I’m a writing tutor at a community college. It’s at once rewarding, challenging,
and, sometimes, frustrating. In a break from rhetorical analyses and summaries,
a student, with the aid of an ASL interpreter, asked for reading help. Initially
I recommended a reading tutor, but soon realized she was more interested in
books than the process.
“I don’t know how I should feel at the end of the book,” she explained.
Her face revealed she was being neither ironic nor sarcastic; she was earnest.
I was silent. What should you feel at the end: joy, relief, disappointment?
“It’s pretty subjective,” I finally answered. “So much depends on the book and
where you are in your life. Some books I don’t want to end; the good ones I think
about long after setting it down for the last time. Others make want me to read
something better where I can know the characters, revel in the language, be awed
by the images, or just enjoy the story. Sometimes after finishing an exceptional
book, I don’t even want to read anything new for a while.”
Her rapid hand movements interrupted me, “But have you read any famous books?”
The inquiry seemed sincere. “I read a lot,” I said, “including books that could be
considered famous.”
For a moment she was still before she scrunched her face, moving her lips and
her hands at the same time. “Like Harry Potter?”
“Sure, like Harry Potter,” I said. “I read those to my kids, at the end we couldn’t
wait for the next one.”
Was that it? Did she really just want to know how she should feel at the end of
Harry Potter?
We all shrugged our shoulders.
It left me wanting to read a good book, one I can’t put down. How should you feel
when you finish a book?
The Blue Page Special 