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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m ^^ and why would you be embarrassed? We have bodies and desires. I also read both 2023 Pulitzer Prize winners. We can be multifaceted.[/quote]

I've been thinking about your question. Embarrassment is maybe not the right word. dislike? discomfort? disdain?

i think it is a combination of:
1-book snobbery. this has been the main identity that has stayed constant for me all my life. my closest friends, spouse, child name etc all came to me via my love of books. beside my bed, i have two piles of books. the books i want to read and the ones i actually am reading. suddenly, i feel like the coffee gourmand who is hooked on instant. If, like you, i was reading both types of books, I would just accept this as one of my tastes. But it is the only taste I have these days. Bleh. 
2-my other great love is for self-pity. i feel like i am obsessing over the one thing I don't have. i've been so fortunate in so many areas of my life, fixating on this aspect of life feels like a determination to be unhappy. It's a little horrifying to me, to imagine this as anything but a temporary hormonal phase i am going through. Because i will never stop picking at that hurt.
3-like any other 40 something mom, i am crucified by work/child raising/domestic drudgery. spending the little bit of disposable time and attention that i do have, on emotional junk food (for me, anyway) results in me spending the rest of my day brooding on rubbish instead of say, poetry.

Am not judging anyone else. Obviously.

Thanks for responding everyone! And please keep the recommendations coming. [/quote]

I'm pp and you're being really hard on yourself. I get it because I judge myself too harshly too, but I'm getting to the point where I'm finally trying to be me. I've always been a romantic at heart, and it sounds like you, I've always lived in my head. I, too, thought literary fiction was the only way. But, then I admitted to myself I didn't get much joy from it. I like more plot driven books, and that's what I want to read. I like to think there are seasons in my life, and that's okay. I can change my mind at any point. It helps for me to tell myself the truth: honestly I probably am never going to really like or read poetry. But, that doesn't mean anything about me except that I don't like that genre.

Midlife is very hard and that emotional junk food, i.e. self care is the path forward. Perimenopause, work, the sandwich generation takes it's toll. I've been so irritable for six months that I've hunkered down and just read and watched junk TV. Let's not forget the state of the world too. We just agreed in our book group (where I read one of the Pulitizers) that we will only read easy peasy, nothing too emotional or hard this fall because nobody can handle it rn.

So, give yourself a break and let's just focus on which smutty books we love most! ;)[/quote]

50 and I feel like I am going to jump out of my skin with anxiety over the state of the world. I wake up at 4am and put on NPR and my gd, it's just one horrible thing after another. Waiting for November - and fearing what might happen - has me in a permanent state of brain fuzz.

I can't imagine I am alone in this. (Though wouldn't that be great if no one else were feeling this way.) If sh**ty tv and terrible books help us get through the day, there's worse ways to cope.[/quote]

My mom had a stress heart attack from watching the news all the time. I'm not saying check out and be uninformed, but you don't have to wake up and put on NPR (or any news) and in fact I think you shouldn't. Listen to something fun or relaxing. [/quote]

This. I’m early 50s and have been on a romance kick for the last year as away to escape from various anxieties about health, kids, aging parents, the state of the world. Many aren’t smutty but they are escapist and will end happily and allow me to decompress. Not my usual reading material as I like nonfiction and more literary novels but I haven’t been in the mood for reality, complex characters, etc…[/quote]

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