‘Tis the Season of Rereading: How to choose what to reread (ft. a handy flowchart)

Hi Virtually Readers! I haven’t had any time to reread this week (although I WILL I swear) so today I’m doing something different: a guide to deciding what to reread. In the comments of several of our posts, people have said something like ‘I’d love to join in/reread, but I don’t know which book to choose’. I’ve always been a big rereader, so it surprises me that some bookworms aren’t (which is okay). This is a step by step checklist guide thingy to choosing a book to reread. 

First of all, this doesn’t look perfect, basically because I spent a long time battling with good ol’ info gram and then gave up and took screenshots. There is a better version, but somehow I couldn’t embed it. Anyway.

I have a lot of packing/panicking to do, but I’ll quickly walk you through this.

Firstly, I think rereading is a mood thing because it’s so comforting, so it’s best to reread something while you feel like it instead of waiting to get it from the library or buy it or whatever. So if you’re thinking of rereading something, I like it to be something I have already checked out or on my shelves.

I don’t think there’s much point in reading something if you don’t get anything out of it. If you enjoy the book and think you’ll enjoy reading it again, then you should reread. If you only enjoyed it because of the plot suspense, then rereading might not actually be any fun. If you didn’t enjoy it it might still be worthwhile! I’ve reread books that I disliked when I was younger and liked more now. And I’ve reread books that I think I can learn something from, even if it wasn’t my favourite. (PS: discussion about giving books a second chance coming your way sometime soon).

Lastly, I think rereading does require some time. Most books would not be that enjoyable if you started at the beginning as soon as you finished it. But I’ve reread some books twice this year and definitely have no regrets. Rereading isn’t about plot; it’s about language and characters and dialogue. So if you’re trying to decide if you’ve read it recently, think about whether you will appreciate those things again, or whether the entire story and language and characters are fresh enough that the entire thing won’t feel worthwhile.

Ultimately, choosing what to reread is up to you. I hope this guide helps you; it’s the thought process I go through when thinking about rereading.

Do you think you’ll use this? What do you want to reread? Are you a big rereader? And most importantly, do you have any recommendations for how to wrangle Infogram?

 

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