My Reading Challenges

Reading used to be something I did everyday. As I grew older, I lost interest in this hobby. Reading Salem's Lot by Stephen King was a bit of a challenge for me. This novel was about the protagonist's Ben Mears return to the small town of Jerusalem's Lot and discovers that vampires are taking over the town. While reading this book, I faced some issues. This novel was a challenge because the vocabulary was difficult, there were many characters to keep track of, and I struggled with not wanting to read.

Since I do not read often, my vocabulary is not broad. As I read this book, I ran into multiple words that were brand new to me. It made it difficult to understand what the author meant because I did not know the meanings of some of the words he used. This was the first I read a book by Stephen King so I was unaware of what kind of vocabulary this novel would have. In order to simplify the reading, I wrote down the words I did not know and searched for their definitions. This helped me because I started to notice that some words were used more than once throughout the novel.

Another challenge I had was keeping track of all the characters that were in the book. There were a couple of minor characters who were mentioned only a couple of times throughout the novel and I would forget who they were and what their role was. One thing that helped a lot was the character list. Every time a minor character was mentioned, I referred to my list so that I would know who they were. If I had not met the character before, I added them onto the list so that I would know that who they were later on in the book. I did not think this would help, but it was very helpful due to the large number of characters.

When it comes to reading, I am very lazy with it. As I was reading this novel, I found myself not wanting to read it. It was not that I did not like the context, I was just not motivated to read. When I was supposed to read, I kept pushing it away. I knew that I had to get it done, but I still kept it at the bottom of my “to-do” list. This was difficult because I started to get behind and the readings kept piling on top of another. In class, we would have discussions about events that happened in the book and some things were ruined for me, but it was my fault because I was not on track with the reading. I did not overcome this challenge because it is something that I need to work on.

All in all, this book offered was a challenge because it had some complex vocabulary, numerous characters, and I did not want to read. After this novel, I have learned what helps me get through a reading and what does not. It showed me that reading is not to be done on my time, but it must be a part of my schedule. Reading is a process and that is the only way I will learn from it.