Insomniac's blog

After reading Holes, I tried to think about which character I identified with most. I could not really be any of the characters. Usually when I read a book I can easily identify with at least one character, or an aspect of a character. Even when I become the "fly on the wall" I still can identify with certain personality traits in the characters. In the books in which I do not, I usually do not finish reading them. I have to be invested personally in a book somehow in order to have it keep my interest.
However, this was not the case with Holes. I found myself really getting into the story. It is a fantastic story about friendship, integrity, responsibilities, and perserverance. Maybe I became more invested in this story because I highly value all of these attributes in people. The main characters, Stanley Yelnats and Zero, have these qualities. But, I still did not feel like I could have been them. Instead though, I felt like they may have been friends. This is unusual for me because I usually do not take on the characters of books as friends. I felt as though I was almost like a third person throughout the book, especially on Stanley and Zero's trek through the desert and the mountain.
Reading Holes was a new kind of reading experience for me. I had to stretch a bit more in order to place myself in the story, but once I did I found it highly engaging. To be perfectly honest, I have not had to take on a new reading perspective for a book since I read Notes From Underground.