The moment I caught myself defending a book I didn't even like

Last month my book club read 'The Midnight Library' and I spent the whole meeting arguing for it. Later that night I realized I was just defending my own choice to pick it, not the actual story. What tipped me off was when my friend Sarah said 'but you said the middle chapters dragged' and I realized she was right. I had been pretending to enjoy it because I didn't want to admit I wasted our group's time on a dud. Has anyone else caught themselves defending a book just because you recommended it?

2 comments

2 Comments

hunt.rowan1mo ago

Gotta push back a little here. I think you're being too hard on yourself for having a different take than your friend, because books hit people differently based on where they're at in life. Defending something you picked isn't automatically fake, sometimes you just see angles other people miss.

wrenstone1mo ago

Isn't it possible you're just retrofitting your opinion to match what someone else said? That moment when Sarah pointed out the middle chapters dragging, you immediately folded and decided she was right, but maybe she wasn't. The truth is, people say things in conversation and we let them rewrite our memory of how we actually felt. From what you described, you were genuinely defending the book in the moment, and it's only later that you second-guessed yourself because of one comment. Sounds like you're letting social pressure make you doubt your own reading experience, not that you were being dishonest.