Reading in my comfort zone.

Lest you think that the only have done lately is watch Dr. Who, I’d like to write about a book I finished a few days ago.

 Jenna Rhode’s Four Forges was a slow read for me, but ultimately rewarding. I haven’t actually finished a novel aimed at an adult audience in awhile. I pretty sure my Revish reading record could tell me how long, but the precise amount of time is irrelevant, it’s been awhile. I’m not sure why this is. I’ve got some absolutely fantastic novels going: Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind, Joe Ambercrombie’s The Blade Itself, David Copperfield (if I have to tell you who wrote that than why are you reading my blog?) and Ursula K. LeGuin’s Lavinia.  Plus some non-fiction titles like Susan Jacoby’s Age of American Unreason (I tend to read non-fiction social commentary that I know I will agree with so this isn’t as stimulating an intellectual exercise as it would seem).

 

But, despite all of these books being topnotch, I haven’t finished one. I’ve been reading The Name of the Wind for the last four months, an incredibly long time for me.

But, for some reason, I finished The Four Forges. It’s not that Four Forges is a bad novel, it’s not, but it certainly isn’t on par with those award-winning books that I mentioned above….and yet I loved it enough to drop everything else I was reading once I got sucked into the story AND order the sequel on Amazon AND pay for two day delivery.

 

And that’s because I’m reading in my comfort zone. There comes a point in my reading adventures that I have to give into my unconscious, un-analyzed, clearly child-like tendencies and just go with them. This book series has beautiful elves (vaelinars), Halflings (dwellers) and humans (kernans) who are all struggling to survive in a world that the elves sorta just showed up in and took over. There are identity issues and awesome politics and one helluva warrior queen. But it’s all stuff I’ve seen before.

 

Sometimes, ya just gotta read what you love, no matter how done it is.