What do you read?

I’m going to take a chance and say some controversial things here.  Feel free to disagree.  Feel free to think I’m shallow, one of the dirty, uneducated masses.  It’s all cool.

 

I don’t read literature.  I find people who say they only read literary fiction pretentious, but that’s okay because I’m unlikely to be hanging out with them.  Me?  I read books.  Books that tell awesome stories about fascinating people.  And if these stories happen to have prose that sings down the heavens, that’s great, but it’s not why I read.  I’m looking for a lot more than that.  If you can’t suck me into your story, make me care, then it doesn’t matter how many fancy words you use, how perfect your use of literary allusion is… it’s not a story, it’s a bunch of prose.

 

I’m going to go even further out on a limb here and say that I want a happily ever after.  I know there are a lot of folks out there (probably the same ones who only read literary fiction) that say the HEA is a cheat, that it’s unrealistic.  You know what?  I.  Don’t.  Care.   If I want depressing realism, I’ll turn on the 6 o’clock news and find tons of people that bad things have happened to with no hope of it ever getting better for them.  I have a very limited amount of free time in my life and I want to read stories where bad things can happen, but in the end it’s all okay.

 

What about you?  What do you read?