To me, Post book depression is pretty intense. The book you dearly cherish suddenly losing its value. The feeling of missing the book that is in fact lying on your lap. Personally, I feel like I become one among the characters in a book. Be it a period piece or a story taking place in a dystopian universe, I live and breathe with my characters. And when the book comes to an end, I experience my own death. It is the removal of myself from the book. It is my own death in the book. Because from then on, I will not know anything more that is to happen to my characters which is very similar to death and so on the very last page of the book, a version of me dies. You actually mourn the loss of a good book. The book might still be yours but as Harry Styles well phrased, "you know it's not the same as it was". The mourning period lasts upto a week for me. Some great books exceed that limit too. Everytime I see a Pinterest edit or a tumblr post about the book my heart sinks. The feeling of emptiness and a very strong belief that the next book you pick up cannot hold a candle to the book you just finished are inescapable. You feel like you finished playing the audio message of your loved one. You can always hear it again but damn nothing could beat the first time. Suddenly all your favourite moments from the book come to your mind and a overwhelming sensation of grief consumes you. One might say "grief" is a pretty intense word for the feeling but well, that's books for you my friend. Because one moment you are prancing around with your lover, or fighting aliens or plotting a murder or witnessing the funeral of your best friend but before you realise what's happening, the pages on the right side are thinning, and the next moment you are back on your bed, alone, cold and miserable. Your reality. Only few books can make you feel the loss, can give you the rude awakening that the fantasy is over. Right now I am mourning a good book. One that broke my heart a million times while I was reading it but nothing could have prepared me for the heartbreak I am experiencing now. I have lived thousands of lives, died a hundred times; why just last week I started a new life and died yesterday. And when I'm ready (which will probably be tomorrow) I'm going to start another life. Only to die once more. To more lives and deaths, cheers!
