Posts Tagged: Reading

Is it redundant to start this post off with the title of this post? Because yeah I think I turned reading into a chore and am not entirely sure how to read for fun anymore.

I am not even sure blogging is entirely to blame for this because I read a lot more than I review in an attempt to maintain a balance.

When I was a young baby, just starting to dip my toes into the online blogging community, I was driven by this fear of running out of books to read. I added everything I possibly could to my Goodreads shelves and I read like I was running out of time. In 2013, I read close to 400 books.

Ever since, in a desire to compete with myself and also to read every single book that comes out + backlist, I think I’ve backed myself into a corner I don’t know how to get out of. There are so many books out each year plus so many books I’ve wanted to read forever and I constantly feel overwhelmed.

Over this past year, I’ve done extensive spring cleaning of my shelves to remove things I know I will never read but my goodreads TBR still stands at a whopping 700+ books. This doesn’t include unpublished books I want to read and it also doesn’t include some books I want to read but keep forgetting to add to my TBR!!!

I am also working harder on being easier on myself when I am in a reading slump because forcing a book on myself isn’t really conducive and honestly makes me appreciate the book less.

I am still chasing that high I used to feel as a child when I read a book and got sucked into a new adventure and I feel like it’s been a while since I truly felt that way. Even though I’ve read many good books this past year, I haven’t picked them up because I was super excited to be picking them up, I picked them up because I felt like I had to in an attempt to tackle my giant and ever-growing tbr.

A decade plus of making a habit out of reading something daily seems to have turned something I truly loved into a chore rather than something I do because I truly truly want to and I am hoping I can find a balance this upcoming year. I miss that feeling of being extremely excited to pick something up again. Not the excitement you feel when you read a summary and a book sounds up your alley but that excitement when you open a chapter and are excited about the process of reading.

I have no idea if this even makes sense or if its a long ramble but I felt like articulating my feelings re: reading lately because I feel like it has impacted what I read or don’t read.

I gravitate more towards contemporary these days because contemporary is quick and easy to follow whereas fantasy is not. I was never the kind of reader who would shy away from a big book and now I am and that makes me incredibly sad.

I don’t want to pick up books because I just want something to read, I want to be able to pick up books because I am excited about picking them up and not out of a habit of reading. I want to translate my excitement about a book to excitement for actually picking it up and reading it.

In case this isn’t clear, this post isn’t a “I am gonna stop reading now” post, it’s just me angst-ing about how I’ve ruined a perfectly good thing. I still read a lot and have loved many books I’ve read. In fact, the last book I finished, I absolutely loved. I just wish I was more excited about picking up a book and it didn’t seem like a chore to actually pick up a book.

Has anyone ever experienced this?? What have you done to combat it??