GROWING UP?

So we're going to have a bit of an honesty hour here and discuss changes in reading preferences and growing out of certain books. As you probably know, I read Andy Miller's 'The Year of Reading Dangerously' in January, which I talk about a lot. As extreme as this sounds, this book changed me. The book documents Miller getting back into reading, and the 50 'great' classic books he challenged himself to read. As crazy as it is, I felt myself growing up in the less-than-a-week it took me to read this book. At the end of 2015, I was rethinking my reading choices and preferences, and TYoRD highlighted that even further for me. And the conclusion I came to is this:

I'm not sure I want to read YA anymore.

Obviously, this is a slightly over-reacted statement, I will still read YA because I can't help but love some of it, but right at this moment in time I find myself only wanting to reach for historical fiction YA and being a little bit tired of everything else. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this, but so much YA is so similar to each other and I'm getting so tired of it. I'm finding myself getting increasingly frustrated with YA characters and the way they act without thinking, and just the general unrealistic-ness (and dare I say childish-ness?) of YA books. Maybe I just can't relate to them anymore, who knows? Honestly, I think I'm growing up. At the end of 2015 I set myself the goal of reading more literature for adults (I want to refer to it as 'adult fiction' but I'm well aware that that makes me sound like I'm talking about erotic fiction, which I'm most definitely not!), as I'm eighteen-nearly-nineteen and I thought it was time I broadened my reading choices. In all honesty, it scares me slightly that I don't want to read much YA anymore, it's going out of my comfort zone and I'm not sure I even know where to start with general literature. All I know is that I'm just tired of YA and I maybe think I'm getting too old for it. (I'm not bashing anyone older who still loves YA, this is just how I feel personally about myself, read what you want and don't let anyone put you off it).

'The Year of Reading Dangerously' has thrown me completely off balance, suddenly I'm rethinking all my recent TBR's and I'm not sure what I want to read anymore. I'm almost feeling a bit like I'm in a reading slump, whilst still reading happily; I'm reading multiple books and I don't know what's right for me at the moment. I've realised that I definitely want to read more non-fiction and general literature, which I never felt the urge to before, and I'm looking forward to that. Wanting to read non-fiction is very new for me, I've never been interested in it before, but after reading 'I am Malala' and TYoRD, I'm starting to crave it slightly. I'm especially interested in historical and political non-fiction, and also non-fiction about books and film. I want to read what I want to read, and right now that's just not teenage fiction. In the past few weeks alone, I've branched out way more that I usually would. Don't get me wrong, I will still be reading some YA, but it's no longer going to be the only thing I read.

Don't be afraid of change and admitting to it.

Rosie