Thoughts on Rereading and Rewatching

Posted March 23, 2018 / Discussions, Features / 4 Comments

A common theme in my fantasy-football-turned-everything-group-chat on Twitter is rereading favorite books or rewatching movies. We have spin-off chats for certain book series (ACOTAR) and movie universes (Marvel) for those who read/watch them. I don’t remember anyyyything about these books or movies because my memory is terrible. But, everyone also does a lot of rereading or rewatching and I am just so bad at it. As I mentioned in a recent TTT, there are some books I could reasonably reread more than once, but I don’t do it as often as other people do.

Don’t get me wrong – I can see the appeal of jumping back into an old favorite.

Whether that means watching a movie or show you love for the millionth time or rereading a book that you love, there’s just something comforting about hopping back into that world for a little while. I genuinely love that feeling, on the rare occasion that I actually do it. I have rewatched the entire series of Friends over and over and over for the past 15 years. This is my one (huge) exception to the general rule that I don’t rewatch/read. There’s something just so perfect and nostalgic and feelsy about this show that coming back to it is like coming home. So now that the exception is out of the way, here are some of my general thoughts on the whole thing.

sorry not sorry friends GIF

Reasons that I reread:

1. A new book is coming out in a series I read a while ago, and I’m trying to force myself into being a rereader.

Recently: Caraval before Legendary, Truthwitch before Windwitch/Sightwitch (upcoming)

This is 100% true. The only reason I chose to reread Caraval before Legendary is because I WANT to reread books I love for once. I don’t designate enough time for it. I have a hoooorrible memory so reading the first book in July 2016 when the next wasn’t coming out until May 2018 was not the smartest idea. I knew I would either need to read a book recap or reread the whole thing, and I decided to treat myself to a reread. And I’m loving it.

2. I love the book/series and want to reread it for nostalgic purposes.

Recently: Harry Potter, Series of Unfortunate Events, A-List, Gemma Doyle, Sarah Dessen’s books

I feel like Harry Potter is the exception for most people. In the last couple of years, I’ve taken to reread super old favorites from high school or earlier because I want to see how they hold up. Again, reading these books feels brand new because my memory is so bad, but the nostalgia feels are totalllly still there. All of the series (or author, in the case of Dessen up there) are some of my favorites that I could actually see myself revisiting on and off for my whole life. Audiobooks are the best for this purpose.

3. I have to reread the first few books in a series in order to finally finish it off.

Recently: Gallagher Girls, Secrets of my Hollywood Life, Private (upcoming)

Way back in the day before Goodreads, I had a white board that tracked certain books and when they were releasing. This was when Gossip Girl, A-List, Private, and others in that “rich white girls getting away with murder (sometimes actual murder too)” category were super popular and my favorite. It was inevitable that I would somehow forget when the next book was coming and it would fade from my mind. This most notably happened with Gallagher Girls and Secrets of my Hollywood Life. I decided to finish both of the series off finally, after over 10 years away from them, by rereading the first books. I’m still working on SOMHL but finished GG easily.

Situations where I won’t reread:

I think the biggest one is that I won’t reread one book in a series. I could consider maybe rereading the first book if it happened to be a favorite, but I definitely wouldn’t be able to reread a book in the middle of a series. I would feel super compelled to reread the entire thing. I can’t reread a whole series if I didn’t LOVE every single book either usually. For example, a lot of my friends have reread the ACOTAR books a lot. Because I didn’t really love ACOWAR, I don’t see myself rereading any books in that series for a loooong time… if ever. I also don’t usually reread super soon after reading the book; there aren’t a lot of stories where I’ve thought “I need to reread this later this year.” My rereads are usually super old favorites that I don’t remember at all (like, read years and years earlier) or the CARAVAL reread I talked about earlier – in order to catch up before a new book in the series. And again, this is a new thing.

More thoughts on rereading from the Bookmark Lit archives:

4 responses to “Thoughts on Rereading and Rewatching

  1. I also reread for pretty much the same reasons! I’m terrible with remembering what is happening in a particular series so I’ll reread the whole series before reading the next book if it’s been more than 6 months. Nostalgia is also a really big thing for me. I’ve actually been hoping to fit a reread of the whole HP series (and a rewatch of all the movies) into my schedule this year. Do you ever get a weird craving to just pick up a certain series or book? Some weekends, all I do is reread because I get that craving and I just can’t resist picking up an old favorite. It’s actually kind of a problem because then I cut down on my time that I have to read new books!

    Laura @BlueEyeBooks

    Laura @BlueEyeBooks recently posted: January + February Wrap Up
  2. As a kid and teen I used to reread ALL THE TIME. I think that was partially due to the fact that there weren’t that many YA books being published, but ever since blogging I’m exposed to so many new titles that I just don’t have time to reread like I used to (like I used to reread the entire HP series at least every other year, now I DEFINITELY don’t have time for that lol). I DO find myself rereading the ACOTAR series a lot- I bought them all on ebook and audio in addition to the physical copies for that purpose. Though ACOWAR is my least favorite, I’m rereading via audio this spring to refresh my memory for the novella coming out!

    • I don’t know why but I go back and forth SO much about rereading these. I loved ACOTAR and ACOMAF so much so I WANT to reread them and remember the feels, but I don’t want to read ACOWAR and I know I’d feel compelled to hahah.

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