The Reading Slump

The dreaded reading slump. We as readers are all destined to experience this at least once during our reading life, more logically is to expect to experience it many times throughout.

I have felt myself slowly slipping into a reading slump for the past few months now, and I am sure that you as readers of this blog have also possibly noticed a lag in my reading. Everyone becomes busy and has to cut down on their reading, but when one has the time to read and they chose not to ... that is something entirely different. Looking back on my reading history I have noticed that the books that I was not overly enthusiastic about are the ones that dragged me down the most in my reading (obviously), so the solution is to not read any books that aren't holding my attention, to only read books that I am excited about reading. I can feel this reading slump slowly starting to remedy itself, and I am getting excited about reading again. I already have the next few months reading all planned out and I am feeling pumped up and eager to jump into it. All books in the forecast are ones that I have been dying to read.

So what do you do if you find yourself in a reading slump?

My best piece of advice is that if you are not enjoying the book that you are currently reading, don't read it. There are too many good books out there to waste your time reading books that you are not enjoying. Give it a break while you read a different book, or just completely call it quits and move on. Read what you want to read, reading is for fun and forcing yourself to read a book that you don't want to read is not fun.

The "I just finished this wonderful book, what do I read next?" slump. I don't know about you, but I experience these kinds of slumps as well. It's great when you have another book all lined up and ready to go once the current book is completed, but what if you don't? You can try more books by that certain author if that author happens to have written more books. You can re-read a favorite book. You can try out a few different books by reading the first few pages until you feel a book catch your attention. Sometimes I start to read a book but I instantly feel that it isn't grabbing my attention and I decide that it isn't the right book for me at that time, choosing instead to try one, two, maybe even three other books by reading the first page or two and seeing which one stands out and fulfills that of which I am currently looking for in a book.

Diversity. No matter how much you love a certain genre, I can guarantee that at some point you will get burned out on it. Reading slump. I read several different genres, I read classic literature, fantasy, young adult, science fiction, and horror to a point. I try to switch up genres in order to prevent the genre burn out. I burnt out on the dystopian book genre, and I fear that there may be no relighting of that one.

Happy reading!