Where Did My Love For Reading Go?

Illustration by Zoe Gigis

Middle school me could never get her nose out of a book. If she wasn’t reading Divergent or Matched, she was going to book signings at her local library, or scrolling through fanart depicting her favorite protagonists. Most of the books on her bookshelf had been read or were currently being reread, and if there was a new book in her midst, she could get through it by the stroke of midnight. Assigned school reading? No way she was going to use Sparknotes!

Now, that girl has grown up to be me--a college student who can barely get through 20 pages of a new book she thought she’d like. I wonder why I even purchase the books for school when I end up just skimming digital chapter summaries. It’s been this way for the past couple of years, and for the longest time I was able to blame it on the fact that my schedule was getting busier, and how I had so many other things to do.

COVID-19 came by and has been sitting in the office chair of our world for almost a year. Lockdowns and closures removed the excuse I had to put reading on the back burner, and the fact that I didn’t flock to a novel solidified the fact that I was in an everlasting reading slump. 

I understand that as one gets older they pick up on more hobbies, social activities, and other commitments, but I miss falling in love with fictional characters. I grieve over the fact that fantasy worlds and rich dialogue don’t grab my attention like they used to. As a writer, how could I let reading turn into a stranger that I barely notice? To me, it seemed like such a huge jump from reading every night to reading not even once a month.

I tried at the start of mandated quarantine to read, but I preferred new hobbies instead. Seeing everyone prep whipped coffee and pick up craft projects got me more interested in soap making and baking. Reading my new copy of The Fountains of Silence once again was left in the dust.

Then, my advanced poetry workshop at the start of the semester happened. We had required reading of poetry collections that were all so neatly tied together with the writing we were encouraged to do. It was during this class that I thought maybe, just maybe, I could get back into reading again.

People will say poetry is “easy.” In a way, it is just because it is a shorter form of reading and writing than a novel or even some short stories. However, poetry is so complex for the same reasons--thematic material, figurative language, and every single line break has to mean something and has less time than a novel to make a lasting impression. This is what made poetry so captivating for me to read; I could get so much content in such a few, short pages. Poetry collections like Jorie Graham’s Fast and Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky With Exit Wounds ended up being finished in a mere few days because unlike a novel, poetry doesn’t spend white space on a buildup, but rather jumps straight into the climax. In addition, the fact that I am a poet at heart (seriously, the only form of writing I have continuously done every day for the past several years), helped make the commitment to reading poetry much easier.

Even though I was glad to indulge in reading a variety of poetry collections and chapbooks, I was still stuck on the idea that I wanted to read novels again. Poetry can definitely be motivating in the sense that you can read so much no matter the time constraint, but I was yearning for a fiction fix. Maybe not something several hundred pages long, but at least something that was in the traditional “book” style. However, I didn’t even know where to begin because it had been so long since I had read a novel cover-to-cover, so I felt lost when it came to buying a new book. 

That’s when I decided that I was going to branch out by going to my library. If I ended up hating the book fifty pages in, I could bring it back. I could save money, and the frugal, college student in me liked that idea a lot. If I ended up loving a book and I wanted to reread it (or read it without the pressure of library fees), then I could go to my used bookstore or Barnes and Noble to find it.

This seemingly small decision made me more adventurous when it came to what words, narratives, and plots I would indulge in. I veered away from the fantasy/sci-fi YA and into collections of contemporary essays and short stories that still had some YA elements. Genres that I had sworn off from reading in the past, like realistic fiction and romance, suddenly became more rewarding and entertaining to read. Amongst my favorite reads lately from these genres include The Opposite of Loneliness, In Paris With You, and Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Of course, part of my mission also involved my acceptance of the fact that I was no longer the same reader I was five years ago. I no longer had the time and energy to read x amount of books by this date, and while I could accomplish a goal like that in the past, I wasn’t going to beat myself up if I couldn’t do it now. I decided to look at my changed reading frequency as a sign that I was expanding my horizon to make room for more passions and more avenues of bringing myself happiness.

The same sort of idea of self-acceptance goes also for what I was reading. The stories that I originally loved, and the forms that those stories took no longer appealed to me anymore-- and that’s ok. It didn’t make me a “bad reader” or “lazy.” I can still reminisce on the fact that The Hunger Games and The Kane Chronicles meant something to me while still allowing my preferences for music, art, and other forms of entertainment to evolve alongside me.

While my journey of getting back into reading is one that will never be the same, I enjoy the fact that I’m at least incorporating something I have always loved back into my life in a new, reinvigorating way.