On Feels

After recently completing two books that gave me (very different) feels – Gone With The Wind and Armstrong & Charlie – I realized it’d been a while since a book truly moved me.

Some of you might be asking, what the fuck are feels?

-Puts on glasses and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows- Well, class, “feels” is modern slang short for feelings. For example, if a book “gives you feels” or even “gives you all the feels”, it was a very emotional experience that is otherwise hard to describe. Now, I don’t classify anger at terrible writing as a feel, but some others may do so. Feels are open to interpretation, but for me, they encompass sadness and love and excitement and nostalgia and emotions along those veins. A book that gives me feels moves me in the best way (unlike books that move me to chuck them out my front door -cough-EdgeOfReason-cough-).

-Takes off glasses and tweed jacket- So, feels!

After finishing  Armstrong and Charlie and putting a cork in my waterworks, and finishing Gone With The Wind and wanting to hurl it off a cliff in the best way (yes, you can also want to throw around a book in a positive way, I’ve decided), I was reveling in all the feels I was feeling. I’ve read some excellent books this year (and I still want to scream in your face about how fantastic Warbreaker is) but nothing really hurt my heart or made me want to cry until the aforementioned books came into my life.

I missed having feels and it was great to be experiencing them once more. But I also realized, if most of the books I read treated me this way, I’d be fucking exhausted. I’d probably be an emotional wreck and a terror (or more of a terror, if you ask Sweetbeeps) to deal with and everyone around me would be like, Millie, get a friggen grip!

So like most things in life, there needs to be a balance. I’m glad that some books I read are mediocre, or some are awesome but not deeply emotional so that when I come across a book that gives me all the feels I can wallow in them without destroying my psyche.

I’ll wrap this up with an utterly random of some other books I’ve read that gave me feels: The Mists of Avalon, The Love Song of Queenie Hennessy (still can’t think about the ending without tearing up), Liesl and Po, Beastkeeper, Alias Hook, Pax, True Grit, The Road, Island of the Blue Dolphins, A Monster Calls.

Do you tend to get the feels often? Do you agree with any of my recommendations? I’d love to hear what books give you feels so I can read them and feel more feels.