By the time we reach adulthood a good many of us have experienced a pretty rough hangover after a night of celebrating. You know that feeling. Your brain feels fuzzy, your limbs are heavy, your emotions are all over the place, and you find it difficult to focus on anything other than the thought of, "what the hell just happened?" Well, that’s what I’ve been told it feels like. Full disclosure, as much as I love my bourbon, I’ve never actually been drunk. Just blissfully tipsy a time or two. But, I digress.
I can tell you that, "I'm out of control, beyond tipsy, why is everything blurry, and someone please stop the world from spinning" feeling isn't relegated to the after effects of too much alcohol. Enter the book hangover. That feeling you get when you finish a book that affected you so deeply, all you can do is sit there in your literary stupor and mutter, "Whoa! What the hell just happened?"
I usually experience a book hangover from three types of books. One is the intense suspense novel that raises my heartrate and dries my eyeballs out because I'm afraid if I blink I'll miss something. The second is that immersive experience when you feel an emotional connection not just to the characters, but to the very words themselves. When the language used to create the story is as much a part of the reading experience as the story itself. The third is the deeply emotional read that creates a curtain of tears I have to blink through to see the words on the page (or in my case, my Kindle screen). You know, the ugly cry book.
If you ever want to experience that first type, I’m going to point you toward Brittney Sahin’s Finding Her Chance and Chasing Shadows. And pretty much every book in her Stealth Ops Series, but those especially. Also Jemma Westbrook’s Guerrilla Tactics. I have a feeling April Wilson’s Search and Rescue is going to be added to my hangover list, too. Sometimes you just know certain characters and storylines in the hands of certain authors are going to blow your mind. You know their books are going to elevate your heartrate and your Fitbit is going to register your reading as exercise. Bonus! Best to take advanced precautions before starting one of those books. Call in sick to work or use those vacation days, tell your family you’ll see them in a few days, secure snacks and drinks, grab a box of tissues, close yourself into a room with an attached bathroom, get comfy, dig in. If the author is new to you, and you experience any of these reactions while reading- elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, pupil dilation, randomly uttered expletives- you are headed for a massive book hangover. Best of luck to you.
Seven Shades of You by A.M. Johnson was that second type. And boy was that hangover bad. Hug the Kindle, blink slowly, confirm my surroundings bad. I had a similar hangover from her other books, especially Love Always, Wild and Let There Be Light. And Not So Sincerely, Yours. And Dear Mr Brody. Ok, ok. Pretty much everything I’ve read that she’s written to one degree or another. The author's incredibly powerful use of language creates a deeply emotional connection to not just the characters, but the scenes themselves. Her books are immersive. I don’t think I took a single breath through the floating scene in Seven Shades of You, because I was worried if I did the intensity would evaporate and the scene would end before the characters in the story were ready. Before I was ready. Now that is one very deep emotional connection. The kind of connection that leaves me blinking my eyes and catching my breath, because I know the experience, like the book, won't last forever.
That third type? Two words: Preston Westbrook. Saving His Heart by Avery Maxwell is the book that shattered my heart into a thousand tiny shards, then reassembled it piece by emotional piece. And I thanked the writer for each and every heart rending word. I’m an emotional reader. I cry. I laugh out loud, usually startling the dog, but sometimes random people in waiting rooms, too. And when a book brings all the feels, and I stay up way too late to finish reading it, the hangover is even more intense. Avery Maxwell broke me. Then healed me. Only the best writers can do that and make it feel so realistic! This book needs a tissue and hangover warning. A sit tight, hang on, trust the author, respect the ride, it’s all gonna be okay hangover. A hangover you share with thousands of other readers, and encourage even more readers to experience. Best to read these books with an emotional support reading buddy. There's absolutely no reason to experience this hangover alone.
The aftermath is always interesting. There’s the requisite recovery period complete with staring at walls, reliving certain scenes, trying to remember if something actually happened, and if it did how bad it really was…. And then there’s the moving on phase. But how do you move on from a book that was so good it rocked your world into a brain fogged stupor? Hair of the dog? It’s easy if the book is part of a series to just dive right into the next book. And sometimes I find that it absolutely the best cure. Until you finish that book and deal with its hangover. That’s pretty much what happened with Saving His Heart. Although in Romancing His Heart Loki created a different kind of book hangover. See type 1 above. But if the book isn’t part of a series, or you just can’t put yourself through that again so soon, there are a ton of great cures out there. I find rom-coms to be awesome hangover remedies. Whether standalones or part of a quirky, fun series, they definitely seem to reset my reading equilibrium. Unless you find one that triggers its own form of happy, euphoric hangover. That recovery is an entirely different experience.
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