Fall in Love with Reading Again – by Zaq Cass

From favorite colors to favorite songs to food I hate, the only thing that has ever remained the same since I was a kid is the fact that I am a reader.

Approximately sixteen weeks ago, I realized that I wasn’t enjoying reading anymore.

Sure, like anyone else who reads and reads and reads, I often find myself starting a book, saying ‘not yet’ and looking for something else. I have sometimes felt too burnt out to even consider it. I’ve had moments where I wanted fantasy, wanted horror, wanted true crime or a random memoir that could hold my attention.

Reading has always been fluid for me.

But for the first time, it wasn’t just me needing a break; I truly found that I wasn’t enjoying anything I was picking up. I changed genres, I changed themes. I went from slasher horror to grief horror to uncanny science-fiction, progression fantasy, and even a YA romance, but I wasn’t feeling it.

I had been spending a lot of time looking at the world. Pondering how I fit in with it. I may not have the money or the prestige, but I have the look. Cishet white male, mid 30s. At first glance, I slip in among those in control, those whose voices can damage.

I feel for my friends in the Ukraine. I feel for my friends who can’t be themselves without risking verbal, mental, or physical abuse to the point of death. And the people who are doing it are the ones I look at.

Approximately sixteen weeks ago, I started a course for my online university that asked us to pick five stories for the term that we’d be able to utilize for our discussion posts. In the final sentence of the request, it encouraged (not demanded) that we choose five stories from authors who have different perspectives than us.

So, I did. Parenthesis will tell the difference.

Patient Zero by Tananarive Due (A black, female author)

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (Female, different era author)

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami (Older, Japanese author)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Gay, different era author)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Different era, female author.)

I cheated a bit. The Lottery is one of my favorite short stories, but I had never gotten to read beyond the surface. And I didn’t get around to reading In the Miso Soup.

The Yellow Wallpaper paints a horrifying and vivid picture of how women were treated at the time, and unfortunately, it isn’t much different now. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic, but the perspective Wilde dives into isn’t too far different than what I’m used to.

Then there was Patient Zero.

After reading this story, I did something I almost never do. I read it again. I then found more stories by Due. From there, I started diving into more black authors. Octavia Butler, Victor LaValle, Rebecca Roanhorse. I read Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor. I started digging deeper and deeper into black authors, and I haven’t stopped since.

For the first time in a long time, I was hungry for more.

As much as the main character and the author wasn’t my own representation, they took me back to feelings I had growing up in poor neighborhoods. They showed me struggles beyond just what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t able to guess what was going to happen next based on my experience and perspective as a mid-30s cishet white guy.

It was like opening up a new doorway, which is incredible.

Black authors aren’t new. The ones I’ve listed here are award-winning authors who have been around for a while, but when I just kept reading the same stuff, I wasn’t going to find them.

So, if you’re like me and reading has started losing its luster, pick up something different. Support indie authors, support trad authors. LGBT+, indigenous, black, Asian, young, old. Get more perspectives than the ones you already have. Even if you feel like you can fully understand it, read beneath the surface. Look into how even the subtle differences may apply.

We can all collectively expand our understanding of the world and each other. And we can support marginalized creators while we do it.

And maybe, like I did, we can fall in love with reading all over again.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Zaq Cass is a rabid consumer of all things genre fiction, especially horror, science fiction, and fantasy. He spends his nights haunting an old factory for pay and his days under the watchful eyes of several chickens. Alongside his wife (who puts up with his rants about subgenres with a grace and dignity that is unmatched), he lives in Indiana, keeping four children mostly content in the chaos that they reap upon the house. His first published short, Character Creation, was released in Judith Sonnet’s SCREAMS anthology and he compiled Error Code, a horror anthology revolving around tech-based nightmares.