Reading is Stressful

I can't read my books right now because they're stressing me out. In Middlemarch, the author worked for more than seven hundred pages to create the most complex entanglement of conflicts. There are exactly 130 pages left and I SERIOUSLY doubt she'll be able to resolve everything in such a short amount of time. In fact, the conflicts are so complex that many of them can't be resolved without affecting the happiness of other characters and their problems. I'm in such an agony over this conundrum and so terrified that the ending won't be as satisfyingly conclusive as I'd like it to be, that I can't seem to bring myself to finish the novel. And this is after six hard months of working through the book.

Then there's Gone With the Wind. My favorite movie ever, my favorite fictional character ever (Katie Scarlett), my favorite everything. I started reading this book and loved it so much that it was easy for me to get through the first four hundred pages and I kept telling Josh how enjoyable it was. Then things got tough for Scarlett and I'm not liking the personality change she's undergoing during this difficult time in her life. I'm worried that her little boy is too neglected and that there's something physically wrong with him as well. I'm scared to death that he's going to die and I can't seem to bring myself to read the next few hundred pages to find out. I'm not even halfway through the novel and I know the story so well that I know of other impending deaths that will make reading the rest of the book already difficult. But Scarlett's son doesn't exist in the movie so I have no idea his plight and I can't stand the thought that he'll die unloved and alone. It's breaking my heart. I had to put the book down and I haven't been able to pick it back up yet.

My third current novel is The Midwife's Tale. I have read the two sequel novels in this series but never the first book, so I was pretty happy to finally find it available at my library. The problem is that I've read the two sequels, so a big portion of this book's plot has already been recapped for me and I do NOT like what happens. Somewhere in the unread portion of the book there is an infant baby that is going to be murdered and the murderer is going to walk away free and that rankles me so deeply that I don't think I can bring myself to read about it at the moment.

So...I'm stuck. My books are too hard for me to emotionally cope with and that leaves me bored because I can't read. I suppose I could pick up a new book but what's the point? In my sensitive state, I'm sure I'll find something miserable about the story to latch on to, which will leave me unable to finish that book as well. In the meantime I've been looking at Netflix a LOT, trying to find *some* show or movie that entices me. Was tv always this stupid? Have I finally become an enlightened person who is too good for television? Ooh, never mind--there's a documentary on honey badgers**. Gotta go.


**Josh loves nature documentaries, so we legitimately watched this on Sunday night. I'm not proud of myself, but I was mildly entertained. Those honey badgers are crazy!