Pressure as a reader

Hello World!

Today I am going to talk to you about a very widespread thing that I think every reader has experienced at one point in their lives and that is pressure. Pressure to read what is popular or to read books with more diverse characters in and I myself have definatly felt it, so I thought I would talk to you all about it and find out just how many people it affects.

As I mentioned, there is a lot of pressure in the reading community and sometimes it is very easy to snap under pressure and just go with what people are telling you to do. The community of readers online is vast and while the majority are very nice genuine people unfortunately, you so meet some not so nice people who like to stick their noses in other peoples business. There are some people out there that judge you for what you read. These people might laugh at you because they think you are reading something that is ‘childish’, or I have even been in situations when people have called me homophobic just because every book I read doesn’t have an LGBTQ+ character in it!

It is these sort of people that put pressure on people to read certain things to prove themselves, but let me tell you that it doesn’t matter what you read or how fast you read it – If you love reading then you are a reader. Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to read this or you can’t read that because you don’t have to. I still read Rick Riordan’s work, which a lot of people think is childish and I have been accused of not having a very broad reading list. I know that Rick Riordan’s books are written for younger children, but they are still good book regardless and actually cover real world issues in a way that no adult book I have ever read does. I am also quite aware that when it comes to reading books I have a very narrow minded way of going about it. I read almost exclusively teen fiction and I know that. I am looking to expand my horizons slightly (which I am doing slowly, but I was going to talk about that separately. Would you guys be interested?), but it takes time and I am quite comfortable reading and enjoying the books I do.

In short, don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t read and if you come across this kind of pressure the best thing to do is just ignore it. You can read whatever you want because everyone is different and not everyone likes the same things. Have any of you every experienced any pressure as a reader? If so what did you do about it and did it effect what you read?

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out