Why I Don’t Read Anymore

Okay, so that’s a little clickbaity of a title. I do still read. Just not much.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of years about why I don’t review books anymore, why I’m not as active on this blog or GoodReads. I didn’t really want to talk about it because I didn’t think I had a good reason. I thought I was just in the biggest reading slump ever. But I’ve come to realize that that’s not necessarily true. So here’s my rambling explanation as to why I don’t read as much.

For the past couple of years, I thought I’ve been in such a reading slump, but I’ve long since accepted that it’s not even a reading slump anymore. I just don’t read like I used to. At 23, I’ve gotten so caught up in adulting, I’ve lost some interest in reading. I have excuses; I’m too busy, I’m too tired, I haven’t had time to find new books to read. All are true in some shape or form. But the real truth is that I just don’t want to read. I’d rather watch a movie with my boyfriend, I’d rather waste hours a day on social media, I’d rather re-watch Jenna Marbles’ YouTube videos for hours at a time.

I used to feel guilty about it. After all, even after unhauling thousands of books last year, I still have hundreds of books, many are unread. I have dozens of books I haven’t read, books I still claim I’m excited to read. Yet I don’t read them.

And even though I know that not every adult loses interest in reading, I do put a lot of blame of my lacking of reading into newfound adulting. In the last three years, every aspect of my life has changed and I find myself being extremely tired at 9pm and falling asleep in the middle of movies and TV shows. I just can’t stay up until 2am reading the newest book from my favorite author or the latest installment in a series that I love. As a teen, a large chunk of my reading time was at night and that was when I could read in entire book in one sitting. Unfortunately, after making dinner and doing the dishes, I’m ready to clock out for the day and stay in bed until my alarm forcefully wakes me up at 6am sharp.

It took me some time to realize the main reason I stopped reading so much was based on why I started reading so much to begin with. At 14, I picked up the Harry Potter series for the first time and I was amazed with it. It took me away from all my problems and made me feel so free. I loved opening up those books and going on an adventure. After all, Hogwarts was so much cooler than my school. I loved reading about friendship, something I lacked most of my teen years. Soon after Harry Potter, I picked up Twilight and I was blown away. A main character close to my age, so many cool supporting characters, and, of course, the plot focused around romance. I quickly realized that Young Adult romance books was everything I wanted in books and started reading them by the dozens, soon even by the hundreds. I would read around 200 books in a year. Looking back, I’m amazed and wonder how I did it. So, you might recognize a pattern in why I really jumped into books. I read books to escape my life because it was so boring. I read about things that I thought I wanted at the time. And in the past three or four years, I’ve started actually living life and stopped needing to read books to escape. Now, I’m not saying that people who read books are lacking anything in life or need to escape their lives. I’m only talking about myself and myself only. Your reasons are reading might be completely different from mine.

In past four years, I’ve made many great friends, I go out so much more, I’ve tried my best to make myself happy and not rely on books to fill a void in my life. I’ve been enjoying living life more than I enjoy reading. That’s not to say that I don’t still read because I do. I don’t read 200 books in a year anymore but I’m currently reading my 14th book of the year and even though it is taking me some time to get through it, I’m really enjoying it. I still love going into Barnes and Noble. I don’t buy 10 books when I go in anymore, sometimes I don’t even buy one book, but I still can’t help but go in the book store when I pass by one.

Reasons to read and reasons why one loves reading is subjective to each person and there’s absolutely no excuse to judge others on why they read, how often they read, or what they read. Reading is wonderful and should always be encouraged, not surrounded by judgement. I see this often in the online book community and it’s very discouraging.

I’ll always have a large book collection, I’ll always try my best to read as much as I feel like it, and to read as diversely as I can. Reading and books will always have a place in my heart. I’m just going to be spending every free moment inside of a book anymore, and that’s okay.