Have you ever finished a really good book, and then wondered what to do next with your life? It’s stressful stuff! 

The problem is the fact that the book often ends on a cliffhanger, the loose ends aren’t tied up, you’ve reached the end of a series, you’re waiting for the next book in a series, or the book was just so good that you have no idea what to do after that. Have the authors ever considered what it does to Book Fans; just waiting for a book that will or won’t come? If they’re going to finish writing a series, they had better do it properly! If they don’t, they will encounter the wrath of the Book Lovers!

Authors must decide to deliberately annoy the readers, because sometimes it is painfully obvious that two characters like each other, and the tension is too much to handle. Just kiss already! Then there’s the factor of the author killing off your favourite characters in the book. Just as we get to know them; they’re gone. It’s also really easy to fall in love with fictional characters, and once you have finished reading the book you wonder how you will ever live without them?

Genevieve, work experience student

After all of that emotional trauma with the previous book you will find another book which is almost as good as the last, but soon that book will come to an end. It’s just a never ending cycle of growing excitement and then the emotional pain of having to part with the characters, which you have grown close to. Again. You could say it’s like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend over and over.

One of the only ways of coping with this is to make your friends read the books and then talk to them about it. This way your pain isn’t bottled up inside of you, slowly eating away at your insides. Another way to relieve you of your pain is to write your version of how it should’ve ended, how you think the events should’ve happened, or what could’ve happened next. This is what the experienced users of the Internet (aka teenagers) call Fan Fiction.

‘You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.’ – Paul Sweeney.

Written by: Genevieve – work experience student @ City of Tea Tree Gully Library

Work Experience student – Zach

Many people come to the City of Tea Tree Gully Library and go to a certain section looking for a book or a DVD or a magazine but, have you ever wondered what is behind those chutes or past the “Staff Only” doors? Well I have been back there on my week of work experience here. It seems like a quite small place when you haven’t left the teen fiction or the kids section, but when you take a look behind the scenes you realize that there is much more to this Library that you never knew was there. What you can see is only around half of what is there. It is a two storey building with several areas you can’t go to on the bottom floor, like several desks and a book storage room, and there are sections that the public is able to access that I didn’t even know are there.

To get all of this to run smoothly you need a lot of people, so while you might only be able to find 10 or so at any one time, there is actually more than 40 people working here, in several different teams. I have worked with a lot of nice people here, doing everything from covering books, to working in the chute room, to listening in on the ‘Baby Bounce’ group to writing this blog post!

The Library is a great place to be for work experience. I was really nervous at the start of the first day but I soon realised that there is nothing to be nervous about. Work experience at the Library has given me opportunities to meet some great people and learn so much about everything at the Library, like how all the computer programs work and where everything is and how to get there. The staff made sure I was doing something new every hour or two, and everyday there was something different. I have learned about everything in this Library from so many great people. I got to help with a beginner’s iPad class and that was a lot of fun to be at.

I have really enjoyed my week doing work experience at the Library. It was spent doing and learning so much, from how the Library works to what it is like in an actual workplace environment. I met so many great people, and got to talk to and meet so many great members of the community. I will definitely come back to the Library often to get new books and remember my great week here.

Written by Work Experience Student, Zach.