When I finish a really good book, I am sad that what happens next to the characters I have connected with is unknown to me. Even though my criteria for a great read includes a complete wrap-up of storyline, I am not ready to leave the people or the places I have immersed myself with and in.
Honestly, it’s like Christmas mornings of my childhood when I read a passage that stops me cold and I must re-read it right away. Or a few pages later I am still thinking about something I’ve read and have to go back to it and let it settle all around me, in me. I often share these poignant excerpts with friends and on some occasions I even jot them down for myself to have long after the book has gone back to the library.
Page one of a book can make it or break it, and a really good book captures my heart right away. I rework my schedule to spend time with the inhabitants found in between the front and back covers and I will stick by them through their thick and their thin.
A really good book makes me think, makes me laugh and sometimes makes me cry. It touches me and makes me care about people I will only know for a few hundred pages. But for however long we are together, I am all in, rooting for them to be happy and healthy.
I hope that when the last chapter and page of my story has turned, that I have made people laugh, said something that stuck with them and even made them cry. I hope that I leave no loose ends and nothing left unsaid.
But I also hope I leave them wanting more.
