Hi, I’m slowly getting back into reading, but I’ve had a lot of trouble sticking with books. What I realized is that I can’t stick with books that introduce 3 or more major characters within a short period of time, especially when the book is vague about the nature of their relationship to the main character.
The only book I’ve found so far that didn’t have this problem was “The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi” by Shannon Chakraborty. The first chapter only introduces the main character and no other major characters, and all major characters that are introduced afterwards are introduced in a really straightforward manner. She always tells you upfront who these characters are and why they’re important to the mission. The only thing that’s kept vague is why they drifted apart in the first place, but that didn’t take away from my experience.
I also don’t like starting a book where the main character is already deep in the action but doesn’t actually explain why the action is important. I picked up a book recently where the first chapter was someone looking for another character. Three pages in, it still did not explain who these characters were, how they were related to each other, or why one was looking for the other.
Sorry if this is a stupid question. Hopefully once I start reading more, I won’t have this problem.
by calvinyl