I love finishing a good book, though it also makes me sad when a story is over because I won't find out more about the characters' lives. I love the feeling of leaning in to eavesdrop on the comings and goings of some other time and place. I love being transported out of this world into a fantasy land full of adventure. I am not even bothered by the times I read and want to scream at the people as they make horrible and damaging choices. Or when I want to reach through the pages to sound a warning or offer a hug or slap some sense. When I close a good book I need time to just sit and be still for awhile with it fresh in my thoughts before I can go about my day. That is a satisfying feeling.
There is also the angry feeling when you get to the end of a bad book and no one has learned their lesson, justice has not been served, or they did not live happily ever after. The bad books I can at least feel violated for giving my time away to a worthless cause. Here I poured myself into their world only to have it end like that! How DARE they!! I still have to take time to stew over that frustration before joining reality. Not the same satisfaction, but a disturbed contentment.
But when I finish a book that was neither good nor bad, I only feel confused and disappointed. A book dropped and walked away from (not thrown against a wall or hugged to your chest) as soon as the last page is read is not worthy of the paper on which it was printed.
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