Maybe Reality is the Problem
Finding my identity as a reader
I’ve been on a book binge lately. In the past two months, I’ve read at least four fiction titles cover to cover and have a large stack of paperbacks I bought from the bookstore that I’m slowly digging my way through.
On deck is Orbital by Samantha Harvey, a novel about astronauts in an orbiting space station that won the Booker Prize this year. Ryan and I have also been picking away at Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, a dark satire short story collection about dating and friendship in the internet age.
I’ll have more on that later, though. In the next few weeks I’m planning to publish another book roundup for you, which is why I don’t want to give away too many of the titles I’m reading.
What I will tell you, though, is that they’re almost all fiction. Fiction, fiction, fiction. For the longest time, I thought that in order to be a “smart” and “good” journalist/writer I had to read all nonfiction. Only reality for me, thanks. None of that made-up shit.
But every time I sat down to read one of the nonfiction books that I thought I should be reading, I couldn’t get through it. I’ve started and abandoned so many titles about real-life stuff, which for a while embarrassed me because my entire job is to write and edit stories about real-life stuff. Can you see my dilemma here?
Anyway, about a year ago I gave myself permission to read fun things again. Poetry, memoir, thrillers, zines, graphic novels, short stories, romance, you name it.
The thing I’ve learned about myself through that process is that I do love reading. I just don’t love reading nonfiction for fun.
To be fair, I rarely have trouble reading memoir, essays, and articles, which are nonfiction (even though some weave in elements of fiction). It’s more the heady stuff that my brain can’t focus on. Tomes about historical events, deeply-reported exposés, and longform, narrative works of journalism just feel like sludge to my brain.
Those types of books are so hard to get through. I think it’s due to the fact that you have to sustain your interest in a single topic for like, 300+ pages. I’d rather read a feature article in a magazine that’s two to four pages long so I can get the gist of a topic and still have some cool facts to stash away for trivia night.
Essays, too, are short and tend to deal with a bunch of different topics. And memoir is about telling lots of little stories that make up a person’s big life story. If a particular chapter or essay bores you, you can just (usually) just jump to the next.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote an essay about how I struggle to finish any of the books that I start. I blamed my smartphone for destroying my attention span. While I think there’s still a lot to be said about how hard it is to focus in the modern world where distractions are everywhere, I now believe that there’s more to the story of why I wasn’t able to read books.
The big thing I overlooked is that I just wasn’t reading things that interested me. I was trying so hard to be someone else — some smarter, more intellectual, well-read version of me that doesn’t really exist. The identity I had as a reader was more important to me than actually being a reader, which was keeping me from even reading at all.
How silly.
There was a time in my life, before I even dreamed of being a journalist, when I didn’t care what I was reading. I was a reader, and it was a core part of my identity. Young Jenn picked up any book that looked remotely intriguing. And last year, when I was thinking about why I wasn’t much of a reader anymore, I realized it’s because I stopped allowing myself gravitate towards whatever piqued my interest.
So I’ve let myself go all-in on fiction lately, because it’s what my brain wants. I think I’m drawn to it right now because it provides a counterweight to the writing and reading I do for work. Fiction is all about creating worlds that don’t really exist, but in some ways kind of do. They’re always rooted in reality somehow, but also allow you to use your imagination.
I need more imagination in my life. After spending hours copy editing marketing materials and interviewing smart people and sketching out dense articles with lots of pieces, my brain feels like it’s spinning. There’s not really anywhere for my thoughts to go except towards tomorrow’s work.
But when I can get lost in a book — one that takes me into a world that’s so different than my own — it makes me feel lighter. I can lay in bed at night and imagine myself walking through that made-up place, or wonder what the characters in my story might do next instead of fretting over my real-life to-do list.
Reading is becoming my main form of escape right now. I can see this changing as I go through different seasons of life, but for now I’m just thankful that I’ve figured out what I need from books.
And in the new year, I’m going to work on my challenges with nonfiction. Despite struggling so hard to get through books about real-life stuff, I still think it’s important to be able to read novels that are dense. I have one self-help book I’m working through right now — we’ll see if I can finish it.
I guess that’s a New Year’s resolution for me. Hope it sticks.
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Too much of anything can be hard to digest- variety is truly the spice of life - something we all probably need a good dose of occasionally. May 2025 be carefully spiced with all the reads, jobs, people and events that challenge you to be your best. My love to the Sheboygan scribes, music aficionados, fashion geeks, furry parents and wishes for more discovery each day💕
There are lots of times I hated reality while I was learning who I was while growing up in my 20's and 30's. Once I accepted who I was though, life got easier:)