The Engagement Rating of Novels

I think the novels I read can be placed into one of the following four categories:

1. You end up skim reading it i.e it's not at all engaging. It's a chore to read, but you want to see what happens in the end (most likely this will happen near the end, if it happens the first half of the book, I'd just give up on it).

2. I don't skim read, but it's not engaging and a bit of a chore to read and finish.

3. Yeah . .it's ok . .ish.

4. You actually look forward to picking it up again and reading some more i.e it's a "page turner". "4" is very rare with me. When I was a kid, yes, lots of "page turners" back then.

Same for films. 4 is rare.  And I have watched less less famous films than anyone else.  So I've watch none of the star war, Harry Potter, lord of the rings, batman, Godfather films etc. 

Children's novels

As an adult I scarcely ever reread novels. But as a child I used to reread novels all the time. I used to read all the Enid Blyton books I had maybe once every 2 years or so. Same for the Narnia books (all 7 of them), and the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge, and the Oz books (well 3 of them -- The Wizard of Oz, The Marvellous Land of Oz, Glinda of Oz), didn't know about the existence of any others). And reread "Tom's Midnight Garden" countless times and each time I cried at the end.

I think because reading children books as a child was so much more enjoyable than reading adult novels as an adult. Children books had a kind of magic, they instilled in me a yearning to be there, to experience what the protagonists in the novels were experiencing. I identified and emphasised with the characters. That doesn't happen now.