Have you ever been tempted to stop reading a book you just can’t quite grasp, only to carry on despite being desperate for it to end? With that glowing £9.99 price tag weighing on my conscience, not finishing a book, to me, sometimes feels like precious money gone to waste.
For anyone who enjoys reading, this feeling may be familiar. Sometimes it isn’t the book itself, but rather the mood or situation we are in. ‘A Secret History’ by Donna Tartt is famously the perfect fit for a dark winter evening, but overly dense and possibly tense on a crowded morning commute.
A growing trend among BookTubers is ‘moodreading’, a method of choosing books based on your emotional state. Mood reading is a flexible approach, challenging the perception that we must finish the book we are currently reading to be able to start a new one. Leaving a book unfinished may make some readers nervous, but for some having a few books on rotation to select from can be a key way to read more.
Mood reading can also be a tool to support our emotional wellbeing. All books create for us a different atmosphere and ambience, based on the themes explored, the writing style and even the setting a story is submerged in. If you find yourself in a positive mood, reading something light can help amplify these moments of gratitude, hopefulness and fulfillment. Or, in contrast, an optimistic outlook can provide the right opportunity to delve into books that have darker themes or more complex prose. Similarly, during periods where we may not feel our best, lighter books, be it romance or young adult, can act as a distraction from certain emotions. I personally love going back to my long-time comfort read, YA novel “The Cruel Prince” by Holly Black. The ability to sink into a world of faeries and over-the-top romantic angst is both nostalgic and sometimes simply a guilty pleasure.
This month, I have been attempting to mood read myself. I currently have two books on rotation: YA novel “Loveless” by Alice Oseman and thriller/horror “Ninth House” by Leigh Bardugo. Both novels are similar in the sense they are set at university campuses, and explore a young woman’s journey through her first year. As a first year myself, I picked “Loveless” as a book to turn to whenever I crave a realistic (sometimes painfully realistic) depiction of university. Oseman’s writing style is simple and she crafts characters so familiar that the novel itself becomes a comforting companion. “Ninth House” is much darker, exploring themes of addiction and abuse, sometimes through fairly graphic depictions, making it a much heavier read. However, I have enjoyed this novel for the ambience Bardugo creates, crafting a fictional underworld of Yale University as a sight for gruesome sacrificial rituals.
There is a certain pressure taken off as I experiment with mood reading. I’m someone who compulsively quantifies everything into measurable progress, even the things I do for fun. Sometimes just looking at my untouched book triggers the thought of my unreached reading goal for the year. Mood reading has been a welcome new approach, and might even help me actually read more books. These winter months have officially arrived and if you, like me, are intending to spend more time indoors cozying up in bed with a book, I encourage you to give mood reading a try. Perhaps a fantasy novel full of intricate worldbuilding or a darker psychological horror could be the perfect books to add to your winter rotation.