Today, the world moves at such a fast rate that I often feel the need to find things that are quickly consumable, whether it be food, TV shows or books. Five things happened at the same time when I moved out of “home”: one, time seemed to escalate; two, my mental health declined as I prepared for a healing phase; three, I started working full time; four, I started university; five, my access to anime and manga became unlimited.

So, not only was I super stressed and about to dive into the most depressed stage of my life, time seemed to speed up, filling with growing responsibilities, and those seemingly shrinking slots of free time were filled with entertainment that I could basically drink in a hurry (manga = graphic novels). Reading became a chore at uni, and I didn’t really read a lot of one off books, I devoured series. And I wasn’t grabbed by any of the new series that had come out. This was also my phase of refusing to read “commercial fiction” (I don’t know if I use that term correctly but by this I mean fiction made for the market trend of the time that is usually good for the market but not great plot or writing. The aftermath of a bestseller that awakens a lot of similar publishes). I still don’t really read it, but I’m less critical of it. And then when I entered uni for writing and therw were just so many readings and I didn’t particularly like them, I just stopped reading all together. It really had become a chore.

Ever since I was little, you couldn’t trll me what to read. I didn’t think I was rebellious, but something about people telling me I had to read a certain book made me refuse to ever read it. If it was recommended or lended to me, I might take a look at it, but I rarely took thw suggestion

It’s so strange to think that from ages 4-18 I read anything I could get my hands on (that I wanted to read), or was in sight, and smashed out whole books in one sittinf, and now it’s just so hard for me to even read part of a book a day. Although, I am reading more since I’ve moved. I still opt for a quick manga chapter, but the intrigue and love for books is still there, I’m often too busy for it, or fulfilling it with something quicker.