Saturday, April 4, 2015

The curse of being a mood reader


If you've been following my blog for awhile, you may have noticed that I tend to post reviews long after I actually read the book. Or maybe you haven't if you aren't a stalker... In any case, I do this for a reason. That reason is that I have the Mood Reader Curse.

What's the Mood Reader Curse, you ask? Well, allow me to share with you the bane of my existence.
Growing up I always had a problem finding the next book to read. I would literally sit on the floor for a ridiculous amount of time - sometimes over an hour - looking at the back of every single book I owned and trying to decide what to read. Finally, I'd find THE one. I'd sit in my bed and open to chapter one, make it a few pages in, and suddenly realize that I'd made the wrong decision!! Back to the bookshelf I'd go until I finally knew I'd picked the right one. While this has gotten slightly better in my old age, the trend still continues. 

In the last two and a half weeks I've read a grand total of one book. One. (Well, disregarding audiobooks.) I started The Neverending Story and made it almost all the way through. There are twenty pages left that I haven't finished. That one took me several days because, after I got past the first half I started losing interest. By the time I reached the end I could hardly stand it. And then I switched to Mary: The Summoning... and got five chapters in. Finally, I settled on Her Dark Curiosity. I absolutely loved it! It was 100% what I was in the mood for. I blew through it in a couple days. And then I was having a fit to reread the Divergent series after seeing Insurgent. So I absolutely HAD to do that! I spent about a week trying to tell myself I was enjoying going back through the first book and marking every major difference I found... and then I gave up on that one too. Because I was in the mood for fantasy. So now I'm reading The Winner's Curse. The good news is, I think I made the right choice this time.

jar source
This is why I cannot have one of those adorable TBR jars that I absolutely adore! And why I can't have a theme for each month like the ones that Cassi at My Thoughts Literally always schedules (which I think are totally awesome!). This is the problem when I buy new books. I'll go one step further and say this is the problem with Netgalley! By the time the books I buy get to me or by the time the book I've requested gets to me, I'm in a totally different bookish place and no longer have any interest. Not always, but I'd say the majority of the time.

So this is why my book reviews are scheduled weeks after I've read them. If I didn't do it this way, there would almost definitely be weeks with no review at all.

I'm curious to hear from other mood readers on this topic! What have you done to make it easier to stay focused on what you're reading? Have you ever been able to make a reading schedule and, if so, how did you do it?

Hopefully one day I'll find a cure for Mood Reader Curse. Until then, I guess I'll keep scheduling reviews in advance!