Musing Mondays (March 17)

Hosted by Should Be Reading
Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.

• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).

• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!

• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.

• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!

• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

My Musing this week is What Makes a Good Read?

Over the weekend I started reading The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones and the moment I opened the first page it was clear that this was a book I’d love. That got me thinking, what it is about certain books where you know from the start that you are in for a good read?

This book had none of the obvious hooks for me. It wasn’t the location. I love books set in London as a place I have fond memories from both childhood as well as an adult; this book is set in a small town in America.

I didn’t immediately identify with the first character, Emily, a young bullied schoolgirl. Although never in with the cool kids I got through school unscathed with nothing more than the general teasing that happens to everyone, and yet something called to me. Was it the first scene sat in a classroom? The young Emily in awe of the poised and amusing Christopher, certainly something that I can relate too, but that surely isn’t enough to warm so immediately to a story?

The genre is spot on, I love a good mystery, but as I read a lot of them although often grabbed by a startling sentence as in Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent, I don’t usually immediately think ‘this is going to be special’

You can read my reviews by clicking on the book covers below

I’m afraid I still can’t articulate how I knew that this was one of those special books although the style of writing is insightful without being wordy.

There are writers whose books I am always sure I will enjoy, I have spoken before about the feeling of being wrapped in a duvet of familiarity when reading Barbara Vine.

Lisa Jewell always writes a rattling good tale which engages me from the first page, quite an accomplishment as she writes about varied subjects.

… and the list goes on of writers who I go to for a guaranteed good read. However, when I consider the number of books I must have read, it is far rarer for a new author to grab me quite the way Holly Goddard Jones has. Are there components to a book that make you fall in love with it or are you like me and sometimes a book just gels and it is love at first page?