Favourite Books & Comfort Books, All the Same?

Discussion article alert! 😁 I confess, I did not think I still had the ability to write discussion posts -- okay, blog discussion posts because I think that what I do for a living can be described as a 10k to 200k words "discussion post." But inspiration comes from the strangest places -- okay, Twitter is not the most bizarre or odd place to find inspiration. I saw this tweet about one's favourite book and comfort book a thousand years ago, and it was the kick-off for this discussion. So, is my favourite book different from my comfort book?

🌻 Foremost, here is the tweet that inspired this discussion post:

   "i’m convinced there’s a difference between your favorite book and your comfort book" -- Twitter @eveliaswaffle

I should begin by sharing my answer right away: YES! I do believe there is a difference between my favourite book and my comfort book.

As many of you already know, I'm terrible at narrowing down my choices (as I'm also awful at remembering book titles, characters' names, towns' names, etc.). 😅 Picking my favourite book is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and it's simply impossible. I promise I will not digress, but for the sake of not making me plunge into a haystack looking for my favourite book ever, I shall change the question from "favourite book" to "favourite books." It's easier to pick an example without feeling I'm making a compromise -- I do not like making compromises with my books.

I love all of my books. 💛

Juliet Marillier's Heart's Blood, a Beauty and the Beast retelling, is one of my favourite books -- this was the book that a decade ago made me fall in love with reading all over again. Of course, I haven't read it since then. Why? I'm too scared that a second reading will disappoint me. What if I hate the characters and the plot? What if it isn't as brilliant as I thought it was? What if I no longer cherish it? I do not want to wonder why I loved the story so much. I also haven't finished Sabaa Tahir's Ember Quartet for that exact reason. I promised myself I would re-read the first three books, what seems like a century ago, before picking the last one. However, I have not been able to do so because I fear I might not love the series as much as I initially did. If you remember, I gushed so much about Laia (even though so many people "hated" her) and Elias and their deadly journey. I obsessed with these books for months! I STILL DO! I just do not want to lose this feeling.

Re-reading old favourites, which I have very fond memories of, seems a daunting task -- one of those tasks you keep postponing because you are terrified of them. Like going through all your unread books and find something you want to unhaul. Or looking at your TBR pile and hear their judgemental whispers about when you will be reading them. And, if I fear reading these books, none of my favourite books can be my comfort books. No matter what, I cannot easily pick these books from my bookshelf, wrap myself in a warm blanket, and re-read them. So, yes, this is why I'm very much convinced there's a difference between my favourite book and my comfort book.

The most perfect reading kit.

What can possibly be my comfort book, then? On the one hand, I can go back to my comfort books and re-read them over and over again without fearing or caring about not loving them. On the other hand, reading these books gives me warm feelings, and I'm not constantly worried that I might hate it. I do not dread that my experience will be ruined. As a matter o fact, I find myself falling in love with these books more and more as I read them.

By the way, we all have our definition of a comfort book. When I write or say "comfort book," you might have thought that I was talking about some cute contemporary novels. But no. Darkness brings me comfort. Okay, clarification: not horror gore. Darkness does not mean horror/terror. Don't get me wrong. I love watching horror TV films and shows (I think it's time to re-watch Malignant, which is freaking brilliant), but I don't think I'm very fond of horror books -- apart from Mexican Gothic, but that is because of all the Gothic vibes. I always find something amiss.

The spooky season is upon us...

I'm the happiest when reading about emotionally broken characters rebuilding their world, eerie settings and ruinous atmospheres, terrible secrets, monsters lurking in the shadows, and good and evil being nothing more than shades of grey. I'm the happiest when I'm reading about all the creepy tropes you can imagine. Some books in which I can find this comfort are This Savage Song (my precious August and my badass Kate), The Archived (Fine! Everything Schwab writes brings me comfort -- but some books are easier to get back to than others; I don't think I will ever go back to Shades because all those pages are daunting), The Hunger Games trilogy (Don't ask why. This book is just everything to me. Even with that ending -- I hated it so much the first time that I gave the book an awful rating, and now I'm like "all the stars"); the second time around, I loved it -- and I might have cried about the cat).

As written above, this statement also made me consider the genres that bring me comfort. When I need some cheering up, I find myself leaning towards YA dystopian novels -- btw we need another dystopian boom. And fantasy worlds. But not high fantasy with a hundred books in a series. Extensive world-building is awful for someone to whom, when you ask, "what's the plot about?" all that comes out of her mouth is a rambling mess. Many of my comfort books do not have what you would call a traditional happy ending, and since I don't want to spoil the plot, let me just say that there is a lot of hurt, but also hope -- and because the endings are so hopeful, I always get back to them. Isn't hope what we all need? No matter how old we are?

Heimlich never gave up hope.

The darkest the story is, the more comforting I will find a book. Just give me heart-wrenching pain, and I will find some hope to light up the day. As someone wrote, “sometimes in the darkest places, we find the brightest light” (no, I never read the book; I just quote it a lot -- maybe I should read it, but first, I must remember the title).

🌻 So, yes, my favourite books and my comfort books (and genre, if I care to add) are far from the same.

Do you think your comfort book and your favourite book are the same? If not, what are your comfort books?

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