I’m in a funk. I suppose it’s that time of the year. I feel like I live in darkness. I go to work in the dark; I drive home in the dark. And if it’s not raining (thankfully, the snow’s held off this winter), I get a few beams of sunlight through my classroom windows in the morning, but it’s still not the bright light of spring or the intense light of summer. I miss the sun. And unfortunately when I get in a funk, I get in a funk about everything.
I stand in the kitchen, and I don’t know what I want to eat. I sit with the TiVo list and stare at what I’ve recorded, not knowing what I want to watch. I pick up a book, and I’m only lukewarm about it because I don’t know what I want to read. I’m in a funk.
Of course, I’m blaming my reading funk on the weather. Some people might say it’s because I read too much. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think I’m just simply bored with all the YA I’ve been reading. I’m tired of vampires. I’m tired of werewolves and shape shifters. I’m tired of whining girls and buff boys and absent parents. I’m just tired.
I found myself picking up Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor. The book has been at the bottom of a pile of books on my office floor and has been sitting there since October 2009. Yep. I’ve had this book for over two years, and I’m just getting around to reading it. Ironically, when I got this book, I REALLY wanted to read it. It was one of the National Book Award Nominees in 2009 that I was most interested in. But life goes on. I didn’t get it finished before the winners were announced, and there it sat. Unread. Unloved. With books piling on top of it. Sadly for Lips Touch, I picked it up when I was in the middle of a reading funk.
I was enchanted when I first picked up the book and saw the graphic prologues to the short stories. And then I started reading, and it was simply more of the same. World mythology. Shape shifters. Goblins. And well, I was bored. I know I short changed this innovative book. I do plan on returning to this book in the future when I’m not in a funk to give it the attention it deserves. And realizing I was in a reading funk, I decided to pick up some cozy mysteries. Not YA, but certainly friendly and light enough to maybe shake off the funk. They didn’t. The next YA book I picked up was a mystery, which made me wonder, am I now in genre funk. A steady diet of one thing is bad for you no matter what it is.
I read widely – not just YA – but adult fiction and non-fiction as well. I’m not sure what to do to shake off this funk. I’ve picked up adult books, and I’ve been thoroughly engaged. Loved them. Rejuvenated about reading, and then I pick up a YA book, and I’m bored. Maybe it’s my current selection of books. Maybe this funk means that a new YA trend is about to start. Could I be prescient? Is it time to say goodbye to vampires and werewolves?
If anyone has recommendations for YA to pull me out of my funk, I’m all eyes ummm… I mean ears.
Until next time… see YA.
