{"id":52803,"date":"2025-01-28T08:22:06","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/why-cant-i-read-as-freely-as-i-used-to-dystopic\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T08:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T08:22:06","slug":"why-cant-i-read-as-freely-as-i-used-to-dystopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=52803","title":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t I read as freely as I used to? \u2013 DYSTOPIC"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Throughout my childhood, I consumed as many books as my library card would allow me to withdraw. I even took out books inappropriate for my age range using my dad\u2019s library card (although he claims not to remember this). I have a fond memory of my dad handing a copy of The Exorcist<\/em> over to the librarian and she looking at me and saying, \u201cThis isn\u2019t for you, is it?\u201d I shook my head, no doubt with an expression of sheer terror on my face, but the librarian scanned it through anyway, smirking. I read that book on a family holiday and couldn\u2019t sleep for about a week. I think I was about ten.<\/p>\n

I continued to read voraciously up until I finished my English literature degree. While I loved studying literature and could have picked no other subject, reading became a sort of job for three years and it felt more like hard work than it ever had done before. It didn\u2019t feel as magical. It took me a good couple of years to relearn how to read for pleasure again, but it never felt quite as natural as it did pre-adulthood. It\u2019s the only aspect of my youth I truly miss.<\/p>\n

While reading didn\u2019t feel so easy in my twenties, it may have had something to do with the fact that I chose nothing but challenging books \u2013 and by challenging, I mean morbid, gloomy and downright harrowing. I look back on that time with a sense of awe as I genuinely couldn\u2019t stomach such an onslaught of fictional misery today, but back then I couldn\u2019t get enough. I fell in love with dystopian fiction big time (and started writing this blog) because it felt like the truest, rawest genre there was. I felt like I was looking life unflinchingly in the eye.<\/p>\n

Then the pandemic hit. Oh, the pandemic. I fear I write about it too much on Dystopic, but it had such a profoundly catastrophic impact on my reading habits that I can\u2019t avoid it. It seems almost uncool to talk about that time now, and I do feel an odd urge to apologise for bringing it up.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly I struggled to read during the pandemic, and my love (and stamina) for dystopian fiction waned. I guess it\u2019s not fun to imagine what it would be like to face the implosion of society when you\u2019re actually facing it. And, let\u2019s be honest, things haven\u2019t really picked up much since then.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s my age, maybe it\u2019s my pessimistic outlook, but I just can\u2019t look at the world with hope any more. When I read dystopian fiction in my twenties, I enjoyed seeing the light shining through the darkness and got excited for the rebel characters\u2019 vision of a better world. I understood why they fought for what was right, despite the dangers. Now I just think, \u201cGet used to it, buddy, it\u2019s never going to get any better.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m being melodramatic. Sort of. Anyway, what I\u2019m trying to say is that misery doesn\u2019t entertain me now, and not only has this affected my love for dystopian fiction, but it also means I can no longer read books that I\u2019m not 100% in the mood for. The number of books I have started and put down over the last five years must be at an obscene all-time high. I used to be proud of the fact that I never ever DNF\u2019ed (did not finish) a book, no matter how bad it was, but now I do it at the slightest whim.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I haven\u2019t fallen out of love with reading, or the habit of it, I just struggle to lose myself in a story these days. Wow, that\u2019s depressing, isn\u2019t it? But it\u2019s true. I don\u2019t lose time because I\u2019m so absorbed in another world, I always seem to have one foot out the door \u2013 or out the book? I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m struggling with this metaphor almost as much as I\u2019m struggling to read.<\/p>\n

Image created by Freepik<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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