What do books mean to Mount students? Recently, I polled junior and senior students here at the Mount on what type of books they read, and the results were surprising. First, all the students who responded to the survey said they prefer reading fiction novels over nonfiction. When asked why they responded so, some responses were “fiction is easier to read,” and “non-fiction books are boring,” which are typical responses I expected to see. However, some students’ answers surprised me and sparked my interest.
For instance, Senior Caroline Rosiecki’s response to why she preferred fiction was that “fiction leads to more imagination. There are more possibilities with fiction than there is nonfiction.” Siabella Kenworthy, also a senior at the Mount, had an answer for why nonfiction was good as well. When she finishes a nonfiction novel she says to herself, “That was a crazy true story and I feel motivated by this person’s words.” Because of the verifiability of the genre, it inspires her to be like the people she reads about, which is absent in fiction books due to their fantastical nature.
I also sent out a questionnaire about what type of books, nonfiction and fiction, that Mount students prefer to read:
As you can see, 75% of responders said they enjoy reading thrillers and mystery novels. Though it is not my personal preference, I see the appeal of reading a mystery novel and getting to puzzle together who did it. 58.3% of Mounties who responded to my query said they preferred to read Historical Fiction and Romance novels. Senior Melia Hillman wrote about why she enjoys the genre of Historical Fiction and said, “I enjoy Historical Fiction because I love history, but enjoy the creative liberties authors take with the specific genre.” I understand the pull of reading fictional stories, and historical fiction lets readers get the pull of fictional novels but also get to experience it through the lens of real events that have occurred in our world. It provides the creative liberties for storytelling and plot twists that fiction novels have while also maintaining a level of realism that makes the story more appealing.
The last genres that I would like to highlight are Fantasy and Dystopian novels, both being favorites of mine as well as favorites of half of the respondees. Brigid Rowbotham, a junior at the Mount, had an interesting response that applies to the appeal of these two genres well. She said, “Because it’s creative and can be more interesting with plot twists.” Similar to why the fictional part of Historical Fiction books is preferable, Fantasy and Dystopian novels are excellent narratives when it comes to an escape from our world when one wishes to forget all their problems and escape for a time.
