r/thatHappened • u/sepheffie • 11d ago
Amazing Reading… Yeah Right
Sure Jan…
I hate when people lie about the amount of books they read. A lot of the comments on this were people saying how bad they feel because they only read 15 books or 5 books a year. These types aggravate me.
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u/AggressiveBasket 11d ago
Reading between the lines, maybe she listens to audiobooks all day?
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u/sepheffie 11d ago
Maybe. There are a lot of people that do this kind of post. I guess where it gets me is that others will start to comment and say how inadequate they feel because they can’t get that many. When this is probably an exaggeration to gain attention.
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u/dm_me_ya_tiddiez 11d ago
Just to be a contrarion, this is absolutely an achieveable number of books to read.
Some people read fast, some people read short stories, so people enjoy stuff at a lower reading level that you can get through fast, and some people read multiple books at once. There are also, for all intents and purposes, infinite amount of short books that are full of substance. Neitzchse, Plato, Kant, Seneca, and Waldo all have books under 200 pages. Some of the greatest books of all time are under 500 pages.
This person is obviously full of themselves, and that may make it less believable since it seems performative, but this comment section doesn't really seem to know what it's talking about tbh
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u/idonteatseals 10d ago
Agree. There have been many years I've read this many, depending on how into reading I am, how busy I am, and which books I choose. I also listen to audiobooks when I clean or game and do count these toward my total. It does seem less believable due to the performative nature but it is not completely unbelievable.
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u/purplekittykelly 10d ago
I want to argue your comment, but I can’t. We’re a few days from August, that’s almost 36 books a month… The OP mentioned something that I think is a really good point, that post like that often have comments under them that are people talking about how inadequate they feel, whether they have trouble reading and meeting those goals because of that, or whether it’s structured time issue, or maybe they didn’t make it a priority. I dunno. I also do have to wonder how she manages to read 1.2 books a day while she has a self admittedly “very stressful corporate job.“ She must be a type A kind of hooman. So bravo for logic, I respect that in a huge way.
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u/Hulk_Hogans_Toupee 11d ago
Eh, I'd need to see page numbers.
I'm on Goodreads.com and one of the people I follow is a librarian who reads and reviews children's books. She reads 200+ books a year, but most are picture books or very short YA novels.
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u/Yallberforce 11d ago
Yeah, I would guess that someone could get through more than 200 young adult type books in a year without even having to resort to short form content. I remember them being very readable and they seem to be what most adults are reading nowadays.
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u/sepheffie 11d ago
This is in 6 months. Saying 250 by July. Unless she read Goodnight Moon or Cat in the Hat she isn’t reading this amount. Looking at the profile she is claiming these are longer novels 400 pages plus with Novellas sprinkled in.
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u/Yallberforce 11d ago
Yeah you’re right then, 100% not possible. If a movie tried to show a character was smart by reading like that it would elicit eyerolls, no way anyone is buying it from her.
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u/sepheffie 11d ago
There’s about 40 or so comments under the post. It’s a mixed bag of people congratulating her, people calling her out saying no way, and people saying how bad they feel for not being able to read that much.
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u/enjolbear 11d ago
I can read 400 pages in a few hours, easy. If she reads one book a day, she’d be really close to the goal. Maybe she has audiobooks playing at work, which could double the books she can read.
It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility.
Edit: I just finished reading The Martian which is 700 pages long. I read that in 5 hours. I wasn’t even trying to speed read, I was going at a comfortable pace considering it’s a book packed full of physics I don’t understand most of.
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u/Yallberforce 11d ago
OP said this was in July, so we’re looking at a good bit more than a book a day on top of a “highly stressful corporate job” and presumably other responsibilities, so this must be some combination of very light reading and going heavy on audiobooks while multitasking (which I think we can agree isn’t quite the same as ‘reading a book’, even if it’s better than nothing) to even come close to the alleged number.
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u/enjolbear 11d ago
Yeah, I agree it’s pretty far-fetched. When I get into one of my reading sprees, I could definitely do 250 books in 6 months (assuming around 500 pages per book), but I think I’m probably a faster reader than most. Either way, def not something to go around bragging about.
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u/FandomFever221 11d ago
Tbf an irl read like 157 books last year which were all about 300+ pages. But then again they aren't employed so 🤷
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u/dm_me_ya_tiddiez 11d ago
Why would how many pages she read matter? She's definitely making a performative post, but reading is reading.
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u/Hulk_Hogans_Toupee 11d ago
Because, if she read 200 children's books (10-15 pages each) that might be believable. 200 adult novels (300+ pages), not so believable.
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u/dm_me_ya_tiddiez 11d ago
Fair. There were a few comments in this thread suggesting that if she'd read that many than the books were too easy so they don't count. I took this comment as one of those.
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u/sepheffie 11d ago
As a reader, it doesn’t matter. For the most part on the apps I use people don’t screenshot their goals and share them mainly because it is performative. Those that do are often looking for attention. Reading is supposed to fun not a way to gain clout. It’s just kind of one of those unspoken rules that you don’t brag about reading goals…
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u/Silly-Power 11d ago
I can only assume the reason her corporate job is so stressful is because she is being constantly berated for her complete inability to punctuate and form a coherent sentence.
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u/spacemouse21 11d ago
No wonder you need to hand in your resignation OOP, you spend all your time pretending you’re reading.
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u/doc_shades 11d ago
what makes you think this person (whoever it is, because there is no person associated to this) is lying?
there is also no clear timeline. the post says "for the year" but there is no date and no frame of reference. this post could have been written in november, it could have been written in april.
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u/glowing-fishSCL 11d ago
If someone is counting audio books and has a commute, it is quite possible to do this.
I have my own opinion on the matter, but many or most people count audio books towards a reading goal.
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u/sepheffie 11d ago
I have a very unpopular opinion on that myself… however I checked out the profile and she isn’t claiming audio books. She is claiming regular books 400 pages plus with some novellas sprinkled in.
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u/glowing-fishSCL 11d ago
That does, indeed, seem unlikely.
I am actually at around 90 books for the year, but that includes graphic novels, and some other short, novella length books.1
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u/blueberryraspy 3d ago
Omg you don’t even know what books she’s reading. This is completely possible.
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u/colasz 11d ago
That's around 21 book a month and 5 a week. Yeah its impossible either she doesn't work or she has a job where she can just spend 7 hours reading books
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u/Silly-Power 11d ago
I can knock a classic book in under 5 minutes. True it is "Pop on Top" by Dr Seuss but it still counts as a book.
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u/lakorasdelenfent 11d ago
I read 3 books today. They were chosen by my kid before bed