INFLUENCING FACTORS

I’ve read Beethoven in Paradise, If You Come Softly and Ganesh. They all have different issues and types of characters portrayed. In general, I would choose books that have both male and female as the main characters. Reading only-male-characters book is exhausting for me since it’s difficult for me to relate to male characters. Perhaps female characters shed some light into what the male characters are going through. Without female characters, I have no clue on what the issues are and what the males are feeling; is it anger, frustration, pride or something else. I also go for stories that have some humor despite of the seriousness of the story. Reading a very dramatic book without injection of humor evokes too much sadness and provides a bleak outlook on life. I might feel depressed after completing the book. I don’t normally dwell in sadness and I prefer not to find a chance to do so. I love books that portray the character in a balance perspective; someone who is realistically facing difficult challenges in life but somehow manages to have things in the right perspective at the end, taking appropriate course of actions to cope with the problems. Setting could also be a factor. We should be able to connect to a place and enjoy the descriptions as part of our mental exercise. A place that is not inspiring may also cause negative perception on the characters in the story. Furthermore, dialogues should not be very formal or reflecting the academic language. It should be realistic or authentic, something that suits the characters background and pragmatically appropriate to the situations. The front cover images are usually not very accurate depiction of the content. In order to get the above information that determines whether or not I will read a book, I usually glimpse at the blurb at the back cover and scan the book a bit to get some ideas on setting and dialogues.