Kayti’s Musings: Good Book vs. Favorite Book

What is the difference between a good book and a great/favorite book

There are so many good books out there, and we love to read them! Some are light, airy, fun and don’t weigh you down. Some good books are serious and make you think, and they will stay in your head for a while, often leading to a re-read. Some good books are non-fiction and add wonder and interest to the real world around you. Some good books are for children and are rhyming and silly, some still are for children and are informative and deep.

Books can move you, your heart, your mind. There is a reason that reading is such an essential part of our lives, that it transports us to the land between the pages. A good book will give you a bird’s eye view of a place, a time, a person or group of people. You will watch the story unfold and cheer for your favorites, feel your heart ache in their sadness, laugh with them, mourn with them, feel aroused with them.  You are the viewer, the companion.

With a great book, or a favorite book…you feel as if you are within the story. No longer enjoying the viewer role, but taking part in the action. Your mind will wrap around and identify with so much of the story that when you stop reading for a moment it can be disorienting. Diving deep into a book like that offers safety and comfort, it is very nearly escapism. Now, I admit that I have a tremendously active imagination, so my mind is easier to transport into the wonders of a story. Few have kept me there so deeply that I momentarily forget myself.

Does that mean that a favorite book needs to be deep and heavy? Absolutely not, in fact sometimes your favorite is where you go to eschew the deep and heavy. I have favorite books that I use as a palate cleanser of a sort. I will reread them between books that are too intense so that my mind is reset. I am so comfortable within their pages that I feel like myself more after having read them.

I know that I am not alone in the thought that sometimes books can be nearly too much. When a book has you in it’s grasp there are times that it is hard to handle the level of emotion that it can invoke. I have left a story deeply depressed, or bubbling on cloud nine, it’s all possible. I honestly have to be careful about my consumption of those kinds of books at this current place in my life. I don’t have the wherewithal to spend days moping over a lost fictional love, or living in fear in a dystopia that is just too close to reality for comfort. These are books that I would no doubt love, they might be favorites, but now is not the time for me to read them.

To say I get invested is an understatement. That was all true before I realized that there were books out there with characters that look like me. That I didn’t have to break the fourth wall everytime I re-realized that I have no experience to truly relate to the characters. It is validating, I feel more seen, I feel more welcome in a space that I always hoped was my own…but didn’t exactly fit me.

This project, this mission is curating lists so massive that we will be able to stay within the confines of our representation for long periods of time. The more that we read, the more that we get others to read them, the more that publishers see that there is a demand for more. We are more, we are worth more than trying to identify with a person who has never understood any of the trauma from living in a fat body amongst today’s society. See me, write me, let characters take up space, let them be talented lovers, let them be amazing friends. They don’t have to be the jolly tropey fat best friends, we are totally capable of starring roles.

I hope that we can keep this up for the future. I hope that it sparks change and the fat girls in the next generation don’t require demands for representation. Our daughters, our sisters, our nonbinary family and friends, we love you and want you to feel affirmed in yourselves as the magnificent humans that you are. You are deserving of love, respect, and joy. Having positive representation helps you to not only realize that you deserve those things, but to be able to give them to yourselves.

Thank you for being a part of this journey. We see you, we appreciate you.