Ever disliked a book you once enjoyed after rereading it?

I remember when I was in elementary and middle school, I enjoyed reading books such as Percy Jackson and The Olympians, Alex Rider, the Young Bond series, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

While I still enjoy the Alex Rider series, I found that when I finally got my hands on a copy of "The Last Olympian", I didn't enjoy it as much as when I read the other books in middle school. I also got the same reaction when I tried rereading book 1 of "A series of unfortunate events". It just seemed very bland.

It could be that I read those immediately after I finished my new favorite book, "John Dies at the End" (which I still reread numerous times), and I started comparing all other books to JDatE.

Has anybody else ever had a similar experience?

I think the thing that happens is the books we read in elementary and middle school were geared toward kids in elementary and middle school. They were good to us then because they were meant for us and dealt with things we were ready to deal with and were interested in reading about. It's all about the audience.

Now, being older and having read books geared toward our age groups now we may find those old books from elementary and middle school to be lacking. That's because we're older and dealing with older experiences and life problems which the books geared for our age groups are prepared to deal with. We see the books we loved from elementary and middle school and try to see them in the context of our age now and they just don't apply to us because we're able to face problems and ideas we weren't prepared to face at those ages.

So, really it's not that those books are bad it's that we're older. Comparing the quality isn't really fair, but unfortunately it's something we're geared to do with all that life experience and stuff.

Lauren2010 wrote:I think the thing that happens is the books we read in elementary and middle school were geared toward kids in elementary and middle school. They were good to us then because they were meant for us and dealt with things we were ready to deal with and were interested in reading about. It's all about the audience.

Yeah that.
I still do like reading them though.

I dislike books in hindsight, really.
Like, when I read them I really loved the Darren Shan books (Saga of Darren Shan and the Demonata), but looking back I know that they weren't fantastically written, and they did go on a bit.
I've never really picked up a book I used to love and thought "Wait- this sucks!"

Ooh, I've heard good things about John Dies at the End! The author is a Cracked.com columnist, right? I think I should check it out at some point.

I agree with Lauren2010. Growing up, I'd be so enthralled by any story that I wouldn't really notice the quality of the work, because hey, Artemis Fowl just escaped death by a troll and that is cool! Nowadays, a book's style, quality, and shortcomings are things I'm a lot more conscious of - partially because I Care About That Stuff A Lot as a writer, and partially because I've found that adult-er (more adult?) fiction tends to embrace strange or distinctive styles more than children's fiction, in which the story's interest factor is usually chief priority. (You wouldn't find much stream-of-consciousness or use of heavy metaphors in a Scholastic book.)

I felt that way after re-watching Twilight...

There are movies I've watched as a kid and when I rewatch them I shrivel into a ball and cry because of all the obcenities that I simply do not remember being there as a child.

When it comes to books though I read and understood adult novels from a young age, so re-reading them always makes me feel oddly peaceful because it's like revisiting a childhood memory.

Yeah, there are some books I read as a kid that I've re-read now, and some hold up and others don't. Same with kids' movies- Lion King's still in my Top 10 List. Once Upon a Forest? Not so much so.

But I remember there was this one book I REALLY liked, "I Rode a Horse of Mild-White Jade." I read it and it went to the top of my list in no time. Then a few years later, I picked it up and read it again. I remember being surprised how much I didn't like it!
So some things I don't touch- they were good back then, but I know I wouldn't like them now. Like the audience thing BadlyDrawn mentioned earlier. So no, I won't be re-reading the Boxcar Children or the Moffats anytime soon.