The Art of Binge Reading.

Whether it be reading 400 chapters of One Piece or not being able to put down those first 2 books in a series. Binge reading is something I'm very fond of and is most likely my favourite form of reading. As lets be honest who wants to wait a week for a chapter or over a year for the next book. As such I love when I stumble across a new series I find really enticing which also has a couple books out or the first part is already complete (Tokyo Ghoul for example).



As for me this isn't just a joy but also a huge problem when it comes to other commitments in my life, such as work and uni but lets be real how often have you just said one more episode to a Tv show you're marathoning on Netflix. For many of us escaping into this other world of fantasy and mystery has such a lure why wouldn't we leave beside our real lives to enjoy something so new and fresh.
Moving away from the world of visuals and working with words on a page making them come to life in my own mind is something so rewarding and freeing to me. Instead of being glued to my seat watching events transpire in front of me on a screen, reading from a page I feel like I'm apart of the story itself. I find this alot more true with books with amazing world building and less so from all the manga I've been reading as of late but this is most likely due to the visuals still being present in manga.

With the amount I've been reading over the past few years I've noticed a change in how I chose books which has heavily contributed to this love of binge reading. That is I am no longer looking for what would be the perfect book for me. Worrying about whether I'll enjoy the story fully or if its what I really want to read, because lets be real there is so much out there it is hard to chose what to read next or at least it is for me. Letting go of this heavily selective style of picking a series I now just go of more simple things such as does the synopsis sounds interesting is the genre linked to something I've previously enjoyed? If so I give it ago.
I find this has really helped when picking what manga to read next, as a lot of the time I'll watch an anime and then want more so I read the manga. Perfectly acceptable until I notice I've finished that series, the prequel novels and the second series. Now I'm half way through the number 1 recommend series on MAL and/or GoodReads from that series and I've lost 1, 2 maybe even 3 weeks.
This and the fact it is so easy to get your hands on books of different series now. Buying them in store front shops, loaning them from a library, eBooks or buying almost anything you want online the opinions are almost limitless. Its no wonder Binge reading has become such a trend.

Now the main pros to binge reading in my eyes is that references and foreshadowing are much easier to see when  reading everything close together. Waiting a year for the first book to come out may result in forgetting points made in the previous. This also results in me re reading the previous volumes of the series before reading the new book which can get a bit annoying for longer running series but is definitely worth it for longer series. As long as you know how to pace yourself and not get into a mind set where you skim content due to reading to fast I see no downside. Until you catch up to the latest book/chapter and now have to wait like everyone else.

With that being said I'm going to stop typing and pick that book back up and jump right in, ignoring the world around me and joining something new and exciting.

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