How growing up and blogging has changed the way I read

Posted February 9th 2016 by Dani in Thoughts about things / 4 Comments

Something someone said to me got me thinking about how I read now vs. how I used to read before blogging. And then this snowballed into reflecting on how I read as a kid vs. as an adult. Bear with me guys. This ended up being a lot more confessional than I intended, so I’m going to throw in gifs to…I don’t know…keep it light? 😀

What growing up did to me

Becoming an “adult” has had a big effect on the way I read. I’ve always loved reading, but I went through a period where I didn’t read as much because I felt I had to “be productive” all the time.

reading as a childAs a child, I would devour books. I had (and still have) a rather overactive imagination. Coupled with my introversion, I used to escape into these other worlds, mostly magical, but also, thinking about it, plenty of dystopias. I would completely engross myself into the story, not thinking, just experiencing. If there were other who read the same books around me, AWESOME, we’d talk about them, but honestly, I didn’t know that many kids who read as much as I did.

I loved Reading Week, with the Drop Everything and Read sessions, dressing up and fun challenges. Each grade was given a list of 12 (I think) books to read during the year, and we got a badge if we read them all. You can bet I got me some badges. My middle school librarians in China quickly knew me by name in a school with 150 kids in each grade. (Yes, that’s big for me. There were only about 40 kids in each grade in my school in Japan.) I was in there almost every day, getting through books like Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series and John Marsden’s Tomorrow series in no time at all.

Then I went to university, and something pretty terrible happened. I almost completely stopped reading for fun. I squeezed a few in during the holidays, but I maybe read 10 books a year. I felt like, if I was going to read, I should be reading books related to my degree subject (occupational therapy). Doing anything for fun felt wrong. To be honest, my reading had been tapering off slightly when I started the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) in high school, but it veered sharply down at university.

sit alone and readI can remember finishing my final exams of my undergraduate degree and feeling relieved. I already had a Kindle (Keyboard, FYI) thanks to the boyfriend, and I went and bought the most-hyped YA series at the time: The Hunger Games. That first weekend after my exams, we went to the border of Wales, where the boyfriend’s dad lives, and I consumed the series over the weekend. It was incredible.

But it was a brief respite. That feeling of guilt while reading didn’t abate, and I quickly fell back into thinking that reading time should be limited. I believed that I should be job-hunting and continuing my education on my own. Instead of reading, I threw myself into these activities. I might have indulged in some gaming as well, but this was thanks to encouragement from the boyfriend.

Once I started working, I worked… and only worked. I was either working late, studying coding or passing out in front of the TV. Most of the books I got through were audiobooks while commuting 45 minutes either way to my first full-time job. Don’t get me wrong: the hard work I put in got me a long way. But I was running out of steam, and quickly.

burn this place downIt all came to a head last year, after two years of working full-time. I was exhausted. I was trying to prove myself as not only someone relatively new to the workforce and without a relevant degree, but also the only girl in a team of 8 men at the time. (There are now 12 men and still only me to represent the XX gang.) A colleague and I had a misunderstanding, and I broke down. I had officially burned out and was jaded. I started withdrawing from work, friends, everything.

I decided something had to be done, and I decided that thing was going to be Read. I read The Bone Season and quickly followed with The Mime Order. I learned about YALC on Samantha Shannon’s website, then blogging. I thought, ‘Hey, there’s a way to encourage me to read more!’ and just ran with it.

Just to give you an idea on how much I read during the past few years, I looked back at my Goodreads challenges since I first discovered the site.

  • 2011: 15 books read with a goal of 12
  • 2012: 13 books read with a goal of 21 (graduation year!)
  • 2013: 18 books read with a goal of 13 (year I got my first full-time job)
  • 2014: 40 books read with a goal of 40 (this was a push…)
  • 2015: 81 books read with a goal of 52 (the year I began blogging!)

What blogging did to me

Reflecting on this now, I’m fully aware I didn’t fix the problem entirely. I still feel the need to be constantly productive. But I have made it easier for me to be productive while still doing something I love. I’ve simply made it so that reading = productive because blogging has become a bit of a second job!

But when I reframed reading and made it into ‘work’, it had unintended consequences.

Reading used to be an escape for me, where I would lose myself entirely in the story, eat it all up, love every minute, maybe have a brief hangover where I craved more…then move on. I didn’t think too critically about what I was reading, just let the movies play out in my head. I’m sure a lot of what I read wasn’t perfect in terms of world-building and characterisation, but my imagination (both a blessing and a curse, mind you) filled in all the blanks.

book tv head

I still adore reading, but over the past nine months, how I read has changed. It now takes a lot more for me to let go of the real world and all my worries. While I used to sink into a story, I now have a tether that keeps me connected to the outside. This tether demands that I think about the story critically. What are the characters like? Are they relatable? Is the plot believable? What do I think is going to happen, and then…does it? How clearly can I imagine myself in the world? How strongly do the emotions come across? Are the relationships cliché? Exactly how steamy is the romance? Who would I recommend this book to?

Even with brilliant books, I can’t succumb 100% to the pull of the story and let go of all the analysing. There are books that have blown my mind since launching Dani Reviews Things, like Fire Falling by Elise Kova and Golden Son by Pierce Brown, but I still had the niggling voices in the back of my head telling me to highlight quotables and start thinking about what I wanted to say in my review.

(By the way, the sequels to both books mentioned above come out on THURSDAY! EEEEEE!)

reading pauseI also used to read quickly. I’d finish the later Harry Potter books in a sitting. I think I read over 100 pages an hour on average at the peak of my reading youth. Now, I’m lucky to read 40–50 pages an hour. I think most of this slowdown is due to ‘thought pauses’ I take to either note something down, highlight a quote or simply think about something I’ve read. Even when I’m not pausing, I’m constantly analysing what I’m reading.

The worst side effect to blogging is that I feel guilty now when I’m not reading. I don’t feel like I’m entitled to breaks, especially when I go and do something stupid like sign up for ALL THE BLOG TOURS. (I’m working on this. I really am. Restraint is my middle name.)

This guilt also extends to starting a new book when I haven’t finished the review for the last one. But I put so much pressure on myself when writing reviews. I feel like I have to prove that I’ve actually read a book by writing something long and deep.

constant need to be liked

Going forward

Look, I am still so happy that I began this book blog, as it’s empowered me to do something non-work-related while still feeling like I’m accomplishing something. In some ways, all the analysis has also allowed me to get more from a book than just fleeting enjoyment. It’s also taught me more about myself and what I like, so I feel more adept at picking out new books for me to read. I’ve also met my best friends and learned some useful skills along the way. I am nowhere near giving this up, as it is a much-needed respite from the stresses of work and everyday life with depression.

relax hermione

From here on, I need to take control of my reading happiness again. I need to rein in my tendency to overcommit. While I still want to review everything, I need to be gentler with myself, allowing for shorter reviews sometimes instead of the detailed ones I’ve been pushing myself to write. If I want to binge read for a while, I should let myself, and then maybe do a summary review of all the books I binged. I used to read whole series in one go, and I should start doing that again, then writing reviews of the whole series instead of feeling guilty for not varying my reading more.

What about you?

Has the way you read changed over the years? Has blogging changed your reading habits? Am I alone in my struggles? Do you have any advice for me and anyone else like me?

Keep Calm and Read a Book

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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4 responses to “How growing up and blogging has changed the way I read

  1. I read this at 11.55pm, and I will DIE for work tomorrow if I stay here to write the word vomit that I want to write, I may even do it as a DM, because personal. However, I just wanted to leave a quick note to say I will be replying to this in full, I likely will do a response post, and also BIG HUGS because you are fab, you need to do what’s right for you, GIRL POWER for your work ethic and success (which I want to grill you on now we know who each other is, ya get me? :D), and as hard as it is – try to unplug a little. You work hard, you review hard, you have a bookish business now, and that’s all AMAZING, but if you want to disconnect to get lost in Never Never Land in the middle of a book then try your damn hardest to do it, because if that re-energises you or makes you happy, then you need to do that too. R xxxx

  2. […] I’m talking about TBR piles. Recently, Dani @ Dani Reviews Things wrote a post discussing how growing up and reviewing books has changed her reading habits. It’s a fab post and I highly recommend you check it out! I’d been thinking about how […]

  3. […] of my unruly TBR pile. This was inspired by Dani @ Dani Reviews Things, who wrote a post discussing how growing up and reviewing books has changed her reading habits. I’m turning this into a mini-series, as there are a few things that have changed for me […]

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