Why can't I read anymore!?

If you look at my profile, you'll see that listed under my hobbies is reading.

And I do love reading. I like reading magazine articles, and my school newspaper (The Quadrangle) and I like reading other people's writing when I go through the submissions for Manhattan Magazine.

That said, I find it very difficult these days for me to sit down and casually read a novel.


I used to be so good at this. I've loved reading since I first learned, when I was in first grade. I would read books a lot. At home. For fun, usually. Even into my junior high years, I loved reading. And in my first two years of high school, I was still trying to continue reading novels.

But something happened along the way during my junior and senior years. Academic work (and academic reading) took priority, and because of that, pleasure reading became scarce for me. I still read--but it was tough for me to stay consistent, and I think I only completed one book during my senior year.

Now that I'm off for another 3 weeks, I really wanted to read. But quite honestly, I need to force myself to actually keep still and just read. And even then, when I read, i find it hard to read silently to myself. My mouth is shut, and I'm not speaking, but my tongue is still moving in my mouth to each word I read...(which sounds strange to you, i'm sure....)


I feel illiterate.

I have a whole stack of books next to my bed that I've bought and--over time--they have still gone unread. But I feel so slow! And there's so many other things to do, I feel. I'm still in the process of overhauling my room. I want chocolate....

Tonight, I decided to just read and get over with this book that's been in my shelf for years which I still haven't read. Does anyone remember Ann M. Martin? She wrote the Babysitter Club books. She wrote other books, too. But I remember her best for the Babysitter Club series. Anyway, she wrote the California Diaries series (guess she's partial to California?) and the book I have from this series is called Maggie. It's the third book. I probably bought it on sale, or got it at a book swap at P.S. 14 (those book swap things were great, I miss them). But yeah--I never got rid of this book. (Come to think of it, I don't know when I got this book.) Anyway, tonight I finally decided to read it--like I said, just to read it--and given the length and the size of the font, I figured I could probably finish this before the end of the night.

Wrong. Fail. Bad.

Here's the thing: I started reading, and I found out the character is in 8th grade.

Being that I'm a freshman in college, it's a little difficult to empathize with this character. But I figured I'd try to hang in there, and the voice of the character sort of reminded me of my own voice.

About x amount of pages into it, though, I decided that I just don't care about this character anymore. From the beginning, the setup for the plot was kind of weak. It's in diary format, so she goes into a lot of topics--which is fine, I actually like the diary format. Or I did. Now I don't know. But the thing is, her life sounds so shallow. Her problems seem so small. It's typical for the average eighth grader to feel badly towards a friend that is going through a rebel phase. And there's the typical cafeteria conversation fare, and the mention of some guy (whose name happens to be Justin. Of course, this book was written when *N SYNC was big. [Actually, the book was written in 1997, which is the year *N SYNC first started. But still....])

The whole thing seemed so...ugh.

I do want to be a children's/teen's librarian. And I am aware that there are better books out there for both age groups. But I dunno...


Suffice it to say, I'm not finishing this "Maggie" book. (Yes, I use dated expressions like "suffice it to say." Sue me.)

So...on with the pile.

Next up: the novel version of the upcoming movie To Save a Life, which comes to some theaters January 22, 2010. They're trying to get it to play in Brooklyn and in Freeport. Those are the two closest potential theater locations within a 25 mile radius of my zip code. I hope they can get it, though. And I hope the movie is successful. And I hope the movie spreads to more local theaters, so I don't have to get a car ride to Freeport or travel via the MTA to Brooklyn. (Speaking of the MTA, more cuts on the way. Ugh.*) Anyway, I've already started the book based on this movie--it's another thing on that list of "Things I Start But Don't Finish."

So, I'll get to reading that, hopefully it goes better than this last reading experience, and maybe I can finish it by the end of the week--do you think it's possible?

-Nicole-

*http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/nyregion/15mta.html
http://secondavenuesagas.com/2009/12/16/mta-board-approves-2010-budget-with-service-cuts/
http://secondavenuesagas.com/2009/12/14/disabled-students-hardest-hit-in-mta-budget/