Contemporary: Drawbacks

The contemporary genre might look pretty benign on the surface. After all, how dangerous can it be to read about the “real world”? Yet overindulging in this genre can bring its own set of problems too:

• It can overemphasize the small stuff.
• It can cause us to lose sight of the big picture
• It can make our problems look much bigger than they are.
• Because the focus is on the mundane, the contemporary genre can cause us to overlook and even dismiss completely the special, the unique, and the miraculous.
• It mirrors reality so closely that it can make life feel suffocating.
• It can cause us to feel trapped in our lives rather than help us appreciate what we have.