What makes a comfort read?

[sartorias]

rushthatspeaks has a nifty post about what makes a comfort read. Especially when a book that, at least first time through, was far from being any kind of a comfortable read. Her point about comfort reads cannot be first reads really struck me as true--but is it true for others?

Comments

[avengangle]

Well, I'm going to be contrary and try to disagree. I think certain broad categories of books can be comfort reads the first time through. Agatha Christie mysteries are a comfort read for me (and my mother); I got through a few of them when I was about eight and when I read them now, even ones I've never read before, they're still comfort reads. Ditto for certain types of romance novels -- I started READING them as comfort reads during a particularly difficult semester.

I guess for a first-time read, it has to be a novel that doesn't necessarily make you think a lot. Maybe?

[sartorias]

People upthread are saying that if the book is predictable (and this is the story you signed on to read) then it can feel like a comfort read at once.

I wonder if people ever go back and reread these. Like I said to telophase, that's the other half of comfort read's definition.

[avengangle]

Speaking for myself, I do. I've got a handful of romance novels that I have been known to reread.

[sartorias]

Me too!

[breathingbooks]

Like others have said, a new book can be a comfort read if the shape and tone are unchallenging and predictable (a lot of traditional regencies and gentler children's stories function this way). The first Mitford book, for example, was like a worn blanket from the beginning, as was Enright's The Saturdays. Books like Sunshine are comfort reads now, but the fate of minor characters and issues in it were harder to predict and so I was too hyped up the first time to have it be completely a cookie-and-hot-chocolate read.

[sartorias]

Yep, I totally get that.

[green_knight]

For me, predictability in the plot is a negative - I'm not comforted by that, I am, to be honest, somewhat disturbed. I can cope with a general structure - Enid Blyton's school stories, for instance, which have a scaffolding of certain events that fit into the school year - but if I can guess what will happen, my brain disengages.

[breathingbooks]

Hmm, yes, structure is probably a better term than shape.

[catwithclaws]

a comfort read is almost always a re-read. And typically a 5-10th time reread. Where I can fade off in thoughts and still read, then back into the story again, knowing exactly what's going to happen. Sometimes, there's a high degree of security in 'ruts' like this.

The only exceptions would be a new book in a series with an author whom you know very very well --- and who is very UNcreative in the variations on the tale that they tell. Say, some of the para-romance novels I've been getting into. Uh huh. 6 brothers you say? After the first book you already KNOW what the other 5 are going to be like :P course, there I get bored and move onto something else more creative instead :PP

[sartorias]

Heh. Yes, others above have talked about predictability being part of the comfort read quotient.

[affreca]

Definitely familiarity is important in a comfort read for me. I've noticed my comfort read has changed. As a teenager it was Pern. Now it is Bujold (like so many others here) and Doyle and MacDonald's Mage worlds series.

[sartorias]

Oh yes, Mageworlds! One of my top faves!

[thegreatmissjj]

For me, comfort reads can only be identified after I've read them at least a few times. I read broadly and repeatedly, but what I EXPECT to be a comfort read on the first go doesn't always turn out to be so.

Case in point, THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant. That one completely came out of left field for me. I'm ordinarily one who loves YA fantasy, emphasis on the fantasy and THE RED TENT is a fictional literary "retelling" of the Jacob/Leah/Rachel story told from his only daughter Dinah's point of view. The book is dripping with gorgeous sensory details, but is also brutal and blunt about sex and violence and rape and betrayal. In many ways, reading THE RED TENT is incredibly cathartic for me, hence why I consider it a comfort read (my roommate has a similar reaction to THE MISTS OF AVALON). Other surprising comfort rereads for me are 1984 by George Orwell, BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley, and THE GIVER by Lois Lowry (apparently I find dystopias...comforting

[sartorias]

It's always amazing, the variety of books that appeal to people, and why they appeal. (and sometimes overlap, but other tiems not.)