The Suz's Summer Reading Challenge Wrap Up: Don't Judge Me

For those of you just tuning in, just before Memorial Day, the Suz issued a challenge to her friends: read 50 pages a day (any book) every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Now that it's Labor Day, I feel compelled to provide a page count and some kind of rationalization.

I know I didn't read 50 pages every day, but I read a total of 13,101 pages. By my best count, that's 13,101 pages in 98 days, so my average was 133.7 pages per day. Not too shabby, even if The Suz did beat me by 3000 pages.

Now, The Suz has an edge on me and most of my fellow readers. She's a big fan of serial fiction. She's into at least four series that I'm aware of, and probably more than that, because she's always waiting for the next book by somebody.

I try to stay away from serial fiction for the same reason that I don't buy potato chips.

I will eat them. All. As quickly as I can. And then when there's no more left, I'll spend a week trying not to get my hands on more.

In the case of potato chips, of course, there are always more, so it takes a colossal effort not to run right out and buy another bag.

In the case of serial books, though, I'll plow through what's there and then spend a week in withdrawal, sometimes poring back over the editions I have to try to soothe the pull. And eventually I settle into a low-level craving as I wait out the months-- or years until the next installment.

Seriously, J.K. Rowling almost killed me. Which is ironic, because there was a short period there when my greatest fear in life was that I might die in a freak accident before I got to read book seven.

The thing is, I do this even when I don't even like the series in question. Nobody who has seen my living or working spaces would ever accuse me of being even a little bit Obsessive Compulsive. I have embraced the chaos, baby. But serial fiction activates whatever OCD or addictive impulses I have lingering in my reptilian brain, and I will finish what I start.

Case in point: The Twilight Series (I refuse to call it a saga). Two years ago I borrowed the first two books from my cousin because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and because I've had a thing for vampire books for as long as I can remember.

Not only did I not understand the fuss, but this series fundamentally changed my philosophy about reading in general. I used to think that any reading was worthwhile. After reading Twilight, I decided that my time would have been better spent watching re-runs of something more cerebral like Jersey Shore. Or Fox News.

But that didn't stop me from picking up the third issue of the series on a routine trip to Target the day after I finished the first two installments. This wasn't an impulse buy. And the trip wasn't entirely routine. Sure, I needed cat food and toilet paper, but I could have gone to the supermarket. It was just easier to lie to myself about my true intentions if I went to the bog box store.

And the day after that, having chewed my way through the third book, I ended up at Barnes and Noble, with all the shame and self-loathing of a junkie cruising Chinatown at two in the morning.

And all that was for a series that offended my sensibilities on so many levels I'd need charts and graphs to document them all. Imagine what happens when I get my hands on a series I actually like.

But, oh, we don't have to imagine.

The Suz first recommended Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series to me well before HBO bought the rights and gave the world True Blood. It sounded like something I'd dig because there were vampires (that don't fucking sparkle) and Elvis. For a girl like me, what's not to love there? But I got busy with other tasks, like naming my pet Swedish Fish, and never got around to it.

But somewhere between the cerebral readings of June and July, I read the last two installments of J.D. Robb/ Nora Robert's In Death series (Back in 1999 I set the record by devouring the first ten installments of the series-- also a Suz recommendation-- in a grand total of four days. Even now that they've become kind of predictable-- the culprit is always the third person Dallas interviews-- I love these characters enough to stick with them.), and I remembered the joys of serial fiction.

I went for the old standby first, making myself a sub-challenge to finish the seven Harry Potters in seven days. It took me nine. Then I decided that rather than continuing to ask The Suz how the books compared with the TV show, it was time for me to tackle Harris's take on vampires and Elvis. I got through the eleven available installments in about ten days. Even though I like the TV version better-- even if they don't include Elvis-- I certainly don't have the sensation that I was robbed of my time.

I think about how I started this summer reading books about the nature of good and evil, about domestic life, about Big Ideas. And I ended by rediscovering fiction, but not cerebral book-club fiction. Closer to pulp fiction, really. And now I can't quit. I just started the Las Vegas mystery series. And I picked up a few more new (to me) mystery series at the used bookstore today. And I know, as I have known about so many of my mistakes, that this doesn't end well. It can't.