When I was younger, I remember telling my mother that I was worried about growing up before I’d had the chance to read all the children’s books in the library.
What baby Beatrice didn’t know, was that when it comes to books, there are absolutely no rules. Nada. You can read middle grade until you die and the book police won’t come and put you in book prison. The thing is, when you grow up, you do change. So while I still can, and do, read middle grade occasionally as an almost 20-year-old, I wouldn’t survive on it. I need more.
When I started reading books for older and older kids, it happened gradually, almost seamlessly. I barely even noticed anything had changed. That is not the way I feel right now. I consider myself to have been in a reading slump for about 10 months now and I’ve blamed it a lot on starting university, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture.
I’ve put quite some thought into this, and basically, I think part of the problem is that my tastes have changed, but not my reading habits. I keep on picking up the kinds of books that I’ve read and loved for years and years, and while I do still enjoy them, I don’t feel quite the same as I did before.
This in no way applies to all the books I read, and it definitely doesn’t mean I don’t still love YA. It doesn’t even necessarily mean I need to read more “adult” books. It’s just not like that.
What it does mean, is that I feel pretty confused right now. I’m not sure what kinds of books I like, and it might take me some time to find out (I don’t know if you know this, but there are a LOT of books out there), but eventually I will. I just need to find my new identity as a reader.
Change is good, right?
Have you ever felt or gone through something like this? Tell me about it down in the comments. :)
DreamlandBookBlog 
Change is good, you can’t force your brain to do the same thing forever, it needs variety and want to change, it’s life. But you’ve now seen it and you can go an a new adventure and discover all the other types of books and authors, and your brain will tell you what it’s happy with but you just need patience and time because it will come.
I sure hope so :)
I totally get where you’re coming from! Sometimes when I re-read books that I loved years ago, I find myself hating most of them. It really makes me sad. :(
Aw, that’s so sad :(. I have yet to hate a re-read, but occasionally I do wonder what past me saw in certain books.
Maybe it’s because when I was younger, I didn’t really have a personal preference on books and basically just went with whatever’s popular at the moment.