Fangirling: My Binges on Books

I’m a binge reader and always have been. It’s feast or famine with me and lately, . I’ve been feasting and decided to share on platforms, where readers roam, the range of stories hooking me. In case you’re dying to know.

Once I enter that circle, I act as fangirls do. Perhaps a bit modified, authors’ fangirls stalk their stories. We binge read them when we can’t get enough and slowly over time, reduce our reading to allow other authors’ works to get our attention. My latest stalking centers on award winning Adriana Trigiani’s long list of novels, et al. Since meeting Ms. Triagiani at a conference last month, I’ve read three of her novels. But I’ll come back to her later.

Back in the day, when I was a psych nurse reading lots of psych stories, Sybil topped that listthough there were more. Robert B. Parker’s Spencer series always featured his partner in ‘all things psych,’ his beloved Susan Silverman, a pedigreed psychologist her patients called ‘Doctor.’ Then I discovered Armistead Maupin, a binge worthy bestselling author I feasted on for years. Quirky defined his storytelling/characters in Tales of the City series, set in San Francisco in the 1980’s now considered historical fiction.

I’d like to say I was among the first to read Taylor Jenkins Reid’s ‘The Seven Husbands of Eleanor Hugo‘ that in 2017 GoodReads turned into a bestseller. But I wasn’t. For me, Goodreads is a platform one needs some sort of code to decipher and I have yet to find it. Once I did discover her delicious novel, I devoured The Seven Husbands of Eleanor Hugo, thus becoming a true Taylor Jenkins Reid fangirl. I remain so today. The last novel I read, After I Do, did hook me but it took a minute. My experience historically reading TJR novels is that they immediately hook. I know some readers will start a book and finish it-no matter what-I’m not one of them. I admit to giving some authors more rope before I cut my losses and close the book.

After I Do, was one. Once I did get hooked, (an early novel published in 2014), I stayed till the end.

Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House was another. I can almost see some reading this scratching their heads. How can she even admit this, I mean it’s Ann freaking Patchett, for chrissake!’ but there it is. Once her hook did set in, I listened to this story unfold in wonder: Ms. Patchett’s brilliance in telling this story? Turning a little into so much more, a gift few writers possess. The awards she’s collected, she surely has earned.

I feel the same way about Jodi Picoult. I read The Pact and my fangirldom began. The story, rooted in the fragile mental health of teenagers, hooked me from the get-go.

My fangirl piece is getting long so I’ll add one more author mentioned at the top. Adriana Trigiani. Just finished All the Stars in Heaven, the fictional account of Loretta Young’s love affair with Clark Gable and all I can say is, I wish my mom were still here. I was about to start number four, her latest. View From Lake Como, but for the sake of mixing it up, I held off until finishing another author worth fangirling, Lucy Foley. If you like psychological thrillers, definitely fangirl the UK bestselling author, Lucy Foley.

More fangirling in my next piece featuring authors who know how to hook this reader.