There’s No Wrong Way to Read!
I had an appointment with a new dentist. I was stretched out on the chair, with my quill-and-inkwell ankle tattoo on full display. This new dentist complimented me on it. “Are you a writer?”
“Yes,” I answered—and then we spent the next 20 minutes talking about books! My books, the books she loves to read, how she reads with her daughters, how she thinks she’s the only one who doesn’t have a book in her.
“But,” she then confesses, “I always read the endings first.” She admits the anxiety of a story can be too much for her, so she likes to know what she’s getting herself into. “I know it’s wrong,” she says. “My friends say I’m being disrespectful to the author by not reading it the way they wrote it.”
And to that I said, “it’s not wrong! It’s your reading experience! You can come at a book any way you want.”
It’s true that most of us don’t like to be spoiled before the end—we want the intensity of emotion as the book builds to its climax. But so what if you read it differently? There is no right way to read a book, not when it’s just you and the pages in front of you.
It’s a great reminder that if there’s no right way to write, there’s also no wrong way to read.
(Bonus? Our chat postponed my dental drama by a few precious minutes!)