Has this ever happened to you? The library hold you’ve waited months for finally comes in. It’s the book recommended by every club and BookToker. It’s won awards and been heralded as The Next Big Thing. Excitedly, you dig in… and find yourself thinking: “Huh?” “What is everyone else seeing that I’m not?” and finally: “What is wrong with me?”

The answer is: Nothing. Nothing is wrong. There are lots of reasons a book isn’t hitting for you, and you don’t need to feel guilty about any of them.

It is no April Fool’s joke when I say that the author that has most impacted my writing and reading life is Beverly Cleary. Yes, she’s a children’s book author and all her characters are, at the oldest, 13 or 14. But reading her books as a child was magical, and rereading them as an adult to my children, and often on my own just for fun, I realize that she had a gift of being able to distill important characteristics, emotional journeys and complicated plots down to their essence in such a succinct style that her books can be read and understood by her many readers. This doesn’t make the stories or the stakes childish. It makes them accessible to all ages, including 50 year olds.