I think most people who stop reading, stop reading because they keep going back to the reading that they used to love.
But, they’ve grown up, and now reading about children saving the world isn’t an empowering statement, but, like “Who’s pushing that responsibility on children?!”. Reading the same sci-fi looking for new ideas and novel adventures (pun intended) doesn’t scratch that itch because they’ve read enough stories that they recognize all the tropes and it ain’t fresh and new anymore. Reading character romance has become stale because, well, they don’t have the same lovey-dovey daydreams about their own lovelife anymore, for whatever reason. ( . . .maybe they now regularly have sex and don’t have to vicariously be a slut through a fantasy mary sue, and are just busy loving the hell out of their own slutty life. (We do self-callouts here)).
Point is: their taste in reading has probably changed, because they’re in a wildly different part of their life, but when they try to rekindle that love of reading, they go back to what (they think) they know they will enjoy . . . and they don’t ‘get into’ the book, because it’s like playing with blocks when you’re 15 vs. playing with blocks when you’re 5. The blocks are the same, and there’s no shame in enjoying them still, but most people won’t enjoy them anymore, at age 15.
So if you find yourself in a reading glut? Pick up something you don’t expect to enjoy, and won’t feel guilty about putting down and never finishing. And do that again and again until you find yourself surprised and transfixed and obsessed and alive and LIVING FOR READING LIKE YOU FUCKING USED TO. FUCK YEAH.
Because at some point, for most of us, if we keep looking for new adventures in the same old places, we’re not going to find them. (Although, some of us develop lifelong loves of certain fiction, and there are other things keeping them from reading).
