"Maybe this HP movie will be amazing! Oh... no... not quite."
Sometimes, we think something is going to be so totally awesome and then SURPRISE! It actually is.
Avengers, anyone?
Sometimes, I don't have any expectations at all, and then end up VERY pleasantly surprised.
Don't cry, Stefan, your show is amazing!
Sometimes, I don't have any expectations at all, and then end up unsurprised and undisappointed (I know that's not a word) when it sucks.
I thought this movie would be crap and it was. Moving on.
Sometimes, we expect something specific, and then end up disappointed when that something specific doesn't happen. For example, after watching the first episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., my hubs said to me, "that wasn't what I was expecting at all." He didn't like the show as much as I did because he thought there would be superheroes in the show and I knew there wouldn't be. He thought there would be more, and when there wasn't, he was disappointed.
So why am I talking about expectations? The Scorpio Races, that's why. When I picked up this book, I expected two things:
ONE: that I would most likely love it because it's by one of my fave authors, Maggie Stiefvater.
TWO: that the book would be ABOUT a race.
This second expectation was what kind of lost the book for me. Yes, The Scorpio Races is about a race. BUT. This race doesn't happen until the VERY END of the book and it only lasts a chapter or two. For some reason, I went into this book thinking at least half, if not three quarters of the book would take place DURING the race. Think, Hidalgo. So when I started reading, and then reading some more, and more, getting a hundred pages, two hundred pages in, and STILL no race? I was a bit disappointed. I kept waiting for this big race to happen and got very impatient with the book when it didn't.
Was this a reasonable expectation for me to have? Maybe, maybe not. But I had it, nevertheless. I couldn't get rid of it. And it colored my opinion about the book.
HOWEVER. Expectation number one did end up coming true. I did like the book, A LOT, because Stiefvater didn't disappoint in any other way. The characters were good and the world vivid. I felt for both Puck and Sean. I teared up. She ended the book perfectly. The book was GOOD. But sadly, I can't say I loved it based on that one ridiculous expectation that didn't come true.
Be careful of expectations. Unfortunately, sometimes we can't help them. There was really nothing that said the book would take place mostly during the race, I just thought it would. Sometimes, we can't avoid expectations. We can't shake them. The best we can do is move beyond, whether that means seeing what did live up when something did not, or saying, it wasn't great, oh well, moving on.
What do you think?
Guilty as charged. I often have an expectation about things, and I have been bitterly dissapointed before. That being said, I spend a lot of time identifying and squashing my expectations. I try to take things as they present themselves in the moment, but I'm a work in progress with that.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked the book though.
I can see how that expectation colored your opinion of The Scorpio Races. I loved that book...but then I didn't expect Hidalgo:)
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favorite books, but I can see how others might not love it as much as I did. I didn't really have expectations with this book other than there would be supernatural horses would be involved, so maybe that's why. But I have read plenty of books with expectations and was left disappointed so I totally get where you're coming from.
ReplyDelete