What Mike's Reading

Wow. I am not sure anything I write here will fully grasp how I feel about this book. It is by far the largest book I’ve ever read (almost 900 pages) and yet as I was reading the last few pages, I couldn’t help but think, “wait I don’t want it to end yet!”

I won’t go too much into any details that might spoil things, and “epic” feels like a word that gets thrown around for anything that is impressive – but I think that is a good word to describe it. Epic, because it was impressive. Epic, because it was such a big/long story. But also, epic because it was a massive, sprawling adventure taking place over many years. A modern-day fantasy adventure with characters that you really feel you get to know – characters that you witness growing up before your eyes.

And just when you think – oh this is the main plot of the story, the adventure takes you someplace else, and you may not see some characters for a long, long, while. Just like with life.

I went into this book 100% blind. I did not read one synopsis or summary about the plot. All I knew is that it was a fairly new book, and that it was by Joe Hill, an author who I have enjoyed in the past. There were parts in the book where I thought I figured out what the title meant. I was wrong.

Maybe the cover should have been a bit of a clue.

But, I am glad I didn’t know anything. Glad I went into and started reading this book. This massive book. It felt like I was almost reading a series of books about these characters – it just so happened that I was doing it all at once in one tome.

Whenever I finish a book, I pretty much start my next one right away. But, this one is going to stick with me for a while. These characters are going to stick with me for a while – even if a lot of them aren’t that likable. They felt real to me.

I read most of this while on vacation in Florida visiting my mother-in-law. Read it outside her house. Read it at her pool. Read it at the beach. Read it when she and my wife wanted to keep shopping. Read. Read. Read. Read.

And now it’s gone, and for the first time in a while I’ve read a book where I don’t want it to be gone. I saw recently that the book as been optioned for a TV series. So, if that happens, at least I get to relive a version of the story and these characters.

Though at that point, will I start picturing the actors from the series instead of the faces in my head? That’s one of the coolest things about books. You get a thousand people to read a book, a million, ten million, and while they are all reading the same story – none of them have the same movie playing in their heads.

Maybe they’re picturing the same type of person, or the same actor’s face (I do that sometimes. Some characters are very specifically an actor or actress, while other characters are just a certain type I picture) – but every reader has their own unique experience just for them. Different from every other reader. Even different from the writer.

I love that about reading.

But I’ll still watch the show…