Reading the wrong book on a holiday

Oh frequently!

I'm in my 60s, so holidays used to mean reading through my selection of books that I'd packed for the plane, and then having to buy whatever shit the local Greek corner shop had that was written in English in their 'stocked for the tourists' section when I'd run out of things to read.

I've read a lot of badly written bonkbusters and cheap horror that I would otherwise not have bought.

The last 4 chapters of A Little Life on a ski trip. Bad idea

I took a book to read in hospital when having dd I thought it was a thriller turned out it was a very well written drama about a woman with postpartum psychosis!! I quickly put it away to read at a later date.

The joy of a kindle or audible! You can admit something is shite and choose something else.

I picked up a book the previous guests had left once - it was by Alan Titchmarsh and MOSTLY fine, but the entire set-up for the romance story was that in the first chapter the mother of the family dies while they're on holiday 😶

I always read the difficult books on holiday I don't have the headspace for them when I am working. I do think when I read The Handmaid's Tale on holiday that was maybe going a bit far.

Marley and Me.

Racing in the rain.

Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Most things by Jodie Picoult.

I recall reading The Grapes of Wrath while solo backpacking and sobbing on my bunk at the end in Australia. Some nice boy in the same dorm noticed and bought me a pint to cheer me up. 😂

About 10 years ago I started the 50 page rule. If I'm not loving it by page 50, it's ok to give up. Sometimes I'll keep going a little longer, e.g. with a book club book but it's rare that it picks up past this point.

Life is too short to read bad books.

I never learn. Past holiday reading has included War and Peace, The Grapes of Wrath and Schindler's Ark...

I think it's that I'm trapped on holiday, so see it as a way to make myself read difficult books!

I just read a really boring book on my most recent holiday and couldn’t get into. I kept trying and lost interest in reading. I should have given up and moved on lot another book. I probably didn’t relax as much as I could have done. Lesson learned. Give it up earlier. It’s not worth it.

I read Susan Hill’s The Vows of Silence on holiday with a large group. Had to go off and have a secret cry.

I read I’m Glad My Mon Died by Jeanette McCurdy on holiday a couple of years ago. It’s an amazing book but definitely the wrong tone for a relaxing holiday. I also ready Matthew Perry’s autobiography on the same holiday. I don’t know what I was thinking.

A friend decided to read a book set on Central America while we were travelling round it, mainly by long distance public bus. The central plot arc was buses being stopped by the shining path and people being shot or horribly tortured. Can’t remember who it was by or what it was called but it was a proper author.

she was traumatised by it, not helped by the bus companies frequently taking the photo of all the passenger before boarding…. To identify us…. I didn’t pick it up after she’d finished it.

As a teenager I read The Republic of Trees on holiday and thought it was quite fitting at first. Teenagers escape their lives by running away to a forest in France. Then it turned Lord of the Flies and got very gruesome. Spent a lot of the holiday trying to shake the worst scenes out of my head.

I actively try to read long books that require a lot of concentration on holiday because I have time to get into them! Though maybe not depressing ones.

Once when I was going to Australia I went to a bookshop in the airport and bought a big chunky Marion Keyes novel to read on the plane.
I was only a couple of pages in when I realised I had already read it 🤦

I was once sat on a beautiful beach in Thailand next to a very elegant woman who was reading The Satanic Verses. Very odd choice for a holiday read I thought!

I always save the new releases from my favourite lighter authors for holidays for exactly this reason. Then it’s like an extra little treat to look forward to, as well. As a rule I don’t want to be reading serious literature or getting frustrated with a poor book during my precious holiday time.

When I was 16 I took The Bell Jar on holiday. Read it by the pool. Fortunately I didn't have the emotional maturity for it to occur to me that it wasn't quite in the holiday spirit 😂

Another one for One Day and on another holiday The Swan Thieves massively brought my mood down.

I've never had a holiday ruined by a book, but one Christmas morning when I was quite small my parents came into my bedroom expecting to find me all excited by the stocking at the end of my bed, only to find me sobbing my heart out at the end of Goodnight Mr Tom.

I'd woken up early and put the VHS on when I couldn't get back to sleep. I'd often do this but it was usually Toy Story or something similar.

I also got banned from re-reading Charlotte's Web on long car drives.

I had been reading a fantastic book, couldn't put it down, and finished it on a flight to Canada.
I sat there weeping, looking a complete wreck, passengers around me giving side eye, flight attendant asks am I OK, can she get me anything. I just held up the book and she instantly understood.

It was The Lovely Bones.