On days when work, bills, relationships, or just the general state of the world bum me out, reading is my life-long, tried-and-tested avenue of reset or well-deserved temporary escape. But sometimes, getting interested in—or even finding—a new book to read is difficult, and I fall right down into a “reading slump,” and I end up trading my book time for doom scrolling and sadness. During my slumps, books no longer seem to excite me, and even when I force myself to open a novel in the hopes something will have changed, I see only words on a page instead of new characters and stories I can’t wait to be a part of. Escaping into a book is like escaping into another world, but in the middle of a reading slump, I just end up feeling trapped, sad, and a bit lonely without all my fictional fun. Getting out of these reading dry spells is no joke, and so in case any of you are stuck, I’ve decided to jot down some tips on how I crawl my way out of these dreaded reading slumps.

My first tip isn’t much of a tip at all, but rather assurance that a reading slump is NOT the end of the world. You’re not a “bad” reader if you go weeks or months without opening a book. Reading is supposed to be fun; don’t make it just another obligation or chore by putting too much pressure on yourself. Because the moment you make your reading time another schedule box to check, it won’t be fun anymore. If you think you’re in a slump, don’t panic, don’t beat yourself up, and don’t worry. Sometimes, reading is a seasonal love that comes and goes. During some seasons of life, you may be sneaking your paperback out at work between meetings because you just HAVE to know what happens next, while in others, the covers on your TBR shelf may grow a little dusty. It’s okay. But when you’re ready to get back in the reading game, the following tips may help.

The first thing I try when I’m deep in a slump is re-reading. Rather than trying something new and crossing my fingers that it will keep my interest, I will pick up a novel I’ve read and loved. It may be my ADHD-ish issues, but there’s something about the guaranteed dopamine hit that comes from reading a book I already know I’m going to enjoy that reminds me why reading is my favorite hobby and propels me into choosing a new read once I’m done. One note, though, is that I am choosy about these rereads. For example, I don’t choose a high literary, really long, or emotionally deep novel as a slump-buster. It’s not that I don’t love tons of books that fall into those categories, but when I need an easy reminder of why reading is the best, I want an easy read. One book series that has pulled me out of a slump or two is the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano. The first-person POV descriptions detailing the hijinks Finlay and her partner-in-sort-of-crimes, Vero, get themselves into are classically entertaining, and the mysteries wrapped into each book are a joy to untangle again and again.

Another perk of the Finlay D. series that leads straight into my second tip is that the audiobook narrator of this series is phenomenal. Sometimes, I just can’t beat my slump with a physical book, and so when that happens, I look for an audiobook with an amazing narrator to start. Now, I know that there are some Judgey-Judys out there who will say that listening to audiobooks doesn’t count as reading, but honestly, that opinion just seems silly to me. If someone doesn’t want to count the audiobook I listened to in order to remember why language and fiction are dance partners twirling joy into the world, then go ahead and think that. You do you while I blissfully enjoy the voices of narrators like Angela Dawe, who aces the Finlay Donovan series, or Santino Fontana, the amazing narrator of the “You” series by Caroline Kepnes and one of my favorite more recent Stephen King novels, “The Institute.” It’s a bit of a mystery why this approach helps me, but after a great mid-slump audiobook while I do the dishes or fold laundry, I’ll suddenly be back to reading on the couch while my husband plays video games or staying up way too late at night just to finish a novel on my Kindle, only to start a new one the next day. Yes, some people might say audiobooks are “cheating,” but you can’t cheat at a game you aren’t playing. Reading isn’t something you win; it’s something you enjoy, so don’t let other people’s “rules” dictate how you do that.

My last slump-breaking tip may not work for some of you—or most of you—and, as I write it down, I see it’s a little weird, but I’ve used it during my most unbreakable slumps, so here we go. I call this one “book-surfing.” It’s reminiscent of the “channel surfing” we used to do back in the good old 1990s when we watched TV live. There was no “pause” or “playback,” and so there may have been multiple shows you liked streaming on multiple channels at the same time, and so during commercial breaks, I used my trusty remote to switch from show to show until something got me so hooked that I forgot about all the other shows I was “sort of” watching. Book-surfing is a bit like that. There have been reading slumps in my life that have been so bad, I knew I had to force myself to do something—not because I was putting pressure on myself to be a “good” reader, but because reading is an important coping skill of mine, and I knew my mental health at the time needed a boost. In those cases, I would pull, like, five books from my TBR, sit on the couch, and just start reading a few pages of each in the evening, swapping the novels like I swapped TV channels. Sitting with just one book and trying to force myself to read full chapters when I knew my concentration was just not there would’ve been setting myself up for failure, but for some reason, reading a few pages of one and then another didn’t feel like a chore. After a few days or a week of doing this, some of the books would really start to pull me in, and soon I’d be having a hard time surfing, which usually ended with me putting my full focus on one or two. And just like that, the slump was busted.

I’m sure there are dozens of ways to break a reading slump, but these three have helped me, and so maybe they’ll help you. What do you guys think? What are some ways you crawl your way out of a reading slump? And if you’re in the mood for a light and easy read to break your own slump, check out SPRINKLED WITH SABOTAGE!