What’s Your Reading Personality?

Despite what the rest of the world may think, we readers are not all the same. We have many different reading styles and preferences. Your reading personality is as true and varied as other personality analyses, and can tell a person much about you. So what kind of reader are you? Are you a Chronic Reader? A Neverland Reader? A Chaos Reader? Or maybe a combination of a few?

Below we’ve explained 12 common reading personalities. Can you identify these reading personalities in your life?

1. The “Skim” Reader

This reader seems to read at otherworldly speeds. However, upon closer inspection, you find that this reader can’t be bothered with reading long passages of descriptive prose and instead skips from dialogue to dialogue and only back tracks to skim descriptive texts if something doesn’t make sense. This reader always knows the plots and characters of the stories they read, but if you start asking them about details, you may find their knowledge lacking.

2. The “Slow and Steady” Reader

This reading personality is the opposite of the skim reader. Instead of rushing through the books to get to the end, they take their time and read every word in every passage slowly and carefully. They may also find that their lives have become busier and find it more difficult to read for long periods of time. It might take this reader weeks or months to make it through a book, but they  know their books very well when they’re finished. Since reading a book is such a big commitment for this reader, they also tend to take time and care when selecting their next book and rely heavily on the recommendations of their friends who read faster than them.

3. The “Two-Time” Reader

This reader is a combination of the Skim Reader and the Slow and Steady reader. This reader first rushes through a book so that they know how it ends, then reads the book a second time, this time making sure to take their time and enjoy all the foreshadowing and subtleties now that they aren’t dying to know how it all ends.

4. The “Audio” Reader

This reader hasn’t “read” a book with their eyes in years, but they listen to book after book while cleaning the kitchen, commuting to work, on long road trips, by the pool, in the shower, or whenever the fancy strikes. Since this reader can listen to their books while doing a variety of other tasks, you’ll find that they’ve read quite a few books. However, since they rely on books popular enough to have audio versions, they don’t often know books by smaller publishers or authors.

5. The “Can’t Let Go” Reader

This reader falls hard for the books they’re reading. So hard that when they finish a series or novel that they really like, they have a hard time starting a new novel because they’re so attached to the characters in the previous novel and aren’t ready to get to know new characters yet. So instead, this reader often takes to the internet to find all the extras and interviews the author has released about their book, and to find other fan communities where they can discuss and read theories, read fanfiction, and sometimes even start writing fanfiction themselves.

6. The “Display” Reader

This reader owns bookshelves full of books, but if you look closely, all the books are books off the bestsellers lists, or books with well-known movies or television shows made after them. This is because while this reader loves the idea of books, and even may have been a great reader in their youth, they don’t often take the time to read books anymore. So their book collections are now for show, since they’re a bit out of touch with the reading community. This reader probably does read a book or two every year, but if you asked them, they will tell you that they read much more than that.

7. The “Scholar” Reader

This reader is all about reading books about philosophy, or with deep plots that really make you think. The harder to read they feel a book is, the more accomplished they feel when they’ve finished it. They enjoy books that they feel expand their current knowledge, and love telling you about all the new things they learned once they finish a book. Although this reader won’t admit it out loud, they sometimes look down on those who just like to read for fun. They are also constantly asking you to read whatever book they have most recently read, because they’re looking for someone to discuss it with but know very few people who enjoy the kinds of books they do.

8. The “Chaos” Reader

This reader doesn’t just read one books from start to end, but they usually have a few books in progress at the same time and take turns reading chapters from each. This reader has even been know to leave off a book in the middle, and come back a year or two later and finish reading the book from where they left off. They usually can’t read a whole series in a row, and instead take breaks throughout to read different types of books. This reader reads all genres of books and difficulty levels, but doesn’t take the greatest care when picking a new novel up. They sometimes read multiple books at a time to give them a break from the books they aren’t enjoying as much, but still want to finish.

9. The “Chronic” Reader

If you were to put a bookcase in front of this reader, they would start with the first book, read it to completion, then pick up the second book, read it to completion, and so on and so forth until they had read every book on the bookcase and then move onto a second bookcase. This reader doesn’t read particularly slow or fast, but it is consistency that is their defining trait. They are always reading a book and they always read that book to completion. Not to say that they’ve enjoyed every book they’ve ever read, but they get a feeling of deep uneasiness at the thought of not finishing, so they bear through it so that they can pick up the next book in their never-ending list.

10. The “Neverland” Reader

This reading personality enjoys reading and reads quite often, but they read purely for enjoyment and to give their brain a break from the demands of real life. As such, this reader typically reads young adult novels or easier reads throughout their entire life, and doesn’t much enjoy reading “adult” novels or classics. They acknowledge that these adult books and stories are good, but they just don’t enjoy having to work that hard to read them. Some people refer to the types of books these readers like to read as “brain candy.”

11. The “One Genre to Rule Them All” Reader

This reader has one genre—whether it be romance, fantasy, mystery, etc—and has stayed true to that genre for as long as they can remember. They are very knowledgeable about their genre, and look slightly down on those who only know the big-named authors from their favorite genre, because they know less-known authors who’ve written much better books in their opinion. They read any and every book in this genre no matter how big or small an author is. If a book fits their genre, they’ll give it a shot. These readers show very little, if any, interest in books that lie outside their genre.

12. The “Fan Club” Reader

This reader tends to read a few books until they find one book that they absolutely love. Once they find a book that they love, they look up the author and read every single book that author has written. This reader often follows this author on social media and follows their newsletters. When an author they love releases a new book, they always pre-order it. Once they’ve finished a favorite author’s collection, they start the process of reading new books again until they hit on another gold author. Eventually, this reader typically has around 5 to 10 authors that they follow religiously.

So what’s your reading personality? Let us know in the comments and make sure to share with your friends so they can discover their result too!

Happy reading!

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