I have never really read for fun. It had never been in my nature to set aside time in my day to read something that I wanted to read. Whenever an English teacher foisted a book assignment upon me, it usually involved careful dissection of the pages for the deeper truth and symbolism and whatnot underneath the surface level. There, I often found myself slowly reading, obsessing over each and every word, until my brain became weary and burnt out to the point where the book became seemingly unenjoyable.

Not that I simply don’t recognize and appreciate that my teachers do all this in an effort to prepare me for the standardized quizzes and tests that I’d have to take in the future, where said abilities are mandated, what I came to realize recently is sometimes school ruins books.

During quarantine, I revisited books that I dreaded reading throughout my academic journey, and I reread them: Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, All Quiet on the Western Front. All three. I vividly remembered despising all three of these novels.

Use your books to create an inspiring message. Here’s mine.

However, when I came back to reread the mentioned novels, no string attached, I really relished them. They provoked a lot of unwarranted emotions and thoughts in me that I simply didn’t get when having to read them chapter by chapter. It’s funny because I also realized that without doing these annotative assignments for my teachers, I’m not sure I would’ve 100 percent, fully comprehend what the novel is about. So maybe it was necessary for me to go beyond what I read in order to grasp the meaning of each respective novel. I don’t even know what I want.

Just grab a book and start reading it. I liked it. Don’t ponder over parts of the book for too long. Another thing that happened when reading a complex novel without stopping to search things up is often I get confused. But, I also found out that if I kept pushing through and continued reading, I can sort of connect the dots and answer some questions I’ve previously held.