Thanks to Jen B. for submitting this interesting take on rereading:
Sarah: It’s like the opposite of “in case of emergency, break glass” books – the “a perfect experience, place this behind glass”This is very random, but I thought of a topic for the SBTB editors to bat around: I know you’ve done comfort reads and favorite re-reads, but does anyone have a book that you read at such a perfect time in your life that you won’t re-read it, because it will never be as good? I had just moved to a new state, the pandemic lockdowns started the day after I arrived, I was in a half-furnished apartment, and I read Evvie Drake Starts Over. It was such a gentle, healing novel about finding yourself, and it was exactly what I needed. While I’m a big novel re-reader, I’ve never touched this one again because I don’t think it will ever hit me with that much force again. Does anyone else have a book like this? Or is this a me thing?
In college we had a tiny shelf of popular novels (it was a tiny school) and there were occasional Elizabeth Lowell, Amanda Quick and Nora Roberts novels. Maybe 4? Not many.
But one day I picked up Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons.
I don’t remember a single thing about this book except the tranquil and hopeful feelings that it left me with when I was done
If I went back now 30 years later, this book might not work for me at all. I just remember the experience of having it ease a considerable amount of stress at a time when I needed comfort.
I’ve never read it again.
Amanda: TW for depression
I’m not a re-reader typically, so I think this is an interesting way to view the decision not to reread books. I do worry that some of my favorites won’t hold up and I’m fine to just preserve that singular reading experience in my mind.
For me, I think I’d pick The Bride by Julie Garwood for my top spot of “perfect experience place behind this glass.” I was really deep into my depression and it was the year I read 212 books because all I did was read and make daily trips to pick up my library holds. (Shout out to the Alachua County library and their amazing Friends of the Library sales.) I really lost myself in this book and it gave my bad brain such a distinctive restful break. I’m perfectly okay with freezing that experience in time.
Sneezy: Oh dang, this is such a good question.
Sarah: Amanda, yes – exactly that. I was miserable and stressed and lonely and that book turned all that off for a while.
Sneezy: It’s not until I was thinking about this question that I realized I don’t want to reread Pride and Prejudice. The first time I read the book, it was a translated version edited for children. I did try when my English got better. I was excited to read a famous author in her native language, especially a book I had such fond memories of, but was never able to read more than a few pages. I felt guilty about it for a while, because it felt like a book I was ‘supposed’ to read and one I know I like. Reading what Jen, Sarah, and Amanda wrote made me realize it wasn’t a matter of want, but can’t. Of all the books I read before my family moved to Canada, somehow that book belongs specifically to Smol Sneezy, the one who’s yet to be hyphenated. It got ambered in dimming afternoons and extra thick white toast slathered with peanut butter and my mom’s favourite violin album, well beyond my reach.
It’s a little strange to realize this. It’s not a feeling of nostalgia in the sense that I yearn to return to that time, just a deep sensory memory that cannot be intruded on even if I wanted to. The book feels like an embodiment of paths forever closed, or perhaps more accurately, sacrificed to forge vastly different ones. I have great appreciation for what I have now, but it is a loss all the same.
Sarah: You were a different person when you read it, and you can’t go back?
As in, you and the circumstances around you were different and that can’t be replicated?
Lara: Such a great question! I went through a horrific breakup in 2011 and had temporary insomnia. By chance, a friend recommended the Carol Jordan and Tony Hill series by Val McDermid. I was wrapped up in it. Obsessive. It was precisely what my broken heart needed. I haven’t been tempted to revisit these books because they so perfectly met my needs in that moment.
Tara: I used to reread Jane Eyre at least once a year when I was in high school and university. I have a notoriously bad memory, but I remember the day my grade 9 English teacher handed it to me in the library because she thought I’d love it and she was right! Now, I can’t go back because I think Jane could have done so much better than Mr. Rochester. It’s better to have positive memories of it as a comfort reread than to bring my current lens and get mad about it.
What about you? Do you have special books that you can’t bring yourself to reread?
These two were absolute favourites when I first read them but I’ll never touch them again.
Dreaming of you by Lisa kleypas was published mid 90’s and I loved it and was able to overlook a few things . Spoilers………Derek has sex with a prostitute who looks similar to the MFC. That was a huge red flag and disgusting.
The lack of consent is horrifying and there were many incidences of that. Plus the one that really bothered me was the treatment of the female villain. She was so OTT awful but then you find out her background. She was sold to an old man at 15 to be his bride. She was treated as an object by every man in her life from her father to husband to lovers. No wonder she became a monster. And then she gets put away in a family home to keep her away from society by her old disgusting husband. Ugh.
Heaven ,Texas is another one I can’t reread. Bobby Tom Denton is another guy who plays around with consent. His character is too crazy for me.
I don’t know if I’ll ever reread The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite. It was such a perfect reading experience — I had the paperback with the stunning cover, and I went to a special Silent Reading Party event (same idea but different vibe than the Silent Book Clubs) and read it in a restaurant one afternoon with lovely light and surrounded by dozens of other people also silently sipping drinks and reading books. I read the entire book start to finish in exactly whatever amount of time the event was.
Mine is OUTLANDER. The sex scenes are first person which was revelatory to me when I read it as a teenager. Women could have interior narratives about what they wanted from sex??? Mind. Blown. I’ve tried revisiting later books in the series and I just can’t.
@Kris—I read DREAMING OF YOU because apparently it’s a Kleypas fan favorite, but omg, it was awful. According to my GR notes, I had to switch to reading Ezra Klein’s WHY WE’RE POLARIZED (the lightness of contemporary American politics!) to get the taste of DREAMING out of my mouth.
I read PRACTICAL MAGIC just before my Mom fell ill. There was nothing I didn’t love about that book. It’s still on the keeper shelf untouched after 25 (how is it 25?) years. Will I read it again? Probably not. It was such a joy, but then … Could be superstition. Could be I will never feel the same contentment with it because it will have a black cloud lingering over it.
I am a re-reader, so there aren’t any books I won’t read again if I love them. My husband’s favorite book is One Hundred Years of Solitude, and he won’t read it again because it would destroy the feelings evoked when he read it the first time.
The closest reading experience I can remember like that is a weird one. At some point in my college years I felt a strong urge to read “Naked Lunch” by William S. Burroughs, and the craving was correct. I hadn’t known a lot about the book and it differed from my few expectations but it totally hit the spot. I don’t know what strange need it filled or how I knew that would do it. I don’t think I’ve reread it since, and at this point I’m not likely to.
This truly is a fascinating question. Sadly, I’ve no fascinating reply. I am an ardent rereader and if a book hits the spot, I’m very likely to reread it. I do have some old favorites on my shelf, one of which I loved and frequently reread as a teen. I haven’t yet reread it as a (cough) mature adult as I fear it wouldn’t live up to my memories of it. It’s The Cheerleader by Ruth Doan MacDougall.
@Kris
I loathed Heaven, Texas too. I couldn’t stand the constant humiliation of the FMC and the BS “grovel” at the end. Whatta maroon.
As for books I couldn’t reread because they represented a singular experience, I didn’t think I had any cuz rereading is my happy place. Then I remembered Mr. Blue by Myles Connolly, a really short novel that was read to my 7th or 8th grade religion class when I attended Catholic school. I bought my own copy and loved that book so hard through high school, but I can’t imagine reading it again. I was the kind of Catholic school girl who dreamed of waking up with the stigmata, but Mr. Blue portrayed a gentler, kinder form of Christianity focused on that second commandment, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” No HEA, but so moving.
The other type of books I’ve loved and can’t reread are books that are excellently written and well loved but contain events or descriptions so painful that I can’t revisit them. The Lymond Chronicles is an example. The series is outstanding but there are scenes so vivid and heartrending that I can still see them in the mind’s eye. I read through them twice, but I don’t see myself ever doing it again. Mystery series by Carol O’Connell (Mallory) and Jo Bannister (Brodie Farrell, Castlemere, Best & Ash) also had this effect. I loved these series; they are gorgeously written, but neither author shies away from pain and wrenching moral dilemmas. I own all these as ebooks because I am grateful to the authors (even the obscure Mr. Connolly), and it comforts me to have them just in case. I would also recommend both O’Connell and Bannister to anyone who values excellent writing, complex characters, and twisty story lines. They represent catharsis rather than comfort, if that is what your spirit needs.
IT HAD TO BE YOU by Susan Elizabeth Phillips.
I had been burned out on romance novels at the time. Historical romances were still ascendant, but it was the aftermath of Outlander and it felt like every other hist-rom was a Highlander romance to ride that wave. I was kinda over it.
I had a preference for contemporary romances (not Harlequins) but most of those were suspense or very thriller/action oriented. I just wanted straight contemporary. The last one I had read I think was Judith McNaught’s PARADISE and that had come out in straight hard cover with the hard cover price tag and I wasn’t feeling that either.
Someone on my romance listserv at the time was talking up SHARDS OF HONOR by Lois McMaster Bujold and after reading it, I got bitten by the SFF bug. Opened up a whole new genre. So for about 3-4 years I was pretty much just reading SFF (which was great because in addition to LMB, I discovered Guy Gavriel Kay, David Weber, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffery etc.).
But then I happened to see IT HAD TO BE YOU on a Waldenbooks table. Read the blurb. It was perfect. It was a sport romance which was rare at the time. It was really funny, also very rare at the time. Her descriptions of Phoebe and the writing was very vivid. Exactly what I had been wanting in romance and it ushered me back into romance.
I can remember so much about that book, even pieces of dialogue this many years later. I even smile about some of the scenes I remember. But oddly, I have just never been able to re-read it. I am a huge re-reader– I have re-read multiple books (even whole series) 5-6 times. But the couple of times I picked this one up for a possible re-read, something has stopped me and I give it a pass.
I love this thread! I don’t have many books that would fall in to this category (maybe Lisey’s Story by Stephen King?). Curious how many of us have books that we have re-read in the past but can’t read again because they’ve aged badly and yet still hold a permanent place on our bookshelves? Mine would be Lady Vixen by Shirlee Busbee.
@Elaine, I thought I was the only one who remembers Shirlee Busbee! Also in the under the bed keeper vault. I loved her back in the day.
@DonnaMarie and @Elaine, I also remember Shirlee Busbee and read most of her books way back when. I never re-read anything (way too many books and way too little time) so I cannot respond to the original question, but wanted to give some love to Shirlee.
I can’t think of a book I can’t reread because it was the perfect moment in a time I needed it. But as far as books I probably can’t reread over all, I would say the Outlander series. I was 15 when I first started reading them and I loved the ongoing story. But as I remember they were like over 1000 pages and I’n not sure I have that oomph anymore.
I love all of these responses! Maybe it has to do with a book that you read during a time of grief? Although, for me, in addition to the one mentioned at the top (I’m the person who suggested the prompt), I haven’t been able to re-read Persuasion. I read it at a perfect moment of angsting about a long-held crush (like, a multi-year school crush) and letting those feelings go and Persuasion was just right.
I don’t think I have anything that fits the bill perfectly. I canr think of any book that I loved reading but wouldn’t read it again.
Closest I can do, there is a book I absolutely love but the experience of reading it was so excruciating that I am not sure I could go through it again – Fortunata y Jacintha by Benito Perez Galdos, who is known (if at all) as the Spanish Dickens, which is nonsense because he’s not a cheap hack peddling stultifying petty bourgeois morality. Not that I have Opinions about Dickens or anything. Anyway. It’s silly to not want to spoil a classic work of literature that’s been around for over a hundred years, but it isn’t super widely read in English, and the thing is if I describe why it is so good (and so infuriating) I think it would lessen the discovery of reading it. Maybe rereading it wouldn’t be such a soul scouring experience since I know what’s going on, but idk. It’s just mind-blowingly, superbly crafted. I think it made me a better person, certainly it taught me some things about myself I was not interested in coming to terms with and could not see without having my nose rubbed in. It’s fascinating and important, highly recommended. I wish everyone would read it! I love it and I think about it often, and I cannot imagine rereading it.
Twelve-year-old me was given Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead just before a long road trip. Ender’s Game completely blew my mind. I thought it was amazing. It was so good, that I refused to read Speaker for the Dead, because nothing could compare.
I’ll never re-read Ender’s Game (even without the problematic author-ness) and I’ve never read any of the other books. It was just this perfect read in that road-trip moment in time.
Twelve year old me found and hid a copy of Devil Water by Anya Seton. Fiction was not allowed in my home but I kept it and read it. What a revelation. What a story. I liked the writing and the history. So glad I finished it before my mother found it. I carried in my mind for a long time, thought about it. But am afraid to re-read in case it is not as magical as my memories.
Another old book but one I read only a couple years ago is The Phoenix Syndrome by Lucilla Andrews. Set in a rural hospital in Britain in the late 1940s, she’s an army nurse who saw action in Europe. He is a surgeon who was a POW in Burma. So trauma galore as they deal with several diseases that we no longer have due to vaccination. Almost no physical contact but intense interaction as they get to know each other and to heal from significant trauma. I loved it so much that I hunted down and bought a hard copy. But I have not been able to read it again.
Can’t re-read because it touched too deep:
The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan. I don’t know why this one specifically. I’ve read all others multiple times, I remember loving the entire thing, I identified way more with the main character of “Unlocked”, and yet I just won’t.
Can’t re-read because I speed read through to escape unacknowledged depression/burnout and my brain expects the same obsession level while being too healed to fall there:
– Alyssa Day’s Warriors of Poseidon series. I started it because “Vampire in Atlantis” sounded amazing as a book title and of course I needed to read all previous books first
– Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series: Six books which I read in four days. Unhealthy, but got me out of slipping into depression.
– Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series (Arc 1): I have re-read Slave to Sensation, Caressed by Ice, Heart of Obsidian and Shards of Hope. Everything else? Just won’t start.
(Guild Hunter, which I devoured right before PsyChangeling, I have reread multiple times)
(i read like 20 Nalini Singh’s in 14 days. Again, unhealthy but gave my brain a rest from burnout)
Loved Cry the Beloved Country, but cannot read it again.
Beloved by Toni Morrison is a book I absolutely loved and don’t want to read again (though I probably should).
It’s Gone with the Wind for me. I read it at 14, the perfect age for that level of melodrama. I loved it, I stayed up until 2 am reading it and it had a huge impact on me as a reader before I had read any romance novels.
I’ve never re-read it, as I know as an adult I would not feel the same way and I wouldn’t be able to help viewing it with a critical eye. In that moment, it was the best book I’d ever read and I don’t think another book will ever sweep me away the same way.
Another one I read as a teen and will never reread was Dune. It blew me away, and the world building is still so unique. But now I’ve read so much more sci fi and am way less tolerant of books with cardboard characters and no women.
Johnathan Livingston Seagul (part 1 only) by Richard Bach
I was a senior in high school and finished it on the bus during a band trip. I looked up and the band director was watching me and asked if it was a good book. I don’t remember what I said but remember feeling the need to reflect on what I just read (this was a first). I was about to graduate and leave home and become my own person. So many feelings. It was the right book for that moment, but I don’t think it will ever be the same on a reread.
I didn’t think I had an answer to this one, and then @Lisa mentioned Gone With the Wind and I had an emotional reaction right away. I also read it when I was 13 or 14 and it was the longest book I had read up to that point. My best friend and I were wildly competitive about almost everything at that age and as soon as she busted out the paperback of GWTW during lunch I had to buy it and start it immediately.
It was every bit as sweeping and epic as its reputation at the time, and I felt incredibly adult when I finished it. To me, finishing GWTW meant I was truly going to be a Reader with a capital R for the rest of my life.
Now, as an Adult with a capital A, I have a different perspective on Scarlett’s story and motivations. I expect I would feel quite different about most of the events of the book. I could never get swept up in it again, and wouldn’t be loathe to ruin my younger self’s experience.
Yikes- that should read *would be* loathe to ruin it for my younger self
Yep, I have an old paperback copy of This is All I Ask by Lynn Kurland on my bookshelf. I had only been reading romance for maybe a year at that point and it hit all the right notes exactly when I needed something to get me through a low spot. Years later I tried to read a different Kurland and it didn’t work for me and I’m pretty sure I would be appalled at TIAIA now. So it sits on my shelf and I keep my nostalgic feelings for it in the past where they probably belong.
Love this question, BTW.
I read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell the year my parents were packing up our long-time house in Connecticut to move to the North Carolina, where I live, and all the themes of memories of one’s childhood home, homesickness, and “you can never go back because it won’t be the same” really hit me with full force. I don’t know that I’d want to read it again (although I *WOULD* watch the miniseries again because watching Richard Armitage never gets old).