Hey everyone! I hope that you had an amazing week so far. I was a bit under the weather and on top of that, I got my period which has been a nightmare so far. Maybe I’ll write an article in the future about periods and how it affects people with uteruses and why it is important for the society in the future. But for now, today’s topic is about getting out of a reading slump after years of not reading. This is my first article in this blog so I am very excited!

So, let’s start by going through the common situation that happened to most of us (who are in their early 20s). You were a good reader when you were in middle school/high school before you actually had big responsibilities. You were reading for fun most of the time, pages were flying by, and you had a great time. Maybe some of you even opened or followed a bookstagram/booktube (yep, they were here before booktok even existed). And you started college, and it went downhill from there. You stopped reading without even realizing. You were too caught up with the big events in your life and new responsibilities you didn’t know existed (not that it’s a bad thing, it’s a totally normal experience for young adults, trust me, been there-done that).

You realized you were missing out on books when you were having a conversation with someone or when you came across a post on the internet. (Or, more commonly now you watched a TikTok or Reels where productive “it girls/sigma boys” spared a time to read every morning around 4am.) You thought that maybe it’s time to read again. You started a popular modern classic/non-fiction (because it seemed like the right choice as an adult) with the excitement of reading again. And 5 months later, you are still on page 30 and you forgot about the book. From my own experience, this cycle repeats itself about 5 times before you stop completely.

I was in this situation about 6 months ago. This is when I started learning more about the new ways to approach reading. When you become a young adult, chances are that now you have new interests like mythology, philosophy, politics, history, business,art… The list goes on. You want to read more about them, but even you read thousand books before college, you actually read less non-fiction/classics back then. So you are actually new to this type of reading.

Now what to do about it. I am sure that some you will hate this idea, as much as I did when I first learned about it. You need to read two books at the same time. One from a genre that you used to read and had fun reading it -fiction,romance,epic fantasy,comics…- The ones that bring joy to you. And the other book will be from a genre/topic you want to discover more about. Could be a book about art history, could be a two-thousand page slow classic, could be about business management, whatever you like. I know you hate this idea, because you think that the two books will mix together and you won’t get much from either of them. But, have you ever had a situation where you watched news and Keeping Up with The Kardashians back to back and mixed the two together and thought that Kendall Jenner was going for a election? Probably not. Since the two books you are reading are from two completely different genres, you won’t mix them up together, or pay less attention to one. Because actually you want both, one to learn more and one to enjoy(like news and a reality show). I know this idea sounds frustrating at first, but give it a shot. What can go wrong, at most you will dream about Juliet working to find out which stock market is best for her.

And here we come to the end of my first article. I hope that you find this advice helpful as I did 6 months ago. I hope that you will, once again, join the wonders of reading someone else’s world in books.