Have you ever had the experience of reading a book once and then, upon second reading, you read it differently? I call them Groundhog Day books, because, like the movie, the plot is the same but your reactions to it vary.
It's especially noticeable with books we read as children. Think about a book you read as a kid, and ask yourself: what would I get from it now? It would possibly feel out of date, or a plot point would make you think, "That would never happen!" The fact is that you are no longer seven years old and you approach life differently as an adult, so of course the book feels different. You are not the same as you once were.
I just dealt with this experience. I run an employee book club here at Scholastic, and January’s pick was Stolen by Lucy Christopher. It is the story of Gemma, a sixteen year old girl who is stolen from a Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian outback by Ty. The story is written as a letter to her captor. (If you haven’t yet read it, I highly recommend it!) I read it right as it came out in 2010...and then, I read it again, just a few weeks ago.
I enjoyed the story both times but in a different way. *SPOILERS AHEAD*
They tell you that your whole life changes when you have children. And it’s true. It does. I believed them. I just never thought it would change the way I read a book. The first time I read Stolen, I focused on what Gemma felt and how I would feel in that same situation. When I read it again, I kept thinking about how Gemma’s parents felt knowing that their daughter was gone and having no real answers to their questions. I winced when Ty told Gemma that her parents didn’t care about her. It was heart wrenching to have Gemma wonder if it was true. Yes, all of the same words and sentences were in the book the first time I read it. I even reread the same copy that I did the first time. There was only one thing that was different: Me. Like Morgan said in her post about the books that come back to us, we change as readers, and it influences our reading reactions and tastes.
Before, I was someone’s daughter who was at one time a sixteen year old girl and read books from that perspective. Now I am a person with my own daughters who will one day be sixteen year old girls. While before I may have thought how terrible it must be for your child to be missing...now I can tap into an actual fear. I don’t have to imagine what it would be like to love someone in that way. I know exactly how it feels. That changes you as all life experiences do; even if you didn’t expect it.
Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever read a book that made you feel completely different the second time that you read it?
