Uncategorized

It’s not you, Book, it’s me: The Dreaded Reading Slump and How To Get Over It

~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

I think that all of us readers have been there. When you are used to reading over 4 books a month, and suddenly, you can hardly bear to read a news article, never mind a novel.

It feels like it is all down to the book. First, you pick up a terrible book, and you don’t finish it. Then, you try another. That’s awful too! And another. They are all boring – nothing grabs you. It could be fantasy, romance, historical, non-fiction, anything. It doesn’t matter. Nothing will grab you. Because it isn’t the book, it’s you.

There are many, many reasons why one might have a reading slump. Lack of motivation, time, stress, anxiety, depression… So, what do we do? We do things that do not require the same level of attention – things we can finish quickly and not think about too deeply.

YouTube, TV shows, scrolling through Facebook, binge-watching Netflix. It’s terrible, isn’t it? And for some, sure, it might be totally normal. But for readers who read (and I mean, read read read) it becomes this depressing, odd, stagnant hole in your life and makes you feel weirdly guilty and not-quite-yourself. Having just come out of the longest reading slump of my life (Not an exaggeration – it was four months long, and torturous!) I created a list of things that finally helped me to get my reading mojo back…

Start Light

I often find that reading something very easy, funny and lighthearted is sometimes the best way to get yourself back into reading. Chick-lit is a great example – it’s fun, summery, and full of simple story lines that do not require too much thinking power. I can be a bit of a snob and don’t usually enjoy chick-lit, but it works wonders for a reading slump. Just getting yourself reading again – whatever it is – is a massive achievement, and it helps if you can have a giggle along the way! Chick-lit offers a form of escapism that is rooted in reality and full of funny anecdotes, beautiful settings and swoon-worthy guys.

Paige Toon is a brilliant one to start with (The Longest Holiday is simply divine, and Lucy in the Sky and Jonny Be Good are also excellent – they are escapism at it’s best – letting you get swept up in holiday romances, gorgeous rock stars, sandy beaches and surfer dudes)

Keep It Short

Don’t feel like you are ready to plunge in to a full-length novel, just yet? That’s totally fine! Sometimes, it might hinder you rather than help you, so I would suggest starting with some shorter stories first. They pull you back into the swing of reading, but don’t keep you for too long. Short, and sweet.

A recent page-turner that comes to mind is Sarah Winman’s Tin Man. It’s a heart-warming, lovely little book that will warm you from your head to your toes – and you can read it in a day!

Try a Different Angle…

Perhaps it is the act of reading that is stopping you from breaking your slump? If you are depressed, it can become almost impossible to focus on anything for too long – you become so demotivated, you can’t even bring yourself to open the book and read the words. Listening to an audiobook, however, is a very different experience to physically reading. You can listen on the tube, on the bus, at your desk, whilst you are driving. It’s the perfect solution!

If this still isn’t helping, another great invention is the Podcast. They have honestly been my saviour the past few months – stopping me from going stir crazy when I feel like I am numbing my brain with YouTube and Netflix. There are some interesting, intelligent, fascinating Podcasts out there – everything from Literature to Science to discussions on authors, fandoms (There are some brill Harry Potter & Game of Thrones casts – Game of Thrones The Podcast is one of my favourites) and the BBC also have some great documentary style discussions on different authors and time periods. I listened to an engrossing one about one of my favourite authors, Oscar Wilde, that inspired me to re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray, hence pulling me out of my slump! Most of them are only 30 minutes upwards, so it’s entirely possible to feed your brain without committing too much time!

Switch It Up

Before your slump, were you (let’s be honest) a bit too obsessed with YA Fantasy? (It’s an easy hole to fall in to…) or did you pretty much only read Thrillers? I find one of the best ways to break a non-reading period is to get stuck into a book of an entirely different genre. It will pull you out of your comfort zone, and make you read something completely unexpected and different to anything you have read before.

Goodreads is fantastic for discovering new books from genres you are unsure about. Or, even better, just step into Waterstones, and spend a couple of hours browsing. You might find something you would never have even thought of reading before! The Booksellers there are so informed they can offer some excellent recommendations.

Get Physical

Perhaps you only usually read on an ereader or iPad, or maybe you are just bored of seeing the same books on your shelves every single day?

A great way to reinstate your passion for reading is to rearrange your bookshelves, or start visiting libraries and bookshops, physically taking books off the shelves, reading the blurbs, perhaps reading a little of the inside. It can be extremely inspiring to realise how many different stories there are out there, and to physically hold them in your hands. Rearranging your bookshelves can be a big job if (like me) you have a lot of books, but it reacquaints you with books you had forgotten about, or books that were on your TBR that you never got round to reading…

What methods would you use to get yourself out of a reading slump? I would love to hear your thoughts!

La La Land – The magical, musical masterpiece that is…

~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

 

La La Land was a magical, all-encompassing love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood movies. The break-neck world of auditions and authenticity and romance and dancing. An all-dancing, all-singing, heart-stopping extravaganza; one perfectly wonderful bow to the days of sun-drenched boulevards, soaring, glistening jazz numbers and brightly coloured, twirling dresses and tap shoes.

From the moment I saw the trailer several months ago, I knew this would be a film for me. I adore musicals of any kind, but find that nothing quite beats the beauty of the old-school classics: the likes of Singin’ in the Rain, Funny Girl, Meet Me in Saint Louis and more…

This film truly captures that fondly nostalgic, sparkling spirit and successfully imprints it upon present-day Los Angeles. Across the plum-coloured sunrise, a low-lighted jazz bar and amongst a sprawling, typically LA traffic jam, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone work their deliberately casual, twinkling magic.

And my, oh my, is it magic. It feels like returning home to something you hadn’t even realised was missing; like watching a movie you realise was just waiting to be made. The nostalgia is almost heartbreaking. There is a subtle, ingrained sadness, even to all the joy. Most reviews I have seen talk of the heart-filling, ecstatic, smile-bringing happiness that encompasses the whole movie, but in actual fact, to me, it wasn’t so uplifting. I loved, loved, loved it. But part of what I loved about it was how it deliberately created a manic, unhappy undercurrent, even within the first scene. There is a repetitiveness, a mania to the dancing and the noise of ‘Another Day of Sun’ that heavily hints at the ruthless ambitiousness of Hollywood: true success comes at a cost to most, especially in La La Land.

All that Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) need is an opportunity. That one opportunity that will thrust them into the spotlight. That will make all the hard days, the rejected auditions, the meaningless jobs worth it. What they find, however, is each other. What starts off as a stunning, quietly magical boy meets girl story, ultimately does not end in happy ever after. The ending of the movie is tinged with extreme bittersweet regret and nostalgia, the likes of which had been building the entire film.

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s performances are what make this story so spectacular. Mia, struggling through every single audition and becoming tired and frustrated at the lack of acknowledgement for her talents, is played so flawlessly by Emma, because Emma really is so good. Her ability to cry on tap, sing in a voice that is throaty, and not brilliant, but brings tears to your eyes and grief to your heart, even in a stone cold audition room – that is talent. The dancing also is not brilliant, but that does not matter. I realised that it is meant to be imperfect, like everything in the movie. There is supposed to be a deliberate casualness, a spontaneity that appears almost natural, genuine, effortless – and it works so well. The use of bright, sorbet-like, primary colours is also genius: the most average of scenes is made to look visually magificent. The whole of LA becomes a gorgeous, cinematic masterpiece similar to the likes of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Once you’ve waltzed and tap-danced through the stars – as Mia and Sebastian very well do in an unabashedly beautiful gravity-defying fantasia – the only way is down.

Everyone in La La Land is wrestling, struggling with ambition. The film somehow manages to create a feeling in the viewer that at once fills your heart, and also makes you feel incredibly sad. In the most outlandish act of the story, the super-extravagant big finish in the brilliant, hat-tipping style of An American in Paris’s dream ballet, the movie merges into something gorgeously dream-like, but euphorically bittersweet. La La Land is a story of conflicts, and contradictions. But whether you believe it to be happy or sad, you will no doubt leave the cinema with a tear-stained face, a song in your heart, and a tap-dancing sparkle in your step.