Reading Stupid Books

Okay so this is a big soapbox of mine (another???), but basically, I am a big believer in reading literally whatever you want. I had this kind of revelation in my early twenties where I was like, I’m so willing to watch the stupidest TV in the whole world, but for some reason I only feel like I’m allowed to read fancy books. And like, I love fancy books. I have read them for school and read them for pleasure, and I have had an amazing time. But I also love to read commercial sci-fi and fantasy and romance and horror and really anything that sounds fun. I read SO much when I was a kid, and part of that was, you know, free time, but part of it was that I was reading solely for entertainment. And that’s certainly not all books are, or all they should be, and I want to be clear that there are absolutely remarkable, well-crafted books within all kinds of genre fiction. But the entertainment part matters too, especially when you need comfort for whatever reason. And like, I have occasionally been afraid that reading the stupidest romantasy book ever written will infect/somehow degrade my own writing, but I honestly find that (corny alert) everything  can serve my writing in some way. I once wrote a horror flash fiction  about a cursed romance novel that my mentor told me was like an “adult goosebump.” Why not? You have to know the formulas to mess with them. Most of my favorite writers experiment with genre, and I think my best writing happens when I relax into it and stop trying so hard to impress everyone (George Saunders talks a bit about this). Anyway, whenever someone tells me they’re struggling to read or focus, I’m just like, hey, what if you read something purely for fun? Okay consider me gracefully (?!) hopping down from my soapbox now.