On Second Reads

Do you read a story/novel more than once?

I'm a chronic re-reader. Some books, like Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, I've read three or more times. Of course others, Of Mice and Men, I've taught for ten years or more. I almost have that poor little book memorized.

Sometimes the re-read doesn't carry the same impact as the first time. I couldn't sleep last Friday night, and so pulled one of my H.P. Lovecraft collections off the shelf and tackled "The Rats in the Walls" for the third time. It is a brilliant story, wonderfully set up and paced. But--and here's the spoiler alert--upon my second and third reads, when the protagonist and his compatriots open the secret staircase and descend into the "grotto of twilit horrors" it didn't have the same effect as it did upon first reading.

I felt a tad sad. The first time I read "The Rats in the Walls" I felt a sense of discovery and revulsion upon making the discovery. Knowing "what was coming" softened the blow. The overwhelming sense of dread and terror just wasn't there.

Are there types of stories which fair better upon re-reading? How so?