Books I Want to Defenestrate

Usually when you think of books you complain about, stories you didn't like come to mind, right?

But last weekend, as I was inches from throwing my Kindle at a wall after reading the third book in Song of Ice and Fire (don't worry, no spoilers), I realized that sometimes the books I love the most are also the ones that make me the angriest. At the end of the Deathly Hallows, when everyone and their mom was dying, I wanted to throw Rowling off a bridge.* As I read The Time Traveler's Wife, I was gritting my teeth at the stupid $*&@$&@ing author for not giving her characters a better way out of their situation. In Imajica, every time we wound up somewhere totally different from where the characters wanted to go, I got sooo impatient.

But I love all of those books. I think they are fantastic. I think their authors are incredibly talented. So why do I want to throw the novels out the window and jump up and down on their covers?

Because the authors made me care about their characters. They made me love them, and root for them, and pray for them to come out on top as much as I would if they were real people I knew.** So when they fail at their goals, I empathize with them. When they suffer, I suffer too. When they want to rip out their hair and scream in frustration, so do I.

That is the mark of a brilliant novel. Books that you're emotionally invested in have the biggest impact on you as a reader (or they do on me, anyway). Those are the stories that you find yourself still thinking about months after you finish, the stories that stick with you, the stories that birth hundreds of fanfic spinoffs, because no one else wants to leave those characters behind either.

So, as I brave my way into the depths of A Feast for Crows, book four in this series, I have to say... hats off, Martin. And if you kill any more of my favorites, I swear I will hunt you down. *cough*

* seriously, if I ever meet her in person, it would go something like this "OMFG I love you and everything you have ever written but WHYYYYYY LUPIN, HAVE YOU NO SOUL!??!?!"

** and in the case of George R.R. Martin's books, sweat bullets every time those characters get into a fight, since he's proved time and time again that No One Is Safe. During one duel after the midpoint of the third novel, I was literally having heart palpitations. YesIamthatsad.