I have been in a huge scifi phase lately. It's been all about Banks, Simmons, Scalzi, Morgan. Crazy, complex societies and world-building. Vast stellar distances and technology to make the mind boggle. Give me light-years or give me nothing!
Things were sloooooow at work yesterday and I was poking around in my desk to find someting to read. I uncovered a book my coworker had lent me months ago; Jane Green's Swapping Lives. I have read a fair amount of Green's novels and have usually enjoyed them. She doesn't always wrap things up in a nice, neat bow and I approve of that. I'm not the type of person who needs the perfect, fairytale happy ending in everything I read. While her characters aren't perfectly relatable - way more into designer clothes and the newest hotspots than I ever have been - they also aren't amazing super-women who have it all. In fact, there was one main character in a previous novel I actively disliked.
I have read a fair amount of chick lit. Some of it was good, some of it was fluff, some was crap, but that's how it is with anything, right? I don't ascribe to the idea that only certain genres of fiction are worth reading. After all, I went through a huge romance novel phase - the dirtier the better. I know there are some people who think excessive amounts (whatever that means) of sex detract from a story, but what about when the sex is the story? People have sex and people write what they know. Ergo, people write about sex. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's not as if there aren't millions of other things to read.
I seem to have lost sight of the point of this post. My point is this: I forgot how much I enjoy other genres of fiction. Scifi is my number one choice and I'm probably still going to head over to that section first, but I may make more of an effort to explore (or revisit) other sections of the bookstore.
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