Any serious reader will probably know what I’m talking about here. It’s that moment when you get to the end of a book or a series and realize that you’re going to miss the characters you’ve spent the last few days or weeks with. It doesn’t happen with every book you read, but some of them get inside your head and you devour a hundred pages in a sitting. Before you know it, you’ve read all there is to read. It leaves an inexplicable hole, because even though they only exist on paper – or as electrons in this case – you were invested in these characters; in how their stories turned out, or didn’t. However briefly, you shared extremely intimate moments with them (on the can or before going to sleep for example).
I’m not going to tell you what I’ve spent the last two weeks reading because that would call for the immediate and permanent revocation of my man card. Suffice to say, I’m casting around looking for a new fictitious family to occupy my free time. Thankfully there are a few movies that might help take the edge off my separation anxiety. They won’t be as good as the book, of course, but still it’s better than going cold turkey.
Sure, soon enough I’ll find a biography of Churchill or a tome on the Federalist period to capture my attention, but just now my sense of loss is too raw and bloody to even look seriously at another book. It would feel like I was cheating somehow. So yeah, there’s your unscheduled glimpse of the weirdness that goes on in my head when I don’t think anyone is paying attention.
JEFFREYTHARP.COM 
I felt this “readers remorse” with Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Surprisingly, I wasn’t that into the books as I was reading, but after I put them down I couldn’t stop thinking about (and missing) the characters.
I haven’t read either of those… and I think now I’ll stay away from them until I’m recovered. I’ll probably swamp my brain in some heavy duty biography before I’m ready to handle more fiction. For some reason, I find it easier to turn my brain off when I’m dealing with books about real people. Go figure.
Were you perhaps reading the Twilight Saga? As a whole the series was really good, Bella was just a shitty character most of the way through. I have felt this Readers Remorse numerous times. I get it every time i reread the harry potter series 😦
Your guess is spot on, though I have a bit of an undeserved soft spot for Bella. I haven’t read the Harry Potter books, but could imagine I’d have the same reaction to the end of that story too. A friend turned me on to Fall of Giants recently and I’m working my way through that now. I think I could easily become a devoted Ken Follett fan.
I wouldn’t feel too bad about reading the series, all in all the story is great, lol. Did you have a chance to read the novella The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner? If not, i recommend it highly, it brings the vampires of the Twilight Saga into a different light. But i will say, the family as a whole had magic. Carlisle is an unforgettable character. I find myself pining over not seeing Nessie(STUPID NAME! hah) grow, and seeing Jacob truly happy(I have a soft spot for his character, and that probably had a fair amount to do with my dislike for Bella.). I feel the same remorse you felt for these characters! hahaha. I just started the Keys To The Kingdom, which i hear is fantastic. But i had a very hard time even picking up the first book (Sortof, kindle :D). I truly felt an unabashed sort of dislike for myself to even thing of such blasphemy, Meyer is sneaky, because i didn’t see that sort of feeling forming until i had finished the last page. It takes special chemistry to leave that sort of feeling. But in another area, ill say, the Harry Potter series has magic i do not often find. The first book is a little on the kid side, a lot like the movies. The 2nd through 7th however i felt right at home rereading even as an adult. If Rowling doesn’t revisit this series, i will understand that she doesn’t want to taint the series, however i will weep at missing out on something that could be so magical. I haven’t read anything from Ken Follet however i have heard some of his work is very good. I think I’m going to be sticking to the Fiction/Fantasy for a good while even though i have a feeling i am going to be feeling a lot of the Readers Remose, Especially seeing my soft spot for the coming of age-fiction/fantasy. But i think loving all these characters so deeply is good in its own right. ha.