Heads Up: Clarifying "Good"

I just want to state, for the record, that when I say a book is "good," it doesn't mean it's "happy" or that it has a "feel good" theme. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. To me, a good book is one that is well-written, makes you think, shakes you up a bit, and,...if it happens to have a happy ending, that's icing on the cake! Of course, we all know life doesn't always give us happy endings, so I don't always expect a book to, either.

I choose my book by my mood. I don't read books I know are sad when I'm feeling sad. Never. I only read sad books when I know my heart can take it. Spring Break was a good time to read something sad because everything else around me was wonderful, so the sad didn't make me too sad.

I guess I felt the need to clarify when I realized that three of the four books I mentioned in my previous post are pretty...heavy. I began to doubt if I had given the post the right title. In my heart, it is right - but how others see it, if they aren't familiar with the books at all, might make them think "good" meant "happy." It doesn't.

(At work, this is what we call "giving you a heads up.") 

Heads Up: Make sure you're not feeling sad or in a bad mood when you read Plath, Hughes, or Angelou. While some of their stuff is uplifting, some of it is not.