Top Ten Tuesday: Ways to Get Out of a Reading Slump

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is all about the books that help pulling you out of a slump. But I don't really have a recipe for this, because it usually depends on what put me in that slump to begin with. I don't know what the onset of a reading slump is like for other readers, but for me it can be any number of things, from stuff from my personal life, to my most recent read that gave me a massive book hangover, to a DNF I didn't anticipate that makes me want to give up reading for a while. So I'm going to change up the theme a little bit and I'm going to talk about some of the things I do in order to get me out of a reading slump. Let's start!

Ten Ways To Get Out Of A Reading Slump

1. Rereading Favorites

I'm certain a lot of people use this method, and I swear it works. Sometimes I want to reread an old favorite, sometimes I just want to read a certain scene that I adored from a book, and usually it's enough to keep me reading and to want to read more. There isn't just one book that does the trick for me, but the last time it happened about a few months ago, I reread Lexi Blake's Love And Let Die and it did the trick.

2. Comic Books

This is actually the way I discovered comic books. I was in a slump, I was browsing Netgalley, as you do when you're in a slump, and I saw a cover that caught my eye. Turns out, it was a comic book. Sometimes you might even go on an internet search and see if your favorite book has a comic book version. Either way, I’ve found that this method works just fine for me. I might not always love the comib book, but it makes me feel a little less bad about not reading.

3. Fan Fiction

I can't even tell you the number of times fan fiction has taken me out of a reading slump. I am actually miffed that most of the times I can't count fan fiction towards my GR reading goal, because then I'd be way, way over my goal. I do limit my fan fiction to movies and TV shows, because usually I crave a little more prose attached to them, especially when the TV show/movie in question makes me ship certain characters together hard. Like really, really hard.

4. Fake it till you make it

This might sound like a strange strategy, but hear me out. While I was attending university in Romania, in one of the classes that we had the teacher started talking about laughter therapy and then showed us one technique. She had us faking our laughter and I kid you not, after about...3 or 4 minutes of fake laughter we were all on the floor rolling, with tears streaming down our faces. 

I do the same thing with reading. I pick a book that I didn't receive for review, to not have any guilt attached to my super low expectations or lack of a reading mood, and just read until at one point, I forget I'm doing something that seems like a chore. Most of the times it's worked for me.

5. Audiobooks/theater recordings

Some people swear by this, and I do think audiobooks still count as reading, especially if you're doing chores and you need some background noise. I myself am not a huge audiobook fan, so I can't really tell you if this is a great way or not. My method involving audio is old theater plays. Which is still like reading. I am a huge fan of old theater, and I've listened to some of them so much when I was a kid, I know them almost by heart. It's still reading, there are many actors in there, and it's fun. Or at least it is for me.

6. Multitask (or in my case knit)

This is something I've started doing recently, and I swear it works. I'm knitting some socks and I promise you, it makes the reading go that much smoother. I have a hard time keeping my hands still, so I thought about putting that energy to use, and since I want to read but I also want to knit, I thought why not put them together, see what comes out of it? So far I've knitted one pair of socks and finished two books while doing it, and I'm also finished with the first sock of another pair and I've read 2 or 3 books while doing it. Now, this usually means the reading will be a little bit slower, depending on the project, but once I got the hang of it, I got to almost forget I'm doing something else. And the socks look nice too!

Now you might wonder what this has to do with reading slumps. Well, I'm glad you asked. Basically what it does for me is that it distracts me from the fact that I don't want to actually read, so it kind of becomes a way for me to pass the time.

7. Watch some TV

Sometimes when I'm watching a TV show I get so into the story, that I feel this.... this curiosity to read something similar. Not fan fiction, but actual books that are somewhat similar to the TV show I'm watching. Sometimes I'll even consider tie-in novels and comic books, and that does the trick to take me out of the slump.

8. Take the break

I'm a firm believer in learning how to read your body and listening to your instincts. So when my body tells me it's time to take a break, I listen to it. Not my brain, 'cause that's like Pandora's box, but my body. So sometimes I just take the break to do something else that brings me joy. I watch TV, I work out with my dog, I take photos for my bookstagram, I do any number of things that keeps me active and then trust me, that reading slump will be over eventually.

9.  Change genres

A lot of times a reading slump is brought on by the fact that I kind of get tired of reading the same themes over and over again. So when I get tired, usually a reading slump is nerby. I’ve found that changing the genre completely, even looking at something that’s for anothwr target audience, does the trick. I was in a strange mood a while back and I wanted to read some darker fiction, but I was in a huge reading slump at the time. Then I saw a freebie on Amazon, a really dark erotica that played with my head, but essentially it took me out of the slump. So get out of your comfort zone, it might be just the thing that gets you out of the slump.

10. Watch adaptations

I’m the first one to say that there are very few adaptations out there that match the source material. HOWEVER. There have been a few times when watching a not-so-great adaptation spurred me to want to reread the book, which...you guessed it! Got me out of the slump.

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So this is it guys, these are my 10 strategies or tips to get you out of a slump.

What about you guys? What do you do when you’re in a slump?