How to be a Reader | By Kristine Le

It has been said, time and time again,  that reading is exercise for your brain, it helps to expand your vocabulary, it makes your writing better, it can teach you new things, it keeps the stress levels at bay etc. Those are the obvious reasons for why a person a should be reading because yes-- it’s good for you. However the real question is, why is reading fun? Why do people enjoy reading and how can you learn to do the same? Well, to start off, pick a good book.

First impressions, let’s face it, have a huge impact and can ultimately have you putting off reading other books because the first one you read was downright awful. A good place to find honest reviews on books is on social media such as GoodReads and YouTube. GoodReads offers a place that specializes in providing book recommendations and sincere reviews on 1000s of books. In addition, a unique place to look for book recommendations, that not too many people are familiar with, is on YouTube. The equivalent to a beauty guru in the book world is called a ‘booktuber.’ There are tons of different booktubers with different likes and dislikes, that could easily match  your own, and  could offer you a book that is right up your alley to prevent tarnishing your first impression of books and reading.

After you find something you love, shortly after the realization begins to hit of “how was I able to ever live before I read this book?” If you find yourself at this stage, well, what comes next is the real fun part--talking about the book with others that enjoyed it as well. This is my favorite part about reading because it allows me to fully release all my emotions and thoughts on a book to someone else who can understand where I’m coming from. Finding others who enjoy reading as well, not only makes it more fun but, it motivates you to keep on reading and devouring all the books you have yet to read. It offers a new opportunity to make new friends, maybe even meet your best friend that you never would have known because, you never took the chance to pick up a book.

As you continue to indulge yourself within the reading world, you have now been faced with many different personalities, different cultures, different places etc. Pretty much with every book you open, a different story is presented and it further opens your mind to new, alien things. I believe that this is the most rewarding thing that reading can do for a person, especially during teenage years when most teens have not experienced much and are heavily influenced by the opinions that surround them. By having an open mind, it expands your acceptance to new things, it feeds your curiosity to a whole new level, and brings about unique and interesting viewpoints that not too many people have. For example, I find different cultures utterly fascinating and love meeting new people who come from different places of the world. They are people who think the same way however, from personal experience, I find that most people have tunnel vision and actually refuse to open themselves to foreign things with the reasoning that “it’s weird.” By reading through the eyes of people from a different culture or social class than you it puts a whole new perspective into your mind about how these people live and act, the traditions that they have, and how they are different from you. Having this exposure will most definitely benefit you in the long run because it expands your social standards to accommodate those of other societies as well. In other words, what might seem weird in the eyes of your society could be completely normal in another one.

By this point if you have continued on with your reading life, reading has become an everyday norm and you begin to look forward to the release dates of your favorite authors. Now, all the health benefits take their toll on you and will help keep your mind strong and sharp for the many years of reading to come. And don’t worry, you’ll never run out of books, not even in a million years.