How do I stop being a bad reader? I seem incapable of going any

>>9492419
read poetry

Russian formalism.

>>9492419
Take high school English again.

>>9492435
I dropped out junior year, that probably has something to do with it right?

>>9492440
No, you are probably just a dumbass

ha holy shit i'm a fucking poser. what do i do now

>>9492440
i also dropped out my junior year.

>>9492585
Are you a good reader?

>>9492589
Well, I LIKE to read. Depends on how you define "good". I used to read shitty horror novels in high school, haven't read much since then until the last few months, been getting recommendations from friends and /lit/

What books have your read and what do you mean(if you're OP) that you can't go past the surface of a story?

>>9492600
i dunno i've been really depressed lately and i feel like i'm worthless and don't know or understand anything and that it doesn't matter which just makes it worse

>>9492419

first step is usually learn the background of the author ideally before you even start reading what they wrote
this will often give you a lot of important context

second step is to just think about how what you are reading relates to real life

this is all I ever do anyway

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>>9492673
Same. How long ago was it that you dropped out?
Why did you drop out?
I stayed home one day because it was snowing and i never went back. I was struggling with our Junior Project thing you gotta do at the end of the year, and i wasn't a good student. It felt like i had writers block my whole entire life in school. Throw in video games for escapism. I never did homework. They told me my junior year that Freshmans had more credits than I did. It was kind of like that all through school, i would be serious for the first half or not even that of a year, and just delve into missing days, playing video games instead of homework and them just passing me along every year of school with bad grades. I'm 23 now, i was class of 2012 so i dropped out in 2011. I got a job as a janitor for a couple years than was laid off. I've been a neet ever since. I definitely get that feeling you describe. My only work experience is being a janitor, and i didn't pay attention in school. I don't have my GED either, and that feels bad too. I'm telling myself that by my next birthday i'll get my act together. But it's been years...

>>9492706
i at least have a ged, i tried going to college and stopped going to classes almost immediately. i fucked my life up really really bad didn't i

>>9492729
how old are you?
nah not really really bad.

>>9492742
19

>>9492770
you're going to be okay anon

read some literary theory, lit crit and read more in general.

>>9492419
Easy. If you read something and don't feel like you penetrated to any layers beneath the surface, read a secondary text. It does wonders. How can you expect to know what reading deeper feels like unless you see how reading deeply works? This is the best way, since the more you do this, the further you will read into stories.

What are some ways I can learn to read between the lines?

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>read 20 pages of Nietzsche
>realize he's been arguing with Wagner the whole time
>forced to reread the who thing
>4 hours wasted on 20 pages

>>9494707
This. Most I can read in 4h is 50 pages, and badly

>>9492419
How to Read Literature Like a Professor.

>>9492448
don't talk to him like that