Did you ever notice that your book reading experience is somehow affected by the environment around you?
For example, in the summer I went to Alabama with my best friend and I brought In Cold Blood and The Bell Jar read.
However, I didn’t like the environment I was staying in. We stayed at her uncle’s family which she never met before so there’s no way she could’ve predicted what would happen. In general, they treated us not so much like guests. It’s a very traditional way of thinking and greeting but in short, I was doing the dishes at least 3 times a day and the sink was always over flowing with big dirty stuff. I almost threw up when they forced me to clean their filthy fridge.. IT was packed withe expired things.. I wouldn’t go into the details.
And lastly, we were in the middle of NO WHERE. We couldn’t take the bus, we didn’t have a car so there was no way we could just go around for fun. And during all that time I stayed in Alabama, her aunts were always making mean comments harassing us.
Very toxic environment.
I didn’t realize it then but that’s probably the main cause of me disliking both In Cold Blood and The Bell Jar. I was extremely disappointed in the novels. I couldn’t understand why both books were so bland and boring.
But, I decided to give them a second chance.
I recently reread The Bell Jar and I absolutely loved it. I told myself : how did you not get the main message? How did you find this novel boring? And it all came back. The bad memories.
Did you ever experiment the same effect of the environment and your reading? Not necessarily in a bad way but it can be in a good way too.
I remember traveling to Greece, seating down a coffee shop with the beautiful beach view and the waves were gracefully hitting the giant rocks and all the while I was reading about Greek Mythology. Do I need to say how that view made my reading a hundred times better? Having that kind of peace and quiet was great for getting immersed in the story, and it was very easy to picture the story in my head too.
My Dark Theories 
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