Story Mirroring Life Too Closely

I prefer stories that are like that, and whenever possible, I write stories that mirror my own life as closely as possible.

I started reading The Fault in Our Stars a few months after a close family member passed away from cancer. I was with him a lot toward the end. I couldn't even get past the first chapter in that book. Maybe it was too soon to try, but I'm not going back.

djunamod said:

I suppose it got to me because I grew up in a family where my father was severely emotionally and financially abusive towards my mother and my mother continues to this day to defend him and make of him a great person, refusing to see she's been living with an abuser all her married life. The relationship between the characters in the novel mirrored so much what I experienced as a child that it just made me more and more ill to read the novel. So I finally had to put it down and walk away from it.

Djuna

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I'm sorry that happened to you.

I've not yet dropped a book because the story hit close to home. I enjoy those stories because they validate my experience. Mostly, I stop reading a book because the prose is terrible.

Yeah, I've had to stop reading an annoying number of contemporary stories lately because they went into something too triggering. There's really only one thing I can't deal with reading, but that thing suddenly seems to crop up all over the place (no doubt this is just perception and it was always there and I just didn't notice so much before). I don't have the luxury of choosing to read about that particular subject because I start having flashbacks and can no longer see what's written on the page, only what I saw in real life. This obviously makes continuing to read physically and mentally impossible.

Sometimes I do stop reading when it gets too close to home. Most of the time though, I trod through and see how closely the experience in the book reflects mine. I think it depends where you're head's at. So sorry to hear some of you having such traumatic experiences while reading books.

I have a rapist and a rape victim in my current novel...luckily no rape, just the aftermath, but I can imagine that might be hard for a rape victim to read. Thanks OP for giving me a different perspective I hadn't considered before.

Yes, that's happened to me all the time.

I haven't been able to read anything to do with Alzheimer's for years.

I've never put a book down because of something triggering, but that doesn't mean it won't happen someday. Sorry this was hard for you. (hug)

I always thought mirroring life was the whole point of fiction.

I too tend to seek out books that mirror challenging situations I've faced in real life. Other times, I read books to escape to a new world (where my love of sci-fi comes in).

That doesn't make reading difficult books any easier. I read A Stolen Life and just spent the next few days quietly by myself. Took me a few starts and stops near the end there too, as she looks back. Room was a little easier, and it was fiction, not a memoir. Stolen was just unsatisfying all around, but perhaps I'm not into the young adult romantic angle on captivity.

It happens. And it happens all the time to people I know. They need to put the book down, and that's okay. You have a choice, and if it hits too close to home, you can stop reading.

I hope you feel better today. *hugs*

~ Anna

thedark said:

I too tend to seek out books that mirror challenging situations I've faced in real life. Other times, I read books to escape to a new world (where my love of sci-fi comes in).

That doesn't make reading difficult books any easier. I read A Stolen Life and just spent the next few days quietly by myself. Took me a few starts and stops near the end there too, as she looks back. Room was a little easier, and it was fiction, not a memoir. Stolen was just unsatisfying all around, but perhaps I'm not into the young adult romantic angle on captivity.

It happens. And it happens all the time to people I know. They need to put the book down, and that's okay. You have a choice, and if it hits too close to home, you can stop reading.

I hope you feel better today. *hugs*

~ Anna

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Reading such a book is supposed to be difficult. If it's easy, it probably isn't mirroring your life very well.

Several times. I try to avoid books that deal with losing a loved one to suicide because I read to enjoy and not to be utterly miserable.

My life's so boring, so I've never read a book that mirrored my life experience so well that it served as a trigger and I had to put the book down. Maybe that of a friend, but never mine. If I come across a book that mirrors my life, I put it down because it's boring and doesn't have many hard pressing issues to keep me interested...

Reading back through that, I don't mean that last sentence the way it sounded. But you all get what I mean.

There's definitely some hard issues lately, especially with YA. Sometimes just reading to escape is best. Sometimes facing those issues by learning about other experiences, whether reading fiction or memoirs and whatnot, that have issues that you've dealt with is a healthy thing. But if it's going to upset you, and it's not required of you to read it, there's no reason you should. Maybe a lighthearted romance for the next one?

I'm thinking of going paranormal next. I've been reading too many contemporaries too lately. That's the wave right now.

Once that I recall. I read a novel. Then several years later I was going to read it again. But in view of its subject I decided to give it a pass. Sort of a shame as it was a really cool read.

Jamesaritchie said:

Reading such a book is supposed to be difficult. If it's easy, it probably isn't mirroring your life very well.

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Things is James, there's difficult to read and then there are things that induce flashbacks in readers who've been through the trauma being described. If something makes you uncomfortable that's all well and good, even if it makes you way too uncomfortable to continue reading. But if something is literally causing flashbacks, there's no reason on earth someone should have to feel obligated to continue a book because it "mirrors life and that's the point of fiction."

Me? I certainly have had to put books down due to flashbacks, or in the case of when I'm reading fanfiction close a browser window after a flashback was over. Sure for me I'm now able to read about the triggering topic with minimal flashbacks, but that's only if it is dealt with in a certain way. Any thing that deveates from what I think of as acceptable handling does still cause book ruining flashbacks, that can sometimes lead to a 75% increase for damn near a week. And I had to work hard to get to where I am in regards to reading material I find potentially triggering. Had to deliberately go back and read the same story by an author who handled the topic well for months before I was able to endure other stories that handled it with the same level of respect.