Note: I will only be talking about fiction books in this post
The last time I read a book for fun was probably back in elementary school. I remember enjoying The 39 Clues back then. Between then and now, I only read books because they were assigned to me in class, and it’s difficult to enjoy them when there are deadlines for reading or when you’re trying to extract talking points for a literary commentary.
Another reason I quit reading for fun was that reading a new book requires you to trust the author: you first have to read the first ~100 pages to get through the exposition and internalize the names of the characters. After that, if the book falls flat, then that initial investment of time is wasted. After I experienced this several times in a row, I became hesitant to start new books.
My primary form of entertainment had ended up being video games and TV shows. Recently, I noticed that I mainly liked my current games because of their overarching stories. At the same time, I was getting dissatisfied with the consistency of story quality in those games. For example, Genshin Impact only has good story moments every 2 years or so of the game’s life. Since I knew I was looking for consistent story quality and since my current forms of entertainment weren’t satisfying those needs, I decided to reconsider reading.
I asked around for book recommendations and settled on the Red Rising series, which is set in a dystopia (one of my favourite genres). As a quick intro to the premise, humans are born into Colors, which determine their social status and physical traits. Reds are of the lowest status, while Golds are the highest.
There are several reasons why I came to enjoy the series so much:
- The premise/setting is intriguing, which helps alleviate exposition boredom
- The protagonist is smart and uses that to set up unexpected twists
- It’s often unpredictable whether the protagonist will succeed or not, so there’s suspense
Red Rising has reinspired my love for reading. Even when I was only halfway through the first book, my enjoyment had far surpassed the enjoyment I derived from (story-focused) video games and TV shows/movies.
I’m also more likely to stick with book series because after finishing a really good first book, the next books can be read without having to relearn exposition. It’s much easier to trust the author to write a good next book if their previous books were good.
I’m currently on the fifth book in the series (Dark Age), but if you don’t want to get spoiled, don’t look at the descriptions of the later books yet. If your reading preferences match mine, then I highly recommend checking this series out.