Books, I love them. So, who am I to judge whether a book is good or bad?
We’re all different so our taste in books differs.
I taught high school language arts for twenty-six years, so I suffered from an ailment I’ll call deep-seated-snob syndrome, DSSD. Some books I read in the privacy of my own home where I wouldn’t be caught holding a Stephen King novel in my hands—or God forbid, James Patterson.
I enjoyed these secret reads. I didn’t need to analyze them, rate them or discuss them with students. I simply climbed into their worlds, lost myself in the story and loved every minute of it.
Reading King’s Pet Semetary late one night while lounging in bed, I came to the page where the main character’s dead cat comes back from the dead, drags its dead carcass up the stairs and leaps upon the bed. At that precise moment my own cat (clearly channeling her inner demon) leapt onto my bed. Fortunately, I avoided heart failure, but I may have screeched instead.
The point to all of this is to say, books have a place in each person’s life at its different stages and times.
After reading Gemma Halliday’s Deadly Cool this week, a bit of DSSD malady raised its ugly head.
