Altered Expectations

Someone once said that disappointment is the difference between expectation and reality. Indeed I’ve seen it first hand multiple times. A week ago I took my mother to the place of her birth. You see, eighty-one years ago she was born in the Dominican Republic. She moved to St. Kitts with her Kittitian born mother when she was about three and became orphaned soon after. Since then she’d never been back though she desired to. Well, a few of her kids decided to make her dream of visiting her homeland a reality.

When we arrived on the island, Mother was touched to tears. It was beautiful. The area we stayed was touristy and beautifully built-up. The people were friendly and helpful. Everything was perfect until we decided to visit the city of her birth. We rented a car and took what was supposed to be a two hour trip to the city of her birth. The trip took four hours and when we got there, my mother became very quiet. A few minutes later she wanted to leave. Back at the hotel, I asked her why she wanted to leave the city of her birth so quickly. She said when she thought of her home city, she thought of a place with beautiful haciendas, lovely homes, nicely paved streets and artistically designed streetlights. Instead the place was a slum. There were dilapidated buildings, poorly maintained roadways, standing water along the roadways and sidewalks, garbage piled up on every corner. Needless to say, she was disappointed. The reality did not align with her expectation.

The same thing happens in writing. When we see the cover of a book, when we read the first few words, we have certain expectations. But if that book fails to meet our expectations we become disappointed. I shop for books by authors. I have a certain expectation in terms of the genre and the quality of the writing when I see that author’s name. But sometimes, when an author fails to live up to my expectations for them, I find myself disappointed to the point where future books from that author go to the bottom of my reading list. The same thing happens when I hear a good review of a book and it does not live up to the expectations that I have for it.

Have you ever read a book that failed to meet your expectations based on the reviews or the cover or the blurb at the back of the book or the author? How did that impact your decision to read a book by that author again?