It seems like every 90 days, the book community will have a discourse on what is considered reading and what is not considered reading. Is it reading if you read ebooks or comic books, or if you listen to the words as you read along? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding YES! One of the most ridiculous parts of any booktok discourse is always “Should rereading be counted as reading?” or “Should your rereads count towards your Goodreads or Storygraph goals?”
And the answer to those burning questions is once again: YES! YES, IT DOES! So if you are in a reading slump and all you can do is rereads? If you are just neurodivergent and rereading your favorite book gives you joy? This post is for you! Let’s get into it.
The Definition of Rereading
Before I begin breaking down any discourse, I always love to start by defining exactly what we are talking about. Rereading a book is simply picking up a book you have already read and reading it again. It’s something that all of us in the bookish community do, and I know from my personal standpoint that rereading is something that my autistic brain loves.
It’s comforting because I already know what I am reading and the story, and if I read Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston for the thousandth time, then I can just find comfort in reading about my favorite characters falling in love with zero suspense because I know that is going to end.
Reading Is Not A Competition
The main reason people judge readers who reread books is that they think it’s still fifth grade and we are all competing in the Domino’s Pizza Reading Competition. And the reality is that most of us are grown-ass adults who read simply because we love to read. Reading for a lot of people, and me, is a fun hobby that they enjoy. A way to decompress during the pockets of your day or when you get home from work.
There is a reason why reading romance books in particular hit an all-time high during the 2020 pandemic. Because in a time when everyone was worried and stressed about getting sick or losing their job, they found comfort in books. And I think that a lot of readers these days will look at someone else’s annual book goal and feel some type of way. If a person reads 300 books this year, we get book folks in their comments talking about it being ‘Fake News’ or the ever-popular ‘You surely didn’t comprehend all of those books!’
And it’s because those readers see reading books not as an enjoyable pastime but as a highly competitive game. And it’s killing the joy and the whimsy that we love from reading books. Not everything needs to be super serious, and people who harp on how and how much people reading are making the book community a worse place.
Reading comes in various forms, and they are all valid.
Why Rereading Should Count As Reading:
1. You Don’t Always Get Everything On The First Read.
People’s minds don’t always pick up every detail when you first read a book. I know for me personally I am always focused on the plot of the story and the character development. I can read a good book and completely miss a detail such as foreshadowing or an Easter egg an author has put in a book.
Rereading a book that I loved always gives me something new to discover even if I read it a million times.
2. People Change and So Do Interpretations of Books
Readers are people, and people don’t only change physically when they age. We change mentally as well. New experiences and learning new things can change our interpretations of the books we have read.
I’ve had many books I loved as a teenager or young adult that, as an adult, I have horrible opinions about. The Harry Potter Books is good example. Over the years, due to the author’s horrible behavior and my attempt to reread them (which I don’t recommend because every bit of money that goes to J.K. Rowling goes to her anti-trans hate group).
Even with books from non-problematic authors, we can still go back and reread something, have a five-star read go to a one-star read because as we age and grow, so do our minds, and with that comes change.
3. It Allows You to Think Deeper About What You Read
When I am first reading a book, I will often miss things. Sometimes jokes or foreshadowing or themes will go directly over my head because I am autistic and I take things way too literally.
Rereading a book allows a person to think critically about a book and the ability to interact more fully with the story at hand. Because reading, even for fun, can teach you something. For example, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan taught me a lot about the American Chinese Diaspora and the struggles Chinese immigrants often face both in their homeland and in America.
It was still a fiction story I read for fun, but rereading that story broadened my horizons.
In conclusion
Rereading absolutely should count as reading, and I will take it a step further! When you are tracking the books you have read this year? Count your reads as part of your annual book goal.
Because no matter if you already read it or not? A read is still a read.
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2 COMMENTS
Pidge
4 hours agoThe only reason I track my reading now is because it is a useful benchmark for cognitive function for me to report to my doctors — when my reading plummeted from 250 books to 50 in a single year, that was evidence that my treatment was not working, which I had been unable to properly convey before I had that metric. Otherwise I would never track it because I think it ruins the fun, exactly like you describe.
ingloriousgigi
2 hours ago AUTHORYeah, that is total valid reason for tracking your book reads. I do it because I can see how diversely I am reading. I can see that last year I didn’t read as much Indigenous fiction as I wanted, so I can fix this year.