THE BOOK HANGOVER

By Kasie Whitener

What must the teen-aged clerk have thought of me at 9:57 on a Tuesday night, the hum of a vacuum in the back of the store, jammy pants tucked into my Ugg boots, hair snarled into a messy bun, wild-eyed and profusely thanking him?

Weeks before, I tore through The Bronze Horseman, secretly scheduling meetings into my work day so I could sneak into conference rooms and read. I had purchased the book in Fremont, California, on Monday afternoon. By Friday at 1 p.m. when I boarded the plane home, all 810 pages of it were over. I hadn’t read that fast or that much since graduate school. I was reawakened to the power of an intoxicating story. And I was hungover for weeks afterward.

Sometimes you only recognize the book hangover when you start the next book in your stack and feel an overall “meh” as you turn the pages. The book hangover makes you bitter about the writer’s inability to produce more work. I once considered burning effigies of Cassandra Clare when I learned the next book of hers would not be released for 18 months. The book hangover makes you jealous wondering just what that author was able to do that twisted you so desperately into knots.

Like getting intoxicated, you know while you’re doing it that this will end badly. As you near the end of the book, your spirit sags. The pages in your right hand feel too light to meet a satisfying end. How many things will go unsolved?

It’s not just good books that cause a hangover; any book that connects with you at the right time, in the right way can do it. You feel euphoric and invincible until it’s over. Then, parched, lethargic, grumpy, and suffering in a way only cheeseburgers and milkshakes can solve, you lie on the couch and binge watch Netflix swearing to never read again.

I want to write the book that does that. The one that gets the reader so deeply invested, s/he will ignore family, work, and the Super Bowl to keep reading. I want to write characters like tequila shots and turning points like toasts, climaxes like bar anthems sung at the top of our lungs and denouements like fervent whispers that lead to one-night-stands.

I want my readers drunk on my novel. And afterward, when they’ve finished, I want them spent, heartbroken, and lonely. Like I was after The Bronze Horseman.

In desperation one night in Cincinnati, I trolled the Amazon listing, a jilted lover internet-stalking the book that had meant so much to me.

And learned there was a sequel.

Wild with desire, I called Barnes & Noble to check availability. Told them I’d come right over.

“Don’t close yet!” I begged.

Their last copy of Tatiana and Alexander sold, opened, and reading before I even made it back to my car. And like the hair of the dog bartenders prescribe, I was drunk again within minutes.