Hey Reader,

For months, a book sat untouched in my Kindle library.

I'd open it, read the first chapter, then decide I wasn't in the mood for something long and emotionally heavy. Then I'd move on to something I didn't need to think much about. Then I'd try again a few weeks later and get the same result. The book wasn't doing anything wrong. I just wasn't ready for it.

The book was Matterhorn. Karl Marlantes, a Vietnam veteran, spent more than 30 years writing the novel. You can feel his experiences on every page. The emotion, the complex relationships, and the terror of having to make impossible decisions about life and death.

In mid-May, I gave it another shot. Something changed. Maybe it was the timing. Most likely, though, I'm the one who had changed. Whatever the reason, I stopped bouncing off the book and started carrying it around with me.

What surprised me wasn't that I finished it. What surprised me was what happened afterward.

I still can't say, "I loved it!"

That sounds strange after nearly 600 pages. But I think I understand it now. Part of me spent the whole book wanting to be an ostrich — to keep it at a safe distance and not fully reckon with what it's about.

Vietnam is heavy. The entire time I read this book, I kept thinking about real people — family members, loved ones — for whom this was never just a story.

As the story unfolded, my reactions kept shifting. Characters I loathed early became more complicated, less villainized in my mind. Other characters in my mind, especially the officers who'd never experienced combat, were irredeemable.

The deeper I got, the less interested I became in deciding who was right and who was wrong. People were forced to make choices with incomplete information, competing loyalties, pressures from every direction. Not always heroes and villains. Just people in an impossible situation.

That's where things got uncomfortable.

For years, I've treated reading as if I'm a judge who is ultimately obligated to bang my gavel and issue a verdict.

I loved a book. I hated a book. I abandoned a book.

If someone asked what I thought, I was supposed to have an answer.

Matterhorn refused to give me one.

Instead, Marlantes left me with conflicting reactions and a cast of characters I still can't stop thinking about. Weeks later, I still find myself replaying certain scenes and reconsidering certain choices — not because I finally figured out what the book meant, but because I haven't.

The imaginary Reader Police banging around in my head would like a cleaner conclusion. Was it great? Overrated? Did I enjoy it or not?

I don't know if I enjoyed it. But I know I'm glad I read it.

Some books entertain us. Some teach us. A few refuse to leave us alone. Matterhorn is that last kind. I won't be surprised if I read it again before the end of the year.

Matterhorn has me thinking the silly Reader Police are trying to trick me.

Maybe you don't have to "enjoy" a book to stay curious about it. Maybe mixed feelings aren't a reading failure. Maybe they're proof you're paying attention.

— Tracy "Resigning my Book Judge's post immediately" Winchell

Read something today that makes you smile, Reader!

—Tracy

P. S. Is there a book you're glad you read but couldn't call enjoyable? Hit reply — I'd love to know what it was.

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