Reading doesn't have to be performative.

As a kid in elementary school, I loved any kind of fiction that I could try: books, videogames, films, cartoons, TV series, you name it. However, as I started high school, my interest slowly faded away, and I could not imagine a reason why.

Reading was probably the most tragic situation: I only liked a handful of books and the most popular fantasy and dystopian book series did not interest me at all. They were never my genre and I did not even read Harry Potter as a child, so I never picked up reading the same ways as the self-titled "bookworms" my age.

Being so clueless about my taste in books for adults and young adults, and with my life becoming busier and busier, I have slowly given up on reading completely.

I remember how detached I felt while hearing some of my classmates and schoolmates ramble about their favourite book series, while I had no idea what they were talking about. While lonely, deep in my heart I knew that I would not have enjoyed those books and I did not want to read them anyway.

Besides this inability to sometimes grasp common ground to make more friends, I developed a sense of shame and inferiority to their ability to read so much despite being as busy as, or busier, than me.

Add this to the workload I had to do for school, which I often found overwhelming, and you'll get a person who does not really hate reading, but has no idea how and where to start again.

However, at some point, my will to read resurfaced out of the blue. I read a book as an assignment, then another by the same author. Then I turned 18 and gained access to the yearly bonus for young adults from the then-Italian government, which gave me further inspiration and motivation to buy books and try them out.

With the finals coming up, I had no time to read, but this time it was different: I had books waiting for me and, just like that, during the years between the end of high school and the beginning of the pandemic I managed to read more than ten books per year. Such a situation had not happened for almost five years.

Sure, during the pandemic I experienced a terrible slump and I had to reorganize my reading schedule, but that time I knew that I could get back on track and I was not lost forever.

During this time, I also discovered several booktubers and the booktok community. While I gained so much inspiration for new reads, I came across the criticism of this social bubble as well.

One of the criticism I agree with the most is how performative this community seems, with creators priding themselves over reading ten books a month and therefore risking to do more harm than good on many aspects, including setting unrealistic expectations, the risk of gatekeeping and neglecting quality in favor of quantity.

The main reason why I support these points of view is that I wish I had someone telling me such things when I was young and struggling to start reading adult and young adult fiction without dreading it completely. Now that I am an adult with a job and a master's degree to complete, I have become more lenient towards myself, and I have learnt to know myself well enough to know that, no matter how I enjoy reading, I will 100% quit this hobby as soon as some stressful event occur - exam season, graduation, a global pandemic, you name it.

And I am proud to say that it's completely okay. Most people with hobbies will actually tell you that they do not engage in their hobbies every single day, so why should you beat yourself up so much just because you cannot read every single day?

You can also say that you like reading without wanting to spend an entire day reading a book. Imagine if, instead of reading, you spent an entire day jogging in the park. Even if you enjoyed the activity per se, you would certainly feel unwell after an entire day jogging non-stop and you would certainly be fed up with it.

The bottom line is that our performative society has managed to turn a potentially relaxing and stimulating activity into yet the next competition where anyone who has a different pace is made to feel guilty and quit.

To all my inconsistent and slow readers out there: remember that hobbies are meant to be enjoyed, not to cause you stress and self-doubt.

You are a reader just as much as the booktoker who finished their 100th novel of the year.

Go at your own pace, nobody is chasing you.