You don't hate reading, you just haven't found the right book yet

Time of India

7 days ago

Somewhere between school worksheets, forced 'classics,' and being told to 'read for your personality,' a lot of people decided books weren't for them. Not because stories bored them, but because the wrong stories were handed to them at the wrong time, with the wrong kind of pressure.
If that's you, here's the truth: you don't hate reading. You just haven't met the book that feels like it was written with your brain, your pace, your life in mind.
Maybe school broke it
Most of us were taught to read like we were sitting an exam. Theme, symbol, foreshadowing, five-paragraph essays. No one told you it was okay to skim a slow paragraph, skip a chapter that drags, or abandon a book that isn't working. Reading turned into a performance, not a pleasure.
Take that pressure off. You're not getting graded anymore.
Start with frictionless pages
Open ten different books and read just the first page of each. Not the blurb, not the reviews, the first page. The one that makes you forget you're 'trying' to read, keep it. Voice is everything. If the sentences feel like wading through mud, that isn't a moral failure. It's a mismatch.
Form matters as much as genre
Maybe you don't want a 500-page epic right now. Try a novella, a graphic novel, or an essay collection you can dip in and out of.
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is 176 pages and reads like a sharp, weird conversation with a friend. Before the Coffee Gets Cold is short, sentimental, and simple without being shallow. If you like visuals, Heartstopper, Saga, or Persepolis might do more for you than any dense literary brick ever will.
If you like conversation-heavy storytelling, Daisy Jones & The Six reads like a documentary transcript, no heavy lifting, just pure story.
Audiobooks count (and sometimes work better)
If you're always on the move or your attention scatters on the page, listen instead. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is even better in his own voice. Andy Weir's The Martian or Project Hail Mary are basically adrenaline in audio form. Commuting, cooking, and folding laundry all become reading time. Stop gatekeeping yourself.
Give yourself permission to quit
Adopt a DNF rule: If you're not into it by page 50 (or 30, or 10, set your own line), stop. Life is too short to finish books out of guilt.
Make a 'not for me' shelf and move on. Weirdly, that freedom alone makes you more likely to read more.
Read for obsession, not obligation
Ask yourself what you're actually into when you're not reading. True crime podcasts? Try I'll Be Gone in the Dark or The Adversary. Start-up drama and scandal? Bad Blood will keep you up late. Reality TV messes with the heart underneath? Contemporary romance like Beach Read, Happy Place, or The Hating Game moves fast and feels like hanging out with chaotic friends.
Heist movies and morally grey geniuses? Six of Crows is a YA that reads like a blockbuster.
Want a mystery that's clever without being bleak? The Thursday Murder Club is warm, funny, and weirdly tender.
Short attention span? Go short form
Pick up an essay collection like Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror, Durga Chew-Bose's Too Much and Not the Mood, or Samantha Irby's anything. You can finish a piece in ten minutes and still feel like you ate a full meal. Newsletters, long-form journalism, even fan-fiction that's better than half the paperbacks out there, read what actually holds you.
Make reading easy to start
Leave a book (or Kindle) where your thumb naturally goes: next to the kettle, on your nightstand, in your bag. Download samples to your phone so you can test-drive a dozen books without spending a rupee. Put the library app on your home screen. Tell yourself you'll read two pages. Most days, you'll read more. But even if you don't, two pages is still two more than yesterday.
Community helps, shame doesn't
If you like talking about what you read, find a low-pressure book club or a friend who also wants back in.
If you hate the idea, don't. Track your reads if that motivates you. Don't if it turns joy into a spreadsheet. This isn't a personality project. It's just you and a story that makes your brain light up again.
Books by vibe
If you want something fast, funny, but secretly smart, try Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine or Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. If you want tension and a plot that drags you by the collar, The Silent Patient, Gone Girl, or The Woman in the Window won't let you look away.
If you want heartfelt and hopeful, A Man Called Ove, The House in the Cerulean Sea, or Lessons in Chemistry. If you want real life told like a novel, Educated, When Breath Becomes Air, or Crying in H Mart will do it.
If you want pure delight, try Legends & Lattes fantasy with cinnamon rolls and zero doom.
Swap any of these for something closer to your taste—sports, food, finance, art, parenting, space, myth, manga. There is a book for every niche.
There is even a niche for every sub-niche. Someone has written your book. You just haven't bumped into it yet.
The point is not to become 'a reader'
T
he point is to remember what it feels like to get lost for twenty minutes and come back lighter, brighter, or at least a little less alone. If a book doesn't give you that, it's not your book, at least, not right now. Put it down. Try another. Reading isn't a test of discipline. It's a search. And searches take time.
You don't hate reading. You hate boredom, shame, and the feeling of being forced. Strip those out, follow your curiosity, and watch what happens. One day soon, you'll look up from a page and realise an hour just vanished. That's your book. Keep it close. Then find the next one. And the next.