Hi, chat, this one is coming to you straight from the VS Codium text editor. Why? For some reason it's easier to get things actually written here. Who can say why.
One of my major goals for 2026 is to read 71 books - or any amount of books, really. Before I broke up with my boyfriend in March of 2025, I had a really long dry spell. I was using all of my energy on the relationship (which is what made it unsustainable long term), so I didn't have any energy left for the things that I loved. After the breakup it was like someone had flipped a switch. I was reading more, I was listening to music again. I had the time and the energy to do the things I loved again.
I've been reading at a furious rate ever since.
This, ironically, coincided with the declining literacy rate in the US. There isn't a day that goes by without another thinkpiece video essay appearing on my YouTube homepage declairing that literacy is OVER IN AMERICA AND WE'RE ALL FUCKING DOOMED!!! They blame it on a myriad of things: BookTok, modern literature, and romance novels are the favorites. But I don't think we're as doomed as people think we are.
It is never too late to learn how to read or learn to love to read or rekindle your love of reading. A year ago I never would have expected to be where I am now - reading and gnawing on books like a madwoman in pursuit of knowledge and entertainment and pleasure. You can learn. There are resources all over the internet. A cursory YouTube search brings up dozens of how to videos between the video essays about how dire things are.
But what if you're starting from the beginning? Trying to claw your way back from the very bottom of, let's say, social media addiction? Where do you even start? You start at the beginning, of course! But where is the beginning?
Middle grade (8-12) and young adult (14+) will be easier to read and understand because they're targeted toward younger audiences. There's no shame in reading books intended for kids. When BookTube and the bookish community on Instagram were in their infancy in the mid-2010s, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a white woman in her thirties who read exclusively YA novels. And if she can do it, so can you!
If that doesn't convince you, I also love middle grade novels. Specifically middle grade and YA horror novels. The Lockwood & Co Series and The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud are both fantastic. Not to mention Small Spaces by Katherine Arden, Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, and Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Good books aimed at younger audiences will hold up as you get older, they just take a little effort to find.
When you're picking a goal for yourself, it's important to be very realistic with yourself. You're not going to be reading 100 books a year the first year of your reading journey. I've been a big reader my entire life and I've only read 100 books in a year twice. Ever.
A good place to start would be figuring out how many pages/hour you can read. Set a timer for 60 minutes and see what happens. Once you have that number you can decide how long you want to read per day and that will give you a good idea of how many books you can realistically read.
And a good place to end up is with a little treat. Did you read a book this month? Maybe you deserve a pint of your favorite ice cream. Did you read two books this month? Maybe you deserve two pints of your favorite ice cream. Pick a reward that works for you and don't skimp when you hit those goals!
You're going to fail. A lot. You're going to start a book and you're not going to like it or you're going to read something that's above your reading level and you're not going to understand it no matter how hard you try. And that's okay. Failure is just part of learning. Give yourself permission to fail and permission to not finish books you're not enjoying.
I am the biggest fan of DNFing (DNF = Did Not Finish) books. Not enjoying it? Does it have something triggering that you didn't realize would be there? Did the author use fourteen commas in one sentence? Hit da bricks!!! There are so many more books in the world that you'll actually enjoy.
I DNF about 30% of the books I read. I've gotten better at selecting the books that I buy over the years, but occasionally I will still accidentally pick up a stinker. Those get sold to my local used book store so I can buy more books. I also have a stockpile of free ebooks on my Kindle account that have been sitting there for almost a decade in some cases that I'm slowly making my way through. Some of those have been great! Some of them... Well... They were free.
Reading, no matter what you're reading, is so important. In times like 2026, where the world is quite literally on fire and every day seems to bring another atrocity, it's so important to have a safe place to retreat to at the end of the day. Books are the safe space for me and I hope they can be for you as well.
The double edge of that sword is that reading will make you smarter. You might start with middle grade, move up to YA, and end up reading fantasy romances at first, but training your brain to understand these easier to read text will ultimately make it easier for you to read harder texts. And with the ability to read harder texts comes the ability to understand them. And the ability to understand is one of the most important ones you can have. It makes you harder to fool, to take advantage of. It also brings your curiosity to the surface. You can't understand things without looking into them and under them to see what they really mean. And that's a very useful skill in 2026 where the internet is awash with misinformation and AI generated slop.
I love reading. I've loved reading since I first finished Miss Mouse Finds Numbers all by myself when I was five. My hope is that this little blog post spreads a little bit of that love to you. Go ahead, pick up a book.