Trying to like Reading again

Recently, I was reading Alice in Borderland via my local library, since they had the full series & I was planning on watching the Netflix show. I really enjoyed what I've read so far & blew through the first few volumes fast.

But then something I feared happened. I checked out the next two books... and then they sat in my book bag unread. For over a month. Thankfully, my library had auto-renewal so I didn't rack up overdue fees. I just hope I wasn't hogging the books for too long (and if someone else in the area was also reading it, I'm sorry). Anyways, I returned them for now, but the shame still lingers.

The thing is, when I was a kid I was a heavy reader. I used the library a lot. I was a huge fan of Warriors back then too (though this was long before I got on the internet & I never joined the wider fandom). I'm not sure when it happened. Late middle school or early high school. But I just, stopped. Sure there were books I was reading, but I ended up dropping all of the books I read outside of school work.

I did read a lot of graphic novels in college. The town's library was right next to the dorms & it also doubled as research (I was pursuing comics at the time). But I fell off when my schoolwork got busier, and post-college it's been a struggle. Beyond entertainment, it's also been affecting learning Japanese as on top of trying to study & parse a language I'm new to, I have to deal with my brain just not wanting to read.

I think most of what I read now are online stuff like blog posts, fan-fictions, and short stories I stumble on while web surfing. It's still reading, and I guess reading articles & blogs have been getting better. But the latter two have been falling off as well (it doesn't help that my main fandom doesn't have a lot of fanfiction out there).

Especially in these times, where being able to read in any capacity is becoming more important it's been bothering me. Not just because I think reading is important, but because I used to be a more hard core into it but now keep loosing interest. I'm also trying to sharpen my own writing skills, but it's hard when I can barely experience the medium I'm trying to work in.

idk, maybe writing this could help me narrow it down or get some advice. The only thing I ask is if you're giving tips please be gentle about it. But here's a few reasons I think I fell out of it.

I just prefer other forms of entertainment

The most neutral reason. In terms of entertainment, I think it's fine to prefer something else as long as you're not writing off other mediums.

These days, I usually prefer video games, videos, and creative projects like writing my own OCs & fanfictions.

I think video games just do better at holding my attention due since I'm directly engaging with it. It also helps that it's what my main fandom interests are right now. Similar to be said about my own creative works since well, I have to make it in the first place. With videos, I can have them on in the background while doing other things & there's also the visual component to keep my attention I guess.

I'll talk more about the 'keeping my attention' part in the next section.

Neurodivergence

To be honest, I'm still uneasy talking about my neurodivergence. Mainly because the usual responses are either hostility or infantilization (and I really don't want to invite too much of either).

I still don't have a diagnosis (it's complicated), but I'm 99.9% sure I have ADHD.

Focus issues have been genuinely invasive in a lot of aspects of my life from struggling to finish projects to doing basic home stuff, so of course this bleeds into reading. And it sucks ass. Books get forgotten about fast. And when I do read it's 50/50 whether it's the only thing I'll care about for the next hours... or I'll loose focus every 5 seconds and have to put the book down.

I feel like as I've gotten older it's simultaneously gotten better and worse. Some things are manageable, and I've swapped the way I do a few things to be more 'ADHD friendly' (for example; writing episodic shorts & short stories vs writing multi-chapter works). But other things like hobby reading have gotten worse.

Look I know it sounds stupid & it's really hard to explain. But I hate that novels have a massive barrier for me because I just so happened to be born with a bad brain.

I know some of the recs I could get for this so to cover them;

Read comics - It's my favorite medium, but as I described at the beginning, this happens here too.

Listen to Audiobooks - still faces the same problem, but with the addition of zoning out if I'm multi-tasking. I feel like this also only works for me if it's a book I don't want to read for some reason, like a school requirement.

Read YA / Middle Grade- I'm not gonna deny there's plenty of gems here, but I feel my media preferences & themes I enjoy have been skewing older lately. So it's gotten harder to find younger-oriented stories I'm interested in as a result.

(Public) School turned it into a slog

I will note, I have a very negative opinion on American public schools as is, especially as someone who was negatively affected by them. But I think this is was a big part of what killed it for me & millions of others; (Public) School turned it into a slog.

Think of it like this; You had to read for a grade. The books were all titles & topics you had no interest in. But you still had to show up with book reports & tests where every day you're told failing them will ruin your chances of getting into college. Forgetting a day or two of reading will cause you to fall behind in class. All while stacked with work for other classes laying on the same pressure to be perfect before graduation. If this their primary exposure to reading I can't blame people too much for not wanting to touch a book once they graduate.

I want to keep this post focused on my own experiences, but I'll throw this out anyways; The way reading is taught in the US fails to promote reading. Skills taught within language arts classes like comprehension and analysis end up becoming a hurdle people have to clear to graduate. I think it's having negative effects, with the uptick of people breezing over themes and nuances in media & online discussion, or people turning to AI to do all the thinking for them.

The latter is not something I want to happen to me. It's part of the reason I'm trying to improve my reading habits. But it's kinda hard when I'm also feeling the 'reading is a slog' part as well. I wouldn't say the books I read for highschool classes were inherently terrible, but historical fiction & classical literature about rich people doing rich people things didn't really appeal to my fantasy & sci-fi tastes. But that was taking up all of my reading time & energy when I was a teen.

I think college was different, mainly because the classes I took were less focused on tests & having the 'right' interpretation. And I feel the more 'open' part of that made more of the books enjoyable (I still keep some of the ones I bought for the classes). But this is my experience and may not reflect others.

And like I mentioned earlier, my recreational reading was technically part of my studies. So it was feeding right back into my own interests & goals vs an arbitrary "get a diploma" goal. Post-graduation, I did loose the structure of college & had to stop pursuing career arts for now. So I wonder if education plays a larger role in reading for me than I thought. I've been struggling with consistent self-study unfortunately, and I don't have the money to take a course every time I want to get back into reading. So I'll just put a pin on this one for now.

I don't want to stop reading again

Since post-college all my reading is recreational / out of personal curiosity. With this I could go with the first reason I listed; "I just prefer other forms of entertainment". But it doesn't sit right with me.

Like I said earlier, I think reading is important especially in current times. Where quick content & replies without reading the full picture are rewarded online, misinformation being cycled around from misinterpretations, and especially generative AI aiming to take away 1/2 the process of reading being shoved down our throats. I want to strengthen my ability to process things on my own & get the full picture.

There's also the ADHD issue. I don't think trying to 'defeat' it is the right answer. But I also think there's a large difference between 'working with ADHD" and "letting ADHD dictate your entire life". I want to read, leaving it at 'it's hard' doesn't give me the knowledge on how to actually work with it. So I want to learn how to read with it. A day will come where I have to read something for a non-hobby reason again after all. (sidenote; for the love of god don't recommend me AI. It only serves to do the work for me & doesn't solve the core issue of "I can't focus". And for recreational reading the fuck's the point if I'm not doing it in the first place?)

There's wanting to strengthen my writing skills as well. It's hard to practice a medium when I haven't exposed myself to it much in the first place.

And of course, I just want to. There's so many stories, histories, lessons, and more that I'm missing out on just because I'm struggling with the act of picking up the book in the first place, never mind finishing it. I don't want it to replace video games, movies, or video essays. I want it to be an option I have again alongside them.

Trying my best

Right now, I guess I'm trying my best. I did end up reading a non-comic book (is there a better word?) in full last year. It was Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill . A novella about a girl facing a trial that takes her to the past in order to earn patronage from a fox god of tricks. I picked it up because the cover looked fun & it was a shorter read, and I'm glad I did so & managed to read it all the way through.

As for comics, I think I'll just accept this break from them and come back when I'm ready. I do want to finish Alice in Borderland someday.

I'll keep my goals pretty low for now, but I want to finish one traditional book before the year ends, regardless of the topic or length. I also want to read more sci-fi & older-oriented fiction in general as the themes are really interesting to me right now. (tbh I think a lot of people could benefit from reading sci-fi but that's a ramble for another day).

I'm also trying to take notes more. This extends beyond reading, but I think i want to leverage notetaking to keep track of where I'm at & better process what I've read afterwards. I think this one's extra important if I know I have a tendency to forget about things for weeks on end. Or if I want to discuss it later on.

Honestly, this is just a really complex thing I've been dealing with for the past few years. I hope one day I'll be able to pick up and finish novels more often again, without worrying if they'll sit around unread.