The books we are reading for class are wonderful in the sense that they evoke empathy to the characters. This emergence of emotion makes an impression on the reading and helps the reader understand the struggles of the character that the reader possibly won’t confront in their life. However, I miss reading happy stories. Where are the books that make us laugh or is humorous in any way? Myself, I am getting tired of reading about abandoned and malnourished children or brutally killed family. This block normally would lead to being desensitized to such terrible events within further readings. Wouldn’t be nice to have a switch-up of the type of book in order to hit, “refresh” on the emotional mind? It isn’t to say that these books aren’t interesting, but I don’t want to suddenly shut the book closed once a character has given away their child, or the kid dies from starvation. However, there are the holidays coming up, so that can serve as the “refresh.” I guess this is a whiny post, huh?

Addition after seminar-

A very interesting perspective was added during today’s discussion about the sad endings. It is common that American storytelling has endings which are either happy or concluded. Since we are reading books written about different countries and are written from that kind of story aspect, the endings are “unsatisfactory” to American readers. I may still be internally weeping for a happy ending, but this perspective of a new storytelling element has me intrigued.