Anyone who’s an avid reader is familiar with the feeling of a reading slump. It’s wanting and longing to pick up a book, but being unable to find the motivation—for reasons unbeknownst to you—to actually pick one up and read it. I’ve found several factors that put me into these slumps, and several ways I have gotten myself out of them, so I thought I’d share.
School is a common denominator in my reading slumps. Every school year I find myself unable to pick up a book for pleasure and even struggling to pick up the books I need to read for a class by the time October rolls around. The timing is always unfortunate, as October tends to be when classes begin to get busy, so I need to be able to read or at least skim class readings. But it also sucks because the weather this time of year is peak reading weather. I always have a stack of books waiting for me to pick up, and on a chill autumn night, there’s nothing I’d love more than to sit down all comfy in bed with a book, hot chocolate and my perfectly curated reading playlist. So when I end up doomscrolling instead, it sucks.
I try my best not to be hard on myself about this habit, but as someone who grew up reading and getting my flashlight taken away at night because I couldn’t put a book down, I hate watching myself quit doing one of the activities I love most. And in a time when reading matters most, it’s something I try to keep doing as best I can. As soon as winter and summer break roll around, I pull myself out of it, but it never seems to last long because, before I know it, school starts again.
Something else I’ve noticed that can put me in a slump is a book that requires me to think about it while I’m reading, or finishing what was simply a really good book. Obviously neither of these is bad, and you absolutely should read a good book that makes you think, but when I’m in the middle of school, having the time for my class readings as well as what I’m reading for my own enjoyment can be a lot. So after I finish a good book, I struggle to pick up a second. The main thing that gets me out of a slump is finding a book that I consider to be an easy read. An “easy read” is different for everyone, but for me, it looks like a short book, a historical fiction, a mystery or a romance novel – it’s usually the latter. For reference, the books that have gotten me out of slumps so far this year include: “Funny Story” and “Beach Read” by Emily Henry and “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt. Something else I’ve done in the past is read a couple of short stories to get back into the swing of things, specifically the ones I read and remember from high school English classes. I love going back to popular ones such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, as well as ones I consider underrated, such as “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster and “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury.
I’ve yet to solve the problem of getting out of a slump after reading what I felt was an outstanding book. It’s a silly problem because I love reading, and I loved the book I just finished, so why can’t I just carry on and read another book? This is a problem I’m dealing with right now after finishing “Sunburn” by Chloe Michelle Howarth – highly recommend, by the way. Whenever a book is that good to me, I struggle to find a next read that compares. An obvious solution would be to go back and read another book I loved, but I’m not a re-reader.
I think overall, a good thing to keep in mind with reading slumps is that they’re temporary and you’re not scum of the earth – which is insanely dramatic – for being unable to pick up a book for any period of time. At the end of the day, everyone’s human, everyone gets busy, everyone has their ups and downs and books will always be around to pick back up eventually.