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Showing posts with the label depression

As a Reader, I'm Tired

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Tired of what, you might ask? (Even if you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you.) I'm tired of "must-read" books that depress the heck out of me. Families that are breaking apart. Teenagers who are going through hell. People in crisis who don't deal with it well. I know books have to have such characters to create tension, but in many recent bestsellers these are the protagonists; the people I'm supposed to keep reading on for. Last night I started one of the current must-reads. It's really well-written, and the hook was excellent. I read on, chapter after chapter. Things got worse for the main character, and as a result, he got worse, acting out, making his family suffer, cutting ties with those who might have helped him get through it. As page after page of humiliation and despair crawled by, I began to feel that I was wallowing in misery, the main character's and that of everyone around him. Now, I worked with teenagers for decades, and I