Book reviews have been light around these parts because I have been reading a lot of bad books.

You don’t have to call them bad books if you don’t want to. You could call them “fun reading” or “trashy books.” You could call them “books that just weren’t for me.” If you are a librarian, you could call them “books for readers that aren’t me.”

I’m just going to call them bad books because they don’t meet my (arbitrary) standards for literature. Characters that are well-drawn and multifaceted. A plot that is no more than 25% completely predictable. Language that is deliberate, clear, and inventive. Some distinguishing feature – voice, perspective, setting, whatever, anything that sets a book apart from the rest of books-like-that-book.

I used to think my standards were pretty low, but maybe years and years of reading wide + deep develops your palate a little, subconsciously.  Read more about that in this post. It’s not necessarily a good thing for me, as a reader: I don’t fall for books as easily as I once did, I don’t get hyped up about new authors, I don’t take “reading risks” as often.

And it makes reading bad books feel worse. Question to the masses: is there such thing as “hate reading?” I brought this up on Twitter and apparently “hate watching” is a common TV phenomenon; you watch a television program not because you find it to be good entertainment, not because you find it fun in a campy, awful kind of way (see: Glee, Gray’s Anatomy, American Idol), but because you actually despise the show and everything it represents (see: Real Housewives of Anywhere, 16 & Pregnant, any other reality show that is somewhat exploitative of the lower class or exalts/exposes the upper class) (there is a good Marxist thesis idea somewhere in there) (I am getting distracted).

Anyway, I read bad books sometimes, but I don’t like it. I roll my eyes. I sigh. I read awful passages out loud to whoever is nearby. I think wistful thoughts about the books I wish I was reading instead. But I keep reading for a particular professional purpose, or to keep abreast with trends, or to see what some controversy is really about. I don’t like it. I am watching the upswing of self-published books in certain sub-genres, and while I think that the rise of eReaders has made the 99 cent downloadable romance an easy and cheap choice for readers, if you keep coming back, then it’s possible you like reading bad books in a way that I do not.

Do these readers deserve some shitty books to read? Librarian Jessica says, I suppose so.

But that doesn’t mean they are “good books.”

That doesn’t mean that I have to say something nice about them.

I guess I should restrain myself and not start a blog devoted entirely to compiling first-person descriptions of kissing that gross me out. Is there any way to describe a good kiss other than “He/she kissed me.” Maybe one optional adjective to follow. Maybe. If you follow it with a metaphor, I will roll my eyes and what kills the mood faster than an eye-roll (See: Girls season 2 episode 1). If you describe it in great detail, I will likely gag because the physical description of kissing is kind of gross. There should be no mention of passions burning bright as the sun, a choir of angels singing. I wish I was making this up for effect and not looking through my latest bad book, I really do.

This is a line I walk as a reader/reviewer/librarian – between exploring books and shutting them out, description and judgment, personal taste and literary merit. I don’t always land on the professional side of the fence, but I try. And I think it’s important to stand up for books that are excellent, books that make all the other books want to try harder, books that are so great and different that they mix up the paradigm. I read for me, yes, I read for fun and for a number of other reasons, but I also read so I can share what I find. That’s just the kind of reader I am.

If that’s the case, I should probably start reading some good books sometime soon, no? More on that tomorrow…