Comment by andrewflnr
10 hours ago
If you want to tell reading-skeptical kids about "the volta", please don't phrase it as "the volta". Just say that a lot of good novels need you to read them for a bit to see what's going on, and then it will get good. They might already be familiar with the idea from TV shows.
But also, it's extremely possible to write a novel that grabs you from the first page. Thriller writers are the most obvious case. A gripping concept or setting can do it, too. This author might think they're too cool for books like that, but we shouldn't keep them away from kids if that's what they want to read.
For years my youngest kid (10yo) showed no interest in reading. He would very sometimes try, but give up after a few pages.
But then he read a book that opened with the sentence “I thought I was being followed.”, and that was his gateway drug.
I fully credit the author, Maren Stoffels, for getting my boy into reading. Every book by her is exciting from the first page. If you’re Dutch and have kids, I warmly recommend “De Wisselaar”.
Furthermore - there are more than enough novels that grip you immediately, to spend your whole life reading them and avoiding the rest.
"The rest" tend to come in two categories. Books I lack some experience for to be gripped by - which I may come back to in future. And bad books - which I will not. YOLO.
Margaret Mitchell got me to read a thousand pages of Gone With The Wind because she placed a juicy hook in the first chapter (Ashley) which gave me the motivation to read the entire book to see what happens.
Why more novels do not have central hooks I do not know. Hooks are usually what keep me reading, unless the book has some kind of reason for being interesting otherwise.
It took me more than a week to go through the first chapter in the first Harry Potter book.
It took me 4 days to finish the rest. This is because the pacing was wrong - the first chapter should have been the last.
Yeah same. I recently read the whole series to my son after he had begged me to stop after a couple of pages about 2 years ago. I told him: just keep your mind open for 100 pages.
The start is so cold, and weird. You can only feel the warmth and beauty that is coming on your second read, and part 1 takes some time to pay-off. What I like about Harry Potter is that many things are not what they seem when later looking back. It's clever like that.
On my own, 20 years ago, I couldn’t stop after starting. Sure the first chapters are a bit boring and different from the body of the books, but I have always given books about 100 pages to grab me, never consciously though about a Volta though, just almost always started to enjoy books after some time.
The follow-ups in a series can be enticing because of part one, but sometimes, as I had with 3 body problem, they disappoint so much or are so different that I just stop.
I've got the opposite problem with "Infinite Jest". I have had a hundred pages left for several years. I just need to sit down and soldier through those to say that I have read the bloody thing. It did not grip me.
1 reply →
I started as a kid with the second book, as it was the only one in the bookstore on that day
Really? I thought the first Harry Potter book was very engaging. The second book had more dry spots for me.
isn't the first chapter like 10 pages?
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