When You're Afraid to Reread

While I'm not a big rereader, I do have my favorites that I come back to over and over. I seem to be perpetually in the midst of another Harry Potter reread, I come back to half-remembered books from my childhood occasionally, and I do a ritualized reread of A Christmas Carol every year (one stanza each evening from 20th December through Christmas Eve). I reread more often as a child and a teenager, possibly because I had fewer books available to me than I do now but I suspect more because I had less expectation that I "ought" to be reading certain things and just happily re-immersed myself in the stories I liked best. 

So I'm no stranger to the reread, but I have a handful of books I've been avoiding rereading, books that I loved so much at a certain moment in time that I'm afraid to go back to them lest they turn out to be less than wonderful and the memories are tainted. These are the books I would come back to precisely because I wanted to feel the same thing I felt last time but fear that feeling was singular and the memory of it is better than finding out I can't step into that particular textual river ever again.

Here are four books I hesitate to reread:

Number the Stars, Lois Lowry

I first read this World War II middle grade chapter book in fifth grade, and while I suspect I read it repeatedly around that time of my life, I've never reread it as an adult. I loved the story and the friendship between the main characters. It was probably one of my first experiences of enjoying a book while also understanding that it dealt with serious, real topics that were outside of the realm of what was entertaining. Ironically, it is my fear that my fuller, more complete adult understanding of the Holocaust will keep me from enjoying the book at all that keeps me from coming back to it now.

Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn

I no longer remember whether this is the first Star Wars book I ever read (I don't think so?), but it was early in my deep dive into Star Wars fandom early in high school. Every summer I spent a week or so with my grandparents, and I remember so clearly lying on a patio chair in their breezeway just inhaling this book. While the book itself was good and certainly helped cement my growing love of Star Wars, it is more the memory of reading it that I do not wish to disturb with a reread. Maybe if I read it again it would be just as fun as the first time and I would just add another layer to my memory of the book. But what if I was bored? Better to let it alone.

Circle of Friends, Maeve Binchy

I loved Maeve Binchy as a teenager and read several of her books. Circle of Friends was always my favorite, though. I loved all the characters, the setting was fascinating to me, and I found the way the book didn’t end with everything all tied up neatly and predictably happily both disturbing and refreshingly realistic. I’ve tried reading some Binchy as an adult, and I always wander away from them, finding them too loosely focused and a little too twee. It’s entirely possible that her writing style changed since Circle of Friends and I would find that one just as grabbing as I did at fifteen, but I’d rather not risk finding out I don’t.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Of all the books here, this is the one I’m most likely to reread despite my reservations. I *love* Jane Eyre, and I have since the first time I read it, at sixteen, largely on the bus coming home from school. I was completely caught up in the gothickiness and the moors and the mysterious Mr. Rochester. I loved the way Jane stood up for her sense of what was right and that she didn’t take the safe, secure option. I rejoiced in its happy ending. I have reread Jane Eyre at least once since that first time but not recently. I know so much more about life now, and about the world, and I’m much more aware of the flaws of Jane’s time period. The way I would think about and react to so much of this novel will have changed so much. Bits that were just great story when I was younger will now have troubling things to say about mental health and race and misogyny and colonialism. And all that is good and as it should be. I have just not yet been willing to tramp through my love of this book with my adult, open eyes. That I get to waffle about “ruining” my initial innocent read of this book is, of course, a result of my own privilege, and I doubt that I’ll be able sit around without properly interrogating my memory of this book for much longer.

There you have it! Some of my favorite books I’m hesitant to reread. What are some of yours?