Not Everyone Who Reads is Smart

What good are books if you lack critical thinking abilities?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

This post was originally published on Medium.

Another day on earth. Another week wasted on another overhyped book.

This time it was The Hunger Games.

I’m pissed that I bought the entire trilogy without even reading the first book. Anyway, I’d give it to my future children so they can read it someday and hate it as much as I did.

If I’d read it in my teenage years, I probably would have found it great too. But my twenties don’t allow me to appreciate books with no depth anymore.

I’ve read far better by now — books with well-executed plots, strong characters, and remarkable storytelling. I now know better than to buy into the hype. My writer’s soul needs gems, not a fake adrenaline rush.

This is one of the reasons I’ve given up on Bookstagram and Goodreads recommendations.

I no longer feel like I belong on Instagram. Their “bookish taste” is worse than that of a 14-year-old just starting out with books. Maybe they are mostly young readers, and in that case, it’s simply not a place for me.

If you spend time on Bookstagram, you might find yourself giving in to the hype and reading shallow romance novels like The Pumpkin Spice Café or Twisted Games, or worse — anything by Colleen Hoover.

How do I know?

I’ve been there a couple of times, and I didn’t like it.

These book recommendations don’t serve the real reasons we read — to feel, to think, to appreciate art. Their so-called “popular books” are far too simple for those of us with writer’s minds.

But I also wonder, when the authors were writing these books that “readers” love so much, did they feel bad about themselves? Did they feel like they were selling themselves short, churning out shallow stories just to make money or please the masses?

There’s nothing artistic in what readers read these days. They’re not looking for wisdom between the pages; they’re looking for something they already have — lust, temporary pleasures. Things that are free yet dangerous to our souls — a writer’s soul, a reader’s soul specifically.

What good are books if you don’t have the critical thinking skills to question their intentions? Provided, of course, that you can even sense what the book is trying to convey if it is communicating anything at all.

When I see the bestseller lists, I wonder how we got here. How did we go from honoring timeless classics — books that explored human nature, history, philosophy, and the complexity of reality — to celebrating superficial romances and thrillers with predictable plot twists?

Sometimes I wonder, are readers getting dumber, or is it human existence in general?

I find it strange that the books demanding the least thought are often the most loved. It’s as if, to become successful, you have to churn out mediocre work.

I’ve come to learn that a book’s popularity doesn’t always mean it’s good. It just means it’s easy to read and accessible to low-IQ readers.

Art has been reduced to a popularity contest. People are seeking books that even a 6-year-old could easily digest. And we’re blindly trusting their recommendations.

Without a second thought, we abandon books that could challenge our minds or reshape our perspectives. Or worse, we don’t even understand the motives behind them.

I can understand, to a point, why people avoid challenging books — they have enough to worry about in their lives; they don’t need anything extra.

These days, readers are looking for comfort, even if that comfort leaves them feeling empty. And if readers don’t want uncomfortable truths, why would writers bother writing about them?

The greatest writers of all time — George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and J. R. R. Tolkien — had something in common—they weren’t afraid to challenge our minds or immerse us in worlds that are not easy to understand.

But now writers are feeding us our comfort food, and that haunting, transformative feeling that the greatest authors gave us, that feeling that stayed long after we’d turned the last page — that feeling is rare.

Books like The Hunger Games are just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many “popular” books that I’ve read and didn’t understand the hype around.

Some attract readers with a catchy title or a high-concept premise, but inside their pages, they’re filled with content aimed to please readers who lack critical thinking skills.

Occasionally, I can understand the hype, but most of the time, there’s only one reason for it—they’re easy to read. And easy reads, as opposed to truly great books, don’t demand much from us.

When I was younger, I didn’t expect books to be that way. I was looking for reads that would enhance my vocabulary and language skills, that would challenge me. But I guess readers today are looking for blog posts in book form aka. stories with high readability scores.

Sure, they’re less time-consuming, and you can finish a lot of them quickly. But this just makes reading another form of consumption.

Maybe if you’re here only to consume page after page, to show off your reading habits on social media, and don’t want to feel empathy or depth in what you read, then you wouldn’t like Khaled Hosseini’s books. Or those by other great authors.

And that’s okay.

If you like mediocre books with no trace of depth, that’s your choice.

However, this confirms that the title of this post is correct — Not Everyone Who Reads is Smart.