Which Reader Type Are You?

Hello fellow book bloggers and and book lovers in general or for anyone reading this post!  So, I was browsing on the internet and I found two interesting articles discussing the different types of readers and I wanted to share it with you all.  

What Kind of Book Reader Are You? A Diagnostics Guide and Many More Types of Book Readers: A Diagnostics Addendum

 I’ve always been curious as to what kind of reader and looking at the options, each of us definitely fit into either any of these categories.  If not just one, probably a mixture of some or all of it.  To save you from looking back and forth between the two articles I just copied and pasted the list here. So here’s the entire list of types:

The Hate Reader: Oh, you. You pretend to be curmudgeonly, you do, but you really just devour the reading you do in a different way. You’re loving it nearly as much as you’re hating it, and maybe then some, even as you complain the author can’t put two sentences together properly or that the book is dragging hopelessly in the middle and what kind of plot twist is that, even? An elephant in Act 3? These characters are so poorly drawn as to be comical! You call that a conclusion? Vampires, really? If you are a hate reader you will finish each hate read down to its very last word, and you may well close the covers and toss the volume across the room, but you will do it with a great, secret frisson of satisfaction because it feels so good. You may be an aspiring, disgruntled novelist yourself.Suggested hate reads: Twilight; Fifty Shades of Grey; any much-celebrated novelist’s latest offering that’s bound to be arguably less than all the hype.

The Chronological Reader: Slow and steady wins the race, dear reader. You are the tortoise to the promiscuous reader’s distracted-at-any-turn hare. You buy a book, you read it. You buy another, you read it. Perhaps you borrow a book at the library. You read it, and then you return it, and you get another, which you will read. You may not remember where you began, what the first book that kicked it all off was, and you likely have no idea where you’ll end, but the point is, you will go through each book methodically and reasonably, until it is done. You might discard a book, but only if there is very good cause, and it will bring you a sense of deep unease, so you’ll probably pick it back up and finish it anyway. You are very good at puzzles, and the most reliable of all your friends. Suggested chronological reads: It doesn’t matter; you’ll get to them all, eventually.

The Book-Buster: Is your home strewn with books scattered about, this way and that, their pages turned, their covers folded over, their backs broken and their limbs splayed out on either side? You are a destroyer of books, but you love them so. Your spirit book character is Lennie of Of Mice and Men. You just want to hug the books, squeeze them tighter and tighter, you adore them so much, you really don’t know you’re hurting them. And then you’ve got a paperback with a huge chunk pulled out of it, or a first edition that’s suddenly waterlogged from bath water. You take your books out into the sun and their pages bleach away to nothing, but you keep them anyway, because they are books and you love books. Suggested book-buster reads: Whatever you like, but buy a Kindle.

Delayed Onset Reader #1. You are without a doubt a book lover, and when you walk into a bookstore or any place books are available, you can’t help yourself, you buy one or many. When you get home you put them aside, often reverently, as if they were art, displaying them on a bookshelf or propping them up on your bedside table, pages ready to meet your eyes as soon as you have the moment. But you’re very, very busy, and days, weeks, or months may go by before you actually crack open one of these books. It’s not for lack of trying! When you finally do, you will be overjoyed by all the learning and emotional depth and humor and writing quality that exists in this book that’s been sitting within reach all along, and you will be amazed that you waited so long to ever open it. Suggested delayed onset #1 suggestions: The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman; The Princess Bride, by William Goldman; Lolita by Nabokov; Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery.

Delayed Onset Reader #2. You are not a book lover. You buy books so you can show them off. If you are wealthy, you may have a mahogany-paneled library for expressly this purpose. Since you don’t waste time on books, we won’t waste time discussing you, but if you ever do pick up a book and read it and love it, you can consider yourself cured. Suggested delayed onset #2 suggestions: The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, The Hobbit, Gone With the Wind, A Wrinkle in Time, The Chronicles of Narnia.

The Bookophile. More than reading, you just love books. Old ones, the way they smell, the crinkles and yellowing of the pages; new ones, the way they smell, too, the crispness, running your hands over a stack of them at the bookstore. You like books rescued from the street as much as signed first editions; you like drugstore paperbacks, you like hardcover new releases, you like it all. You just like books. To you, they are an object of beauty, and you would never, ever hurt them in any way. Suggested bookophile reads: Anything you can get your hands on. God, that’s gorgeous, isn’t it?

The Anti-Reader. You are the book version of the person who claims “I never watch TV! I don’t even own one!” You never read books, because you find them too long. You consider blog posts too long, too, and are always penning comments that say “TLDR” to express how short something can truly be and still be meaningful. Unfortunately, you are the lady or man who doth protest too much, and you may instead have some deep insecurity about reading that led you to this book-flavorless existence. Pick up a book—a short one, say, start small—and open it, and let your eyes just rest on it for a few quiet moments. You may find yourself changed, because a life without reading is a sad one indeed. Suggested anti-reader books: To get you started, try pop-up books, graphic novels, and comics as well as something on topics you’d normally enjoy watching on TV.

The Cross-Under. You are a grown-up who reads Y.A. or kids books, or a kid who reads adult books, and there is a place for you in society, finally. Your existence acknowledged after so many years, you no longer have to feel shame at your questionable reading habits but can instead bask in the admiration of book blogs and feel a part of the vanguard. You are not ruled by categories; you are a free thinker. When you were in elementary school a librarian told you a book was “Too old for you.” You read it anyway, and there’s been no going back. Suggested cross-under reads: For kids, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Vonnegut, Harper Lee. For adults: Collins, Rowling, Alexie, Chbosky, Lowry.

The Multi-Tasker. This is the nice way of saying you are a promiscuous reader, but it’s not that you don’t finish reads. Instead, you just have a sort of hippie reading way about you, free love or some such. You might start the day out with a few pages from one novelist, then read something entirely different on the subway, and when you come home from work, another work as well. Your bedtime read, too, might be different, and all in all, when you count up the books, you’ve got quite a lot of irons in the fire all at the same time. Do you confuse characters or plots? Do you give more attention to some books than to others? Perhaps. The point is, you’re not ready for a book commitment just yet, and you’re doing a brilliant job dating them all in the meantime. Suggested multi-tasking reads: Short story and essay collections, novellas.

The Sleepy Bedtime Reader. Do you feel the only time you have to read is when you’re about to go to sleep? You tote your book into bed with you and it’s so very comfortable and the book is so deliciously good, but you cannot keep your eyes open and end up waking up with a book on your face and your light still on at 3 a.m.? Tell no one; if you are lucky, there is no one there to witness your shame, save the characters with whom you are becoming quite close. Suggested sleepy bedtime reads: Whatever you like, just sit in a chair—unless you like falling asleep with a book on your face.

The Book Snob. You are hard to impress, Little Miss or Mister. You only read books that are well reviewed by critics that you have determined to be of the highest caliber. You would never stoop to read something on a best-seller list, or something sold in a discount department store, or something NOT GOOD. Paperbacks offend you; you only touch hardcover—preferably, award-winning in some form or fashion. Suggested book snob reads: Pulitzer nominees, even if no Pulitzer was awarded.

The Hopelessly Devoted. You stick to the authors you like, and you read them, pretty much exclusively, whatever they write, good or bad, regardless of reviews or the opinions of your friends or family. Everyone knows what to get you for your birthday or holidays. You are a true fan, and have been known to stand in line for a book signing from your BWF (Best Writer Forever). Suggested devoted reads: This really depends on you. For me, it’s Betty Smith

The Audiobook Listener. So, ya like audiobooks? That’s cool. There’s a place for you, person whose ears are essentially eyes. Not that we understand, exactly, but, hey, different strokes for different folks. Probably, you own a car, or run miles like that Olympian in the commercials. Suggested listens: Anything the rest of us would look at.

The Conscientious Reader. It’s nonfiction or nothing for you, reader! It should have a purpose, too, and be meaningful. You should learn something. There should be ideals! If it’s just fun, you can read it on the Internet, in your humble opinion. You like reporting, true tales, and journalism. If it is fiction, make it by Chinua Achebe. Also, you like libraries. Suggested conscientious reads: Books by presidents; stuff about OccupyWall Street; Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand.

The Critic. Yes, it is easier for you to hate than to love, but when you love, you love deeply and in the most eloquent of fashions. It’s not a book if you don’t discourse about it, and so, discourse you shall! No one can stop you. You allude to metaphors and figurative language and concepts and conceits and plot points in daily conversations. You adore a spectacular conclusion as much as you do a foreword and an afterword. But especially, you love something that you can sink your teeth into and discuss. But only with those of a similar intellectual bent. You find book clubs too “mainstream.” Suggested critic reads: Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer; anything by Haruki Murakami.

The Book Swagger. You’re the one wandering around book conventions with that acquisitive gleam in your eye and a pile of ARCs in your tote bag. If it’s free, you’ll take it, and even if it’s not, you’ll try to get it for free. Whether you read all this swag or not is really of little consequence. It’s not that you don’t love books, you do. But you also really, really love getting to see them before anybody else. And for free! Suggested book swag reads: Get thee to BEA.

The Easily Influenced Reader. If someone says it, they must be right! You listen to everyone, from your mom to Oprah to the members of your book club to Michiko Kakutani, and you believe them all! There are so many books for you to read, you better get started. Don’t worry, you already know how to feel about the books you will read—and if you don’t, you can Google. You have hands. You enjoy reading in group settings. Suggested easily influenced reads: Cheryl Strayed’s Wild; Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue; Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman; Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Just because a lot of people recommend them doesn’t mean they’re not great!

The All-the-Timer/Compulsive/Voracious/Anything Goes Reader. Wherever you go, whatever you do, there’s a book with you. It doesn’t matter what it is, really, so long as there are pages with words on them, or an e-reader with words on it. We can’t really suggested anything here because you took it with you to the grocery store or subway or library or laundromat or coffee shop, and you’re standing in line or sitting down and reading it right now.

The Sharer. You read something you like and you simply will not stop talking about it; you tell everyone you know, and you will not give up until they read it too. And then you want to talk about it. If you are one of these, sometimes you loan people books, too, and that is a good quality. We like you, book sharer. We really, really do. You’re a giver, not a taker. Suggested sharables: Anything you read and liked, obviously, but also stuff you don’t like, because you might as well pass it along to someone who might enjoy it more than you did.

The Re-Reader. You know what you like, and instead of branching out and possibly finding something new that you don’t like, you focus on what you do. You read the same books over and over again, returning to them as if they’re old friends, which, pretty much, they are. Your book-reading motto is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Suggested re-readables: You probably already know, but try these.

The “It’s Complicated” Reader. You are a combination of many of these things and yet completely different, too. Each book means a new type of reader exists in your soul; you refuse to be defined or categorized. You are a freeform, wild, woolly entity. You do whatever you want. You’re probably a pisces. You’re definitely a reader. Suggested “it’s complicated” reads: We dare not to go there.

The Cat. You creep around the house all day and sneak peeks at all those large, paper things that your owner leaves lying about. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your owner has left one open, and you lie on top of it and let its smooth pages touch your whiskers. It is oddly comfortable, and deeply satisfying, particularly if it’s in a spot in the sun, where you enjoy whiling away a whimsical afternoon. Your owner, who is an “It’s Complicated” Bookophile type, fancies that you’re actually reading the pages, but you’re not. You’re just lying on them. Humans are so weird. Suggested cat reads: This one looks nice and flat.

My Personal Diagnosis:

Looking at all the different types, I’m quite a mixture of a few of them.  From the delayed onset reader #1, the bookophile, the cross-under, the the all-the-timer/compulsive/voracious/anything goes reader, and the it’s complicated reader.

 

• The delayed onset reader: I am one of those people who will go into a bookstore and will not leave without buying anything my reason being “just because”.  And the funny thing is that the books that I buy would sit on my shelf for a span of months to years until I read them. Perfect examples include The Davinci Code by Dan Brown, Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, etc.. which I’ve had for almost two years now!

• The Bookophile: Old, new, smells really old I honestly don’t care, I just love books in general. Some of the books that I bought from my local library were practically falling apart, but it didn’t stop me from buying them.  And they were really cheap so I just had to buy them.

• The Cross-Under: Pretty self-explanatory.  I am an adult who reads young adult books and I was also the kid who read adult books when I was younger—during my pre-teen years some of the first “adult” books  I read include Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, and Harper’s Lee To Kill A Mockingbird.

• The all-the-timer/compulsive/voracious/anything goes reader: I carry a book with me everywhere and if not a book I have my phone and tablet which contains my e-books so I have my options.  Yes, you will even find me standing on a Starbucks line reading (the Starbucks at my university is really slow, and the wait is literally 15-20 minutes!)

• The “It’s Complicated” Reader: Honestly if I had to sum up what kind of reader I am, this would describe me the best. And ironically, I am also Pisces.

I hope you found this interesting as well.  So now my question is What Kind of Reader Are You?  Feel free to comment below and share your thoughts. Hope you have a great day! 🙂