Something that there doesn’t seem to be enough time for these days is reading and as someone who has often found understanding, freedom, and pleasure through literature it is more than just a sad fact of life. It’s something I’ve been meaning to rectify but given the whirlwind of stress and memory making of senior year in high school and the new reality of freshman year of college there hasn’t been time for reading of the nonacademic variety. However, now that life has finally started to settle down I find myself with time that I could dedicate to reading but I had no idea where to start.

Well I had no idea where to start because as of a few days ago my roommate and I devised a way to relieve ourselves of stress and enjoy a good book while we’re at it. We’ve dubbed it storytime and in essence we just sit in our room and immerse ourselves in a book together. We trade off reading aloud and comment as we read to the other about the story. We laugh with each other when we stumble over words and can’t help but imagine other scenarios based off of what we’ve read so far. It’s the kind of reading that is entertaining and meaningful without having any ulterior motive.

Storytime was something we came up with while secret Santa shopping in the book aisles of Target. We ended up purchasing two books and splitting the cost with the intent of trading books when one of us was done with one of them. Upon returning to our dorm we contemplated who would read which book. We had The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer and Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell to choose from and going off of the summaries it seemed as if Meyer’s was going to be a more dramatic read than Rowell’s. We both agreed we wanted to read the more light-hearted seeming book and I suggested reading aloud.

We quickly discovered that Eleanor and Park was not as light-hearted as we’d originally thought and that it wasn’t quite so easy to put the book down. The feeling of reading for pleasure after so long was one that both my roommate and I were reveling in. So we continued to read to each other, page after page, and discussed the strangeness of Eleanor and Park as characters. We’d already begun to see them as people in a way and we couldn’t help but comment to each other about it.

Why was Park’s name Park? Did it have to do with the fact his mother was Korean and his father wasn’t? Or was it a nickname and did he have a different name? If it was a nickname how did he get it? After all his younger brother was named Josh and we knew their last name was Sheridan. Then there was Eleanor who also seemed like an enigma despite the fact we had access to her thoughts every other chapter. Why did she find it childish to call the police and try to help her mother when her abusive stepfather was ganging up on her mother? We knew she had become jaded by the difficulties of her life but why did she find it childish? What did she mean by childish?

The experience of getting wrapped up in a story I would argue is enhanced when shared with others. Before partaking in storytime I would’ve said that reading solo is far better than reading with others because we’ve all done popcorn reading before and I’m sure most of us have hated the experience. But there’s something inherently different about choosing to read to another person and share the enrapturing experience that comes with the story. It’s a wonderful thing to behold.

Now we have this way of bonding that also feeds our inner bookworms and it’s absolutely fantastic. We’ve decided to make the effort to read for reasons unrelated to academics and it’s already helped us feel more at ease. The impending stress of finals and final assignments of course is still there but now it seems more manageable. At the ending of a long day we still have storytime to look forward to and trust me, it really is wonderful.