Bookish Discussion: The Dreaded Reading Slump

The Dreaded Reading Slump... We've all been there (and if not, how awesome of you! I'm seriously jealous). Some of us have had them more often than others, some of us longer than others, but all us booknerds are familiar with that awful feeling. The inability to read. You want to read, but the mood just isn't there. It's the worst feeling a booknerd can experience (besides our books being harmed... Now that's just unacceptable!)!

Let me tell you a little something, I just recently overcame one of the worst reading slumps I have ever experienced! It started back in... I think October when I was super stressed (I still am a bit stressed but I've learned to deal with it... I'm really good at stowing away my feelings and not thinking about them which is probably really bad but...)

Anyway, between October and December, I read a total of 8 books! Now that is not a lot, like, at all! In the last two weeks alone I've pretty much read the same amount of books! So you can see how severe this, ahem, syndrome was for me this time around. I swear I wad going insane! I mean, of those 8 books I did read a couple of great ones, but for some reason, none them seemed to get me out of my slump. So I just let it go. Forcing myself to read didn't seem to work, and I wasn't really in the mood for re-reading, which I hear sometimes does the trick. So I just stopped and watched some mindless TV, which is what I really felt like doing at the time. And that seemed to work!

My reading slump lasted up until January 20, when J.L. Bryan contacted me with an ARC of the third book in his Ellie Jordan series, The Crawling Darkness. I let the book sit in my Kindle for just a couple of days when all of a sudden I had the desperate urge to read this book. So I did. And BAM! I was cured! (Thank you Jeff for the amazing book and your impeccable timing!)

So, if you find yourself diagnosed with the Reading Slump Syndrome, here are a couple things you can do to overcome it:

1. Pick a book that sounds good and read it, see if that does the trick.
2. If that doesn't work, try re-reading one of your favorite books! That does wonders!
3. If you've done the two above things and you still find yourself unable to pick up a book and enjoy it, then just stop. Don't force yourself to read and give it time. Wait for the right book to come along and pull you out of this horrible state.

Have you ever been in a really bad reading slump? What did you do to overcome it? Let me know in the comments below! I'd love to add more tips to this list!