The Bad Side of Re-Reading
Are you a re-reader? I am such a big fan of re-reading. I absolutely love a good re-read. I have been doing a lot more re-reads in the last year, since the start of the pandemic. Probably because I find re-reads really comforting. But also in this past year I have realised there is definitely a bad side of re-reading. Before I go onto tell you all about the bad side of re-reading, here’s some of the books I have re-read in the past year.
I absolutely loved re-reading some of these over the past year. It made me realise all the things I love about re-reading (falling for the characters all over again, picking up on new information) but it also made me realise some of the bad things about re-reading.
WARNING: Spoilers about some of the above 5 books present in this post! Read with caution!
You May Not Love It As Much As Last Time
This one is without a doubt one of the worst things about re-reading. When you first read a book you have no idea what’s going to happen with the plot. You are so taken away with the twists and turns and all the revelations. It’s exciting! When you re-read, all of that is missing because you know exactly what is going to happen. Sometimes when you don’t have that the book just isn’t as exciting as you remember and you’re left disappointed.
For me the book where this happened was Vicious by VE Schwab. Now, I adore this book. The first time I read it, I fell head over heels with VE Schwab’s writing style and I just couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen. This time around I was just a little bored and deflated. I just didn’t enjoy it quite as much and I was super disappointed.
You Know What Is Going To Happen
Okay, I know you’re probably thinking this is a good thing. This is why you re-read because you already know how everything is going to happen but sometimes it can be detrimental. Sometimes it can make the book less exciting. For example, when I re-read Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh I just felt like the book pacing was a little bit slower than I originally felt. It was a little bit slower and it affected my enjoyment a little.
With Covenant, the detrimental effect was I knew when the sad bits were coming. For example, when you know Caleb is about to die or Alex is about to lose herself, I would start crying and being heartbroken chapters and chapters before anything even happened!
Your Reading Experience May Be Changed By Others’ Opinions
Sometimes, if you have talked about the book or series with a lot of people since reading it originally, or have seen lots of opinions by others online when you’re re-reading it you may take those thoughts with you into the new read. This is probably a bad thing about me personally, rather than with re-reading in general. I am really bad at letting people, and what they have said, get in my head.
An example of when this happened personally for me was with From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout. Jennifer runs a very active Facebook Spoiler group for this series and when I re-read I found I focused on things I never would have if I hadn’t seen all these comments about it in there. This didn’t affect my enjoyment in this case but I’m sure it could in the future with other books. I now try to stay out of said groups and just interpret books as I want to!
Do you enjoy re-reading? Is there anything that you would say is bad about it? Let me know in the comments.
K-Books
I’m Kayleigh, a teacher and blogger who is obsessed with all things bookish. I love reading YA books of all genres and I am happiest when sharing my love and passion for books.