE QUEEN OF ATTOLIA, THE KING OF ATTOLIA, A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS) by Megan Whale Turner. The plots are intricate, always with a huge twist at the end that the book really has revealed but you didn't notice. The dialogue is brilliant, witty, naturally sarcastic. Her voice, her characters, her plotting...*swoons from admiration*

*revives* Yeah, well. They're really good. I could read them over and over. I have, actually. But I would read them over again. :)

Angie said...

There are too many to name. I just finished All Clear by Connie Willis. Those characters felt totally real to me. I grieved for their sorrows, and rejoiced in their joys. I think that's what makes me fall in love. Characters so compelling you forget their only fictional.

Unknown said...

I put a book down last night that I was just not falling in love with. It's a buzz book, so I read a good third hoping it would happen, but it didn't. So true how one person can love something and the next person, not.

Cristin Terrill said...

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I've determined that the common denominator for me is a book that sucks me in so completely that the real world kind of falls away. I know, duh. But the books I go back to again and again - even if I think the prose is dull or the plot is clumsy or whatever - are a total escape.

They accomplish that in different ways. Either there's very compelling world-building, characters I care about more than the average, or the tension just doesn't let up and makes me keep turning the pages. Most of my favorite books have all three, but even one is usually enough to suck me in.

So, yeah, it sounds pretty obvious, but the books that make me fall in love with them are the ones that are really well written. :)

ali cross said...

It's funny because what I love in literature isn't really what I write. Maybe that's the key of it for me--maybe I won't find success until my voice matches my love. Anyway, I love The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay ~ the whole thing is just ... so ... beautiful. Poignant, heart wrenching, triumphant.

And I've loved pretty much everything by Jo Graham, a relatively new author of adult literary fiction.

So yeah. Poetry in prose - thats' what i LOVE.

Andrea Mack said...

It's hard to put my finger on what it is that makes me fall in love with a book, because I think it's different for each one. Sometimes it's the character, sometimes the story. A really good book makes me feel like I'm living in the story.

Carolyn V. said...

Great writing and lots of action (or tension), that keeps me in love with a book. =)

Hannah said...

I wish I could pinpoint it to one thing. Great story, engaging characters, phenomenal mind blowing writing...the usual. :D

Natascha said...

My absolute favorite author is Carolyn Jewel - all of her works are amazing and I honestly believe it's her writing style. I'm pulled into her details and emotions. I just want to start the books all over again once I'm done with them.

Amie Borst said...

I LOVED The Hunger Games trilogy and would love to read it again like it was the first time... :) But the one that truly changed the literary world for me was an 11th grade reading assignment - Lost Horizon. And of course, i still love the classics and anything by Ray Bradbury and Anne McCaffry. i'm itching to go to the library now!

Missed Periods said...

I was just thinking about that the other day. There are a handful of authors who, after I read one of their books, I had to read them all. I asked myself what it was that made me fall in love with them, but I think it was different for each one.

Janiel Miller said...

Round, full characters with whom I love spending my days. And a fully realized world. Topped by a whip-snapping plot. So, duh, a perfect book. :) I've been trying to get through an old classic that has the characters and the world, and gorgeous writing--but is SO PLODDING in it's plot that I can't keep going. So I read it in five minute segments. In the bathroom.

On the other hand, many of the books listed here put me on the couch for a day, throwing crackers at the kids and telling them they'd get the rest of the meal in a minute . . .

Regina said...

I don't know what it is that makes me fall in love and you know the funny thing is...most of the time I fall for the guy in the triangle that the MC doesn't pick. I root for the underdog in most cases hoping, no...pining for the MC to realize they made a mistake and to go for the other one. Not sure why, but that's what mostly happens to me.