With multiple memoirs from notable people hitting bookstore shelves this year, it can be easy to buy all of them and create a rotation where you’re constantly reading about all the never-before-told drama in their respective lives. However, this can get in the way of reading actual literature that could inform your perspective about the world or whatever. So, here’s how to read a boring, normal book that’s not an exciting, tell-all celebrity memoir:
Try an audiobook.
Listening to an audiobook is always helpful when you don’t actually want to read something. Simply listen to Pride and Prejudice or Moby Dick while you’re washing dishes, going on a run, or even watching TV while the audiobook is playing on your phone and headphones in the other room. After all, you don’t really have to listen to it — you can just tell people you did! Okay, scholar!
Think of the narrator as a celebrity.
Holden Caulfield might not have won any Oscars, Emmys, or even a Golden Globe, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pretend he did! If you’re finding that you’re losing interest in a story because the narrator isn’t a pop culture icon, then reignite your passion for reading by suspending your disbelief just a little further. Wow, this literary classic just got a whole lot juicier!
Create a stan account for the main character.
After reading celebrity memoir after celebrity memoir, it can be hard to pay attention to someone in a book who isn’t simultaneously grateful and terrified of their millions of fans around the world. To fix this, create a stan account for the main character of the critically acclaimed novel you’re reading! Now, every time you scroll on your phone instead of reading the book in your other hand, you’ll be reminded that what you’re reading is actually really important.
Give up and read The Woman in Me by Britney Spears instead.
Okay, obviously this is a lost cause. Just give The Divine Comedy to somebody else and read Britney’s memoir again.
While celebrities have cultural capital and allure, great works of literature have the power to inject your life with even more meaning. They’re still pretty boring though, to be honest, so use these tips to finally get through a book that doesn’t spill any exciting secrets about any real or relevant people. Or don’t! No judgment here.
