The last time I wrote about reading, I was worried I might not be able to engross myself in a book the same way I have before. Dear reader, to my delight, that worry was unfounded—as I also speculated at the time. On Saturday I finished the Red Queen tetralogy (yes, I had to look up that word too, four books), a journey I had only began two weeks prior. Now that I think about it, I think all of the four books actually took pretty exactly two weeks, I think I began reading on a Saturday evening as well.
I ended up enjoying the books quite thoroughly, even if it felt that they were part of a rather familiar pattern at this point and I still have mixed feelings about the decision to include several perspectives in the later books. Yes, there is undoubtedly merit to it, and there were certainly characters it gave me a greater appreciation for, but it still felt like a diversion a lot of the time. As for the familiar pattern, the book felt very reminiscent of others like Hunger Games or Divergent (basing that somewhat on the movies, haven’t actually ended up reading those books, but still). This isn’t a bad thing, just something to be aware of if you end up considering reading these books. They also felt very young adult, which I think is exactly what I need at the moment, but also something to be aware of.
The only problem I have now, which I ended up feeling after finishing Pillars of Eternity II as well, is that odd void that appears after having spent such a long time in another world I can no longer enter. It of course opens the way for new and interesting experiences in the future, especially since I know again that this is something I can still do if I find the right book for it, but there is still a certain sadness to every end that makes it somewhat difficult to begin something new in order to avoid that feeling.
Thinking back, that might have been the reason I have had such difficulty reading before this, simply the fear I suppose of loss that comes when leaving these worlds that end up feeling almost more like home than the real one for a short while. It probably also doesn’t help that I still have several books that I started reading but never finished, partially because they are a part of unfinished series that I decided to wait for to be finished so that I could devour them more efficiently at my own pace instead of waiting for the author, but also partially because for whatever reason those books didn’t end up resonating with me on a sufficient level for me to just read through them, simultaneously making every new book I began a betrayal to the unfinished ones, making it ever more difficult to enjoy new books. I will probably have to take another look at my backlog of started books and reconsider if I truly do want to read them, and if not actually mentally check them of my todo list so that they don’t end up haunting me in the future, learning to let go as it were.