(Apologises if this is the wrong place to post this.)
The book itself isn’t bad by any means, just not really a particularly fun read (the subject material is just a bit too depressing for my taste). And it’s not like I can pick another book, either. Since I’ve become a lot more precious with how I spend my free-time, I always prioritise doing stuff I actually enjoy, and I’ll always be too tired to concentrate on reading if I do it before bed. So I think the only solution is to find a way to actually enjoy reading it? I just can’t think of a way on my own, so I wonder if anyone here might have some advice lol.
by Emotional-Goose-7325
14 Comments
What is the title of the book?
Sometimes required reading sucks. It isn’t for fun, it’s for academics. If I had to sit through Catcher in the Rye (No wonder MDC shot somebody), you can make it through yours.
You’re being forced to read it, not enjoy it. Read it with a critical eye, and consider what your reaction to it says about you as a reader. Analyzing it in a different way might actually help you enjoy it.
FWIW, if it’s homework, it’s not really being read in your free time any more than I read work emails in my free time. It’s natural for obligatory tasks to feel like a slog and one “key to success” in life is to learn to sit with & push through the boredom so you can finish the task and move on to enjoy your truly free time afterwards.
What’s the book? Maybe those who have read it and loved it can hype it up for you, to make you a little more interested in finishing it.
This might already be something they want you to do, but if you don’t like it by all means be critical of it. Pick it apart. Rip it to shreds. Think of a rant for each chapter about what you didn’t like. Why did the author write it like that?! you wonder, annoyed. Well, why do you think they did write it to be so depressing? What would you have written instead?
You could pick a lens to read it through – the typical, serious ones are stuff like “feminist” or “political” but you could choose one that’s silly for your own entertainment. What would a Viking think about the book? What would Luke Skywalker think? What would Smaug think? Would they like the book, or relate to it? Or would it offend them? Why? (Probably don’t write your book report from Luke Skywalker’s POV unless your teacher is really cool, tho.)
Reading for school (or work) isn’t always going to be fun.
A couple tips:
Either ask your teacher or Google “(name of book) questions” to get some idea on what themes and literary devices to keep an eye out for so you can engage with the book more academically.
Engage with the writing: you may not like the characters or are interested in the story, but how does the writer convey the characters? What choices are they making to reveal the plot? Why did they spend an entire chapter describing a field? That they’re a bad writer is a valid conclusion for you to make, even if the author in question is a highly celebrated author. Just gather evidence to argue your point.
Finally, if you’re really struggling to get through it, when I was in school I’d skip to the final chapter and then work my way backward or alternate working my way from beginning and end to the middle: chap. 1, chap. 9, chap. 2, chap. 8, etc. Then if I didn’t finish, I still knew how it ended and had a good idea of what happened in the book. This works best with linear novels, you might get hopelessly lost trying this method with something like Gravity’s Rainbow.
You could always try to audiobook it. Maybe listening to the book while you do something else might make it more enjoyable. Or at the very least a bit less of a burden.
I don’t think I ever finished a full book that was required reading when I was in school. I would read the first 2 pages of each chapter, skim, then read the last page. Then I’d just Google the synopsis of each chapter later.
Was I a stellar English student? No. Did I pass? Yup.
These were also books that the whole class was also reading. So we always had discussions about the part of the book we were supposed to be at. And I paid very close attention to those, and took good notes, and participated whenever I could. This is how I was able to write any papers about it, and pass exams.
Maybe try to connect with some aspect of the book, or find contrasts with your own feelings/experience. For example:
-Think about the characters–what you are like vs what they are like. Do they remind you of anybody? Would they be friends or enemies?
-Anything the author does esp well, like settings or suspense? Anything you can try in your own writing?
-Look at the situations facing the characters and how they act/react. Does this reinforce your ideas about people/life/the world? Do you get any new insights?
And of course, there’s always hate reading–just how dumb is this character? How ridiculous is this dialogue? How predictable are the plot twists? [Kind of like MST3K but for a book instead of a movie.]
Audio book?
My biggest recommendation for stuff that you must read but don’t want to is to watch a video or read a summary of the books parts of chapters before you read them. TRUST ME. You’ll dash through the book because you already know what happens, so you don’t have to pay too much mind to what you are reading other than gathering the little extra details. Keep in mind that I tell you to go with a summary per part or chapter, in case you decide quarter or halfway through the book that you are enjoying it and actually want to end up reading it you can just finish it regularly.
Not everything is fun. Wait until you get a job.
I use my enjoyable activities as rewards to get through less appetizing books. Like I get to play my game only after I’ve read a chapter.
Audiobook?