[A READER’S LIFE] How To Read a Book PROPERLY//My Reading Process//

I know. I know.

WHAT’S SO HARD ABOUT READING ANYWAY?

Open the goddamn book, read the fucking words, pretend to be shocked/moved etc.

RIGHT??!!

Reading is an art. Each step needs to be savored, taken pleasure in. It needs to speak to your soul. Reading a book should incite a change in the deepest level of your being. AND THAT CAN ONLY HAPPEN IF YOU DO IT RIGHT.

Luckily for you, I am here to enlighten you lost souls on how to properly read a book and this I will do by giving you a sneak peek into my own reading process.

Now, it may get a bit intense here but HEY! YOU KNEW WHAT YOU TOOK ON WHEN YOU CLICKED ON THIS POST, YEAH?!

SO NO COMPLAINING and let’s get to it.

THE WALK

*sigh*

Having finished reading the very last page, I close the book. My mind is still in a haze, unable to process the surroundings I now find myself in.

Seconds turn into minutes threatening to turn into hours when I snap myself out of a long lost dream, shake my hand off of the last shreds of the world I just left behind in the pages of the beautiful book lying on the bed. It’s a hard decision but a necessary one nonetheless.

I walk over to my bookshelf, admire the general splendor of all the hardbacks and paperbacks, bathe in the quiet reassurance of their utmost beauty and I just keep watching and watching….and watching…

THE CHOICE

Awe turns into irritation real quick.

Standing in front of my magnificent shelf I become aware of all the brooding eyes staring right into my soul, trying to manipulate me.

EVERY SINGLE OF MY PRIZED POSSESSIONS BEG FOR AN HONEST CONSIDERATION. Making those sweet doleful eyes, crushing my heart.

 

PICK MEEEE!!!

No wonder it takes me HOURS (sometimes even DAYS) to decide what to read next! But I turn my heart to stone and ignoring all their fictional pleas reach my hand out to rest on a random spine.

YES! THIS IS GOING TO BE MY COMPANION FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.

With a heavy heart, I make my way back – back to re-enter a world entirely different from my own.

THE TRANSITION

Reality as I know it starts to fade away. The world around me crumbles – brick by brick- until it gives way to another dimension.

Here, I am a captive of the writer’s words. They clutch the insides of my mind and pull me in. No longer am I aware of my previous life. I am living now in the minds of these wonderful, wonderful characters – crazy, flawed, AND MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN BEINGS THEMSELVES.

Yes. I LIKE IT HERE. Can I stay here forever? CAN I?

I am lost in a world of words and emotions and I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO COME LOOKING.

I FEEL SAFE.
I FEEL LIKE MYSELF.
Yes. I AM HOME AGAIN.

THE REVELATION

I have lived a full life here, have loved these new friends that I made just a few hours ago – loved them like we’ve been together for eternity. Their laughs, their cries, their hopes and dreams, their fears, their shadows – all etched into my mind as if someone had carved them there with utmost care and precision.

But now these lovely people are about to reach the conclusions to their respective stories – all the hardships they had been subjected to are almost at an end. Their wait is over and the things they want are almost in their grasps.

And while that’s good news for them, it’s distressing to me.

I will soon have to leave them – leave this beautiful world and all these wonderful people. I have come to love their lives more than my own but now I won’t be privy to the details anymore.

HOW WILL I KNOW IF THEY WERE ALRIGHT TILL THE END? THAT NO DANGER BEFELL THEM AFTER WE PARTED OUR WAYS? HOWWW?!!?!

They will move away into the quiet recesses of their own little worlds, to live their own lives and I will become a mere stranger to them – A ONE-SIDED LOVER who will continue to obsess over them for days, months EVEN YEARS TO COME!

I AM UNHAPPY. OH, SO UNHAPPY.

THE HOPELESSNESS

Here I sit, with a closed book in my hands and tears welling up in my eyes.

It’s agonizing to watch a world – a world that has made me feel more alive than I have felt in a LONG LONG TIME – fade away into nothingness.

It’s a tearful realization but I keep heart. I have faith because I know that these memories that I have stolen from the neverwhere world will now stay with me forever. Because I know that with a flick of the page I will be transported back to that magical world where everything will STILL BE THE SAME.

AHH!! SUCH A LOVELY PROSPECT.

THE WALK

*sigh*

Yes. I am back again, scratching my head, trying to avoid those puppy dog eyes!

GOD HELP ME!

AND THIS, DEAR READERS, IS HOW YOU PROPERLY READ A BOOK!

*PHEW*

I also hope that all you people who think that reading is nothing but looking at words have changed your perception of it now BECAUSE IT IS HARD WORK!!!

*dies of exhaustion and a broken heart*

Soo..do you have the same reading process as I? What steps would you like to add/take away?!?! LET ME KNOW! I WANNA KNOWWW!!!