Michelle Guo: "Dear Carmen Maria Machado: Goodreads is Like, My Best Friend"

Dear Carmen Maria Machado: Goodreads is Like, My Best Friend

By Michelle Guo

Since coming to the Illinois Malnutrition and Sleep Deprivation Math and Science Academy, I’ve found that I’ve gotten really bad at reading. Which is pretty terrible since before IMSA, I considered myself a “bookworm” (is this even a relevant term? Eh, whatever). Nowadays, when I do read, it’s also harder for me to finish books because I tend to get distracted by school, but I’ve tried to continue reading outside of school.

            Part of the reason why I continue to read for fun even while at IMSA is that I’m the president of my school’s book club and at one point was part of two book clubs (I make bad choices, don’t be like me when you grow up). A lot of the books I end up reading now are recommended to me or somewhat popular in their fields (like award nominees or classics of sorts). Even though I hadn’t always been very enthusiastic about some of the books that I’ve had to read for book club, I’ve found the majority of them to be really fascinating (with one very glaring exception that will remain unnamed). My system for choosing things mostly holds true for when I’m on vacation since I still have to worry about schoolwork, but when I really have a lot of free time (like I will in 8 days…) I find I try just a bit harder to find interesting books.

            When I look for new books, I’m really rather superficial. I stick to authors I already know, I judge based off covers, and I pick through book displays in libraries and stores. And most of the time, it works and I end up with stuff that I find pretty enjoyable. But sometimes, I feel this sort of itch for some genre or setting that I can’t seem to satisfy. When this “craving” comes around, I find myself researching in ways that would have made my SIR advisor proud. I’ve pulled lists off Goodreads and various parts of the net, interrogated librarians, searched award nominee lists from sometimes more than a decade back, and semi-stalked authors for their book recommendations. After I’ve found titles on the interwebs, I usually head to Goodreads and base the quality of the book off the first 4 or so reviews I see (this is usually worth the effort).

            Of course, despite all my investigating, I occasionally come across stinkers. The thing is, I usually finish the books I read, even if I really hate them, so it takes a truly special sort of book to make me quit. And I don’t exactly mean it as a compliment.

            In recent memory, the books that I’ve dropped for reasons outside of schoolwork are the ones that’ve failed to elicit some sort of emotion from me. In short, they’re boring. To me, the worst crime that any story can make is being dull. What usually happens is that the plot veers from the original plot and focuses more on the romance (which isn’t always bad, but it’s often not done well) or I when the characters aren’t interesting (i.e. they make strange decisions not in line with their previously defined character, it becomes apparent that the writer hasn’t been a teenager for decades, etc.).

            It seems that my standards for books are pretty intense, but they really aren’t. I usually don’t have much trouble finding and liking stuff. I swear.