I hate getting books for Christmas in general because I’m such a mood reader, and I’ve plastered a fake smile on my face many a time and repeated internally ‘Its the thought that counts.’ as I unwrap a book I will not read.
But the worst one by far, given to me by my own Mother , who I know loves me, when I was fourteen years old! was >!Men are from Mars Women are from Venus.!< I am sitting there horrified thinking what is she trying to tell me? As my sisters are flat on the floor laughing to the point of puking. We eventually came to the conclusion she just saw an attractive cover on a bestseller table and grabbed it. Love to know your terrible gift stories.
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I mean the opposite case for me(because I can’t remember getting a bad book for Christmas) was when a coworker got me the first book of The Finder Chronicles by Suzanne Palmer as a Secret Santa gift, she was super excited when the next day she asked me if I liked it and I could honestly tell her I loved it.
I never got books as gifts, not on Christmas or anytime of the year but during Christmas I like to buy Christmas themed books.
So last year I had got the book “In a Holidaze” by Christina Lauren because I thought the book would be about time travelling which it was to some extent but it was more about romance and relationships and family and I really didn’t like the book at the end.
I had a stint in eating disorder treatment right before Christmas one year as a teenager. A couple in my extended family, who I have little in common with and don’t know very well, got me an ENORMOUS book of “positive thinking” platitudes. Genuinely it was ~500 pages of the kind of corny quotes you see MLM types post on Instagram ripped from their original context. I tried to comb through it to find something of value but not a single quote meant anything to me. A lot of them were religious too, and I am not religious- the atheism of my immediate family is actually a huge source of drama in the extended family so that was awkward.
I ended up giving it away to a book donation drive shortly after. They really did mean well and I appreciated the thought, but it also showcased the ignorance that my family had around the situation in an uncomfortable way…
I had a similar experience when I was in hospital as a teenager. A teacher gave me one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I read it because I was beyond bored, and there was one story in there that particularly incensed me - a teacher gets her students to write down all the things they’re unable to do, makes them bury the lists in the playground, and holds a funeral for ‘I Can’t’. They create a tombstone for I Can’t and hang it on the classroom wall. After that, whenever a child said they couldn’t do something, the teacher would point at the wall and remind them that I Can’t was dead.
One of the biggest lessons I had to learn as a disabled kid (and just a human generally) was that everyone has limits and it’s more than OK to respect those. If I insist that my car is really a convertible submarine and insist on driving it into the Irish Sea, the car will not be inspired to develop these new capabilities. People are no different. Of course there will be times when self-doubt and low self-confidence keep you from things you could do, and of course it’s a good thing to overcome the feelings that hold you back, but there will be plenty of other times when saying ‘no’ is liberating rather than restricting.
In my old job I used to deliver teacher training from time to time, and I’d always tell participants to make sure they never tried to encourage any child with, “There’s no such word as can’t”…unless they could tell me, hand on heart, that they believed themselves capable of landing a principal role in the Bolshoi Ballet by next Wednesday. There was always laughter at that, but you could almost see the realisation dawning for some attendees.
God I hate that shit. I’ve had my own mental health issues and getting angry on my own behalf has dragged me out of more depressive holes that positivity ever did. I might do a self help book of my own. How to get angry and set boundaries by I Jackdaw.
Very glad you survived your dangerous illness.
My kid received a copy of Rush Limbaugh and the Brave Pilgrims once.
A Higher Loyalty by James Comey 😂.
My grandfather gave me a Tom-Clancy esque thriller he wrote about an ex CIA ex Vietnam vet going to mexico to fight drug cartels and rescue an orphan.
I show up in the book.
A Thesaurus that I don’t think I’ve ever opened, and a couple very strange religious-y + conservative vibe self-help books.
A book about a war at Crete Island 😐
my stepdad got me the book “The dark Heroine: dinner with a vampire”. It was a nice thought because I was way into vampires at the time… but I DNF’ed it after about 100 pages.
My grandfather gifted me his old books he wanted to get rid of. Twice.
Most of them were textbook style even though I mostly read fiction/fantasy.
Needless to say I’ve never read them
“Unwanteds, quests.” I got this because I loved the unwanteds books, when I got the series I was expecting it to be similar.
It was not similar and was really quite terrible.