I am embarrassed to admit how many books I read in 2015.  It's seriously appalling. I don't know what happened, but that well just ran dry.  I saw this tweet today, courtesy of @BuzzFeedBooks, and it made me feel not-so-alone.


Okay, I'm just going to come out with it and get the hard part over with.  Six. The number of books I read in the entire year of 2015 was SIX.  That's less than one a month.  In fact, most of those were books I couldn't put down and read within a week.  So it's safe to say that I spent the majority of the year NOT reading.

And you might be thinking, Jessica. Go easy on yourself. You've been busy writing books. You can't blame yourself for not having time to read them. And to that, I respond with yes, I do blame myself.  Therein the whole problem lies.  How can I can be so reliant on an industry that I don't even partake in?  It's like being a butcher who doesn't eat meat.

And the truth of the matter is that I miss reading.  I miss falling in love with a book so hard, it digs out a little forever home in my heart.  But I can't expect every book I read to do that. It would really take the fun out of it. So I think I've set my standards too high.  If it doesn't drag me through emotional mud, then I get bored with it and hesitate to pick it back up.  Sad but true.

It goes to say a lot about the six books I did read over the year.

The Foretelling by Amanda Richardson (loved)
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (meh)
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (amazing)
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas (still good)
And Then You by Amanda Richardson (skipped a night of sleep for)
Hopeless by Colleen Hoover (killed my Kindle's battery with this one)

If I listed the books that I started but didn't finish, it would twice as long.  And if you notice, I started the Throne of Glass series, and loved it, but apparently not enough to finish the trilogy.

Sorry if this blog post was too lament-y.  The truth is that this topic kinda bums me out.  I used to be a voracious reader. I never would admit to reading so few books over the course of a year, but I'm admitting to it now in hopes that it will change soon.  I remember when this slump started and I considered it a phase.  Please let this be over soon.

Have you experienced such a reading drought?
Can you recommend a good book to pull me out of my darkness?

Thanks for reading!