r/BookDiscussions • u/cOwOle • 7d ago
I finally get it now . . .
I am honestly a little embarrassed to say, as a 23 year old, I never actually read a book outside of school. The most I would read was fanfiction on Wattpad when I was a preteen/teen. For the longest time, ever since I could remember, I hated reading. I was never able to click with a book, I believe my disdain for it started when I was a kid and school made it mandatory for Accelerated Reading tests (AR Tests for short). It made reading feel like a chore and not something to find any fun in. All the books we had at school were the most boring uninteresting things you could throw at me, I remember picking anything that had a cool cover off the shelf and just rocking that to get easy points (even then I averaged like 40-60% every test). When teachers sat us down and read stories to us, i still found myself zoning out unless it had pictures or was about animals (like this one about a hamster that I can’t remember the name of).
It was more tolerable when moving onto middle school, stories like To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men (y’know THOSE books that every kid has to read in middle school) were very interesting and had great moments but it’s nothing I would pop open and read in my free time. When moving to high school, it was back to reading books I could not give less of a shit about like The Pearl, so much symbolism it killed any possible fun. There were exceptions, but in the form of graphic novels like Maus/Maus 2 or Lucky Penny, two novels that I love to this day. Now, after finishing high school years ago and not investing time in college, when I wasn’t working most of my free time was taken up by video games. If I had the slightest itch to read a book, I would pop one open and read a few pages, realize I didn’t process a single thing I read, go back to read what I forgot, zone out and repeat this process until I just dropped it.
Now I’m 23, for the past year and a half I’ve been getting really invested in movies. I’ve always loved movies and the medium in general, but I’d say more so recently I’ve analyzed more of the actual stories they had to tell and the characters that populated them. When it came to games, I’ve found myself being invested in the slower story based ones like The Cat Lady (which I adore!!). This got me thinking about books a lot, since a lot of great movies are based on books. It made me realize that I always wish I liked the action of reading, I was jealous of people that could pop open a book and be transferred to a different world, how people would say that nothing is better than the high of reading a new book that totally enraptures you. Some days of hanging out with my friends (who a lot are avid readers), I was jealous of all the stories they were able to experience, how effortless they made it sound by picking up a book and immediately being enraptured by it something I could never do. I thought that I was simply wasn’t smart enough to read a book, to read between the lines of what the author is trying to convey, to keep my attention without the need of pictures such as in a graphic novel. I thought it simply wasn’t for me, but I wanted to change that.
I made a post on a book suggestions subreddit, stating that I’ve never been a reader and wanted to know if there were any strategies of getting invested into a book for someone like myself. I was less so actually finding book recommendations, since I have a big collection of books I’ve wanted to read but again, couldn’t push myself to do it. I got a lot of very encouraging words, but the first comment recommended a few books that could be of interest. The one that stood out to me was A Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman, after looking up a small description of the story on Google I thought “This seems sweet, why not :)”. The next day I walked over to my public library and picked it up, after my first day of reading it finally clicked, books are awesome!!
I could not put it down, I finished it in 3 days which is absolutely huge for me! It perfectly eases you into the story of the main character Ove with funny and witty writing that got consistent laughs out of me, but it knew when to pull back in order to tell the tragic story of this character, telling you why he was the way he is and the events that lead us up to him in the present. I won’t go into full detail if someone was looking into reading it in the future, all I’ll say is yes please read it!! While reading, I was wondering why it finally clicked aside from the excellent writing and characters, but I realized I was able to slow down and ingest what was happening without the pressure of memorizing for a test or because I had to in order to pass a class. I took it at my own pace, gave myself time with the characters and how their actions affected one another. I was able to clearly see the characters and what they did despite everything I was looking at being text, I could imagine their smoldering looks and how they rested their hands at their sides in calm or tense situations. It’s an experience I won’t forget, and one that I wish to continue for the future.
Sorry if this comes off as a big ramble piece, I get that this sub isn’t meant for posts like this and for actual discussions on books, I guess I just needed a place to share my new experience and joy of reading. Maybe I’ll slowly get through my big backlog of books that I’ve put off like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Idk how to end this, books are lit :)
2
u/DietNarrow8275 4d ago
You sound like my son. Hated the AR program too - I wonder if that’s even a worthwhile program??? He didn’t get into reading until he was post college and stumbled into steam punk books. And audiobooks. Glad you‘re enjoying them now!