The City-to-Literary-to-Self Pipeline
I have been in a reading paradox. Since the new year, I've finished twelve books, nine of them the literary equivalent of junk food: prose easy enough to skim, predictable plots with telegraphed endings, minimal depth or social commentary. In fact, I’m neck-deep into a series right now about billionaire romances. Forced to marry due to their families, but will they find true love in the end? Obviously—and the plot will evaporate from my mind as soon as I finish. They're good in the moment, but did I learn anything? Was I moved? Did they change me? Hell no. But they're helping me rediscover the joy of seeing words on a page, after years of relying on audiobooks during commutes and chores, my eyes too tired after work but my body restless.
I used to look down on these kinds of books and their readers. I think I used to hold literature at the highest regard, to be published meant to pass through intellectual and artistic gauntlets into the hands of readers. If you were writing something, you should have something to say. From university life through my late twenties, I consumed books like I was performing the role of the up-and-coming "creative class," curating my reading list to impress my social circle with my knowledge and sensitivity of the world around me. The very notion of popular entertainment felt untoward—we were meant to seek out the most obscure, artistic forms of expression.
University wasn't entirely this pretentious bubble; our art school even had a sports program, a reminder that creative spaces could embrace diversity. But when I moved to New York, the performance art of my identity reached new heights. Fresh from a small Southern town and university, I landed in the creative capital of the country (sorry LA, I'm an East Coast girl for life), determined to live there until I died (spoiler alert: I did not). I threw myself into the full designer-in-New-York experience, marking my transformation with the worst baby-bangs bob haircut, channeling Tavi Gevinson in every outfit I wore. Books became props in this performance—I chose them for their vintage covers, collected them for their aesthetic rather than their content. I'd check out stacks of Paris Review from the library, returning them unread but seen with them. The sad thing was, I genuinely loved reading; my parents had shared everything from classics to modern sci-fi with me. But alas, I was in my early twenties, going through a true identity mess (those baby bangs y’all).
After a mental breakdown and career reset, I moved to Seattle to go further in design for tech. Seattle was very different. Well, same same but different. Status wasn't measured by your proximity to counterculture but by which mountain you'd summited, which lake you'd conquered. The winter brought its own rituals—cozy homes, board games, brewery tours. In this world of PAX conventions and Microsoft campuses, reading skewed toward fantasy and sci-fi. Perhaps this is why I rebelled by diving into bleak non-fiction and New York Times bestsellers. The Seattle lifestyle suited my interests better than New York had, yet I wasn’t happier. In fact, I was miserable even outside of the standard period of grey winter. I didn't share the standard aspirations—house ownership, renovations, settling down. The endless conversations about engineering signing bonuses (sometimes triple my salary) left me nauseated, yet I envied their financial freedom. I was caught between worlds: not artist enough for one crowd, not tech enough for the other.
When the opportunity to move to Singapore came, I embraced the chance to be an obvious outsider. My reading habits transformed again—this time into research. I felt cheated by my American education, realising how little I knew about Asia beyond the lens of American military involvement. Every cultural festival, every unfamiliar reference became a research rabbit hole. I devoured books on Singaporean politics and Southeast Asian history, perhaps unconsciously adapting to a culture that valued practical knowledge over fiction. After all, what use were stories when there were facts to be learned?
The pandemic hit, and while others found escape in sourdough starters and new hobbies, I couldn't look away from reality. My work designing products for hospital transport and delivery services consumed me, along with the endless stream of news about death tolls and vaccine development. The slightest change could impact what I was working on, so my reading became purely functional—news articles, medical updates, policy changes. Fiction felt frivolous in the face of such immediate needs.
Landing in Australia after nearly a year of visa limbo, I was exhausted. I couldn't summon the energy to repeat my Southeast Asian deep-dive into Oceania's complexities. Instead, I turned to Star Wars novels, manga, and occasional investigative pieces. My brain needed to switch off and recover. Even then, I maintained my literary snobbery, avoiding anything resembling romance or "light" reading.
Looking back, my bookshelves in each city tell the story of my identity struggles. New York filled them with artistic manifestos and literary journals—props in my performance as a 'serious creative.' Seattle saw me deliberately avoiding the fantasy and sci-fi that everyone else devoured, choosing instead dense historical tomes and contemporary literary fiction, as if to say, 'See? I'm different.' It wasn't until Singapore that I finally stopped choosing books to make a statement and started reading to understand where I was. The irony is that this too was a form of fitting in, just in a culture that valued practical knowledge above all.
But something has shifted here in Australia. Perhaps it's age, or maybe the laid-back lifestyle is rubbing off on me, but I'm finally giving myself permission to read for pure enjoyment. That billionaire romance series I'm currently devouring? My New York self would have died before admitting to such a guilty pleasure. Now, while I'm not fully comfortable sharing these reading choices publicly—my "trash" reads still stay off the list and out of public view—admitting that nine of my twelve books this year fall into that category feels like progress.
These days, I'm learning to question what makes reading 'good.' Is it good because it challenges me intellectually, or because it gives my mind the rest it needs after a day of challenges? Is it good because critics praise it, or because it makes me want to keep turning pages past midnight? While I can proudly declare my love for reality TV, literature remains on its academic pedestal. I never judge others for their reading choices, yet I struggle to extend that same grace to myself. Yet.
(BTW if you are watching the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, please comment or message me. I am dying to talk to someone about it.)
