9 Rules for Reading

The inaugural blog-warming post. It's like a house-warming party, only different.

Inspired by this article by the best baby-namers out there (seriously. every character I name comes from either their website or book), I introduce:

Jordyn's 9 Rules for Reading Fiction. (ta-dah!)

1. Read what you want. Unless you have to read something for school, a blog tour, book club, or some other required sort of thing, read what catches your fancy. If you're fifty and you love to read YA, so be it. If that means passing up all the books your friends are reading because they don't interest you, that's also fine, as is reading stuff nobody else has ever heard of.
2. If you don't like the book, don't finish it. There are some people that feel the need to finish every book they start. I'm not one of those people; the rule with me is 50 pages. If after 50 pages the book hasn't captured my interest, I feel no obligation to finish.
3. Don't skip ahead to the last page. I admit, I used to do this all the time. I always skipped ahead to the last page before reading the book, but then (and I forget which book it was) I seriously spoiled the book for me. And it was massively depressing. So now I make a firm rule not to skip to the ending with a book I'm reading.
4. Never dog ear pages. Never, never, NEVER dog ear pages. This should really be rule #1. If you don't have a bookmark handy, use a scrap of paper or just remember where you're at.
5. Don't take a year to finish a book. Unless it's a massive undertaking like GONE WITH THE WIND, there's no reason to take so many months to finish a novel. By the time you finish you won't remember the beginning.
6. There is no obligation to finish a series. Generally with series that I halfway like I feel an obligation to buy and read the entire series. BUT I AM DONE WITH THAT. Of course if I love a series I'm going to finish it, even if I have to wait years for them all to come out in paperback (ahem, GALLAGHER GIRLS... I've only read the first two so far), but if I'm not a fan of the books I'm not going to continue reading. (See rule #2)
7. Skip the boring parts. I don't take advantage of this rule very often , but I do think it's okay to skip the boring parts.
8. Write down the lines that speak to you. I have a notebook I keep that's full of quotes from books. (I call it my quote-book.) They're the parts of books (lines, sentences, entire passages) that make me feel like oh, somebody else gets it/I'm not alone/holy cow I hope I can write that well someday.
9. Have fun. In the end, there are no rules for reading. This post is how I read, but not necessarily how you might read because the fact is that unless you're reading something required, there are no rules.