During high school and the start of university, I was an avid reader and was barely ever seen without a book in my hand, but once my course started getting more intense and my reading habit suffered. I have since graduated with a degree in journalism from NTU and began working in marketing as well as writing freelance articles on the side, and for a while, I stopped reading altogether.

I was still buying books and making plans to sit down and read but I always ended up distracted by friends, work and even the TV. Then lockdown happened and two of those distractions suddenly went away and I found myself reading again.

I celebrated my birthday in April with a bottle of champagne and the film Doctor Sleep both of which I really enjoyed. The next morning I woke up hungover and with a deep need to finally read Stephen King’s ‘Doctor Sleep’ and compare it to the film. I finished the book within two days and that was it, I was back on a reading kick.

“The shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark thing.”

Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

Since then I rejoined the bookstagram community which has helped inspire my next reads and has helped me feel less alone while lockdown was happening. Now things are slowly going back to normal and I am making sure to carve out some time to read in the evenings instead of being on my phone.