I’m on page 51 of Six of Crows. That probably seems like such an insignificant number. I mean, it is—after all, the book is nearly 500 pages. But I’ve read 51 pages of this book, and each page has been a gift.
All books have been difficult for me to read since a bad medication reaction caused me to temporarily lose the ability to understand the speech of others or read when I was 14. I used to fly through multiple books—books at least as long as Six of Crows—but that was Before the medicine. I slowly found ways to cope: audiobooks, reading out loud, following each word with my finger, but reading was never the same. It was never easy, never effortless.
Fantasy has remained one of the hardest genres for me to read. Some books are easier; I started reading Cassandra Clare’s novels years Before. Those books brought me one of my best friends, and not even the medicine could make me forget key world-building information about those novels. I remember from Before, and that remembrance lets me jump more easily into Clare’s novels Now.
Other series are more difficult. My brain already needs time and energy to process each world, and keeping track of all the world-building details in fantasy novels is exhausting. I hate that it’s exhausting. Fantasy is such a detailed, beautiful genre. I want to be absorbed in new worlds when I read, just like I was as a middle schooler, but my brain doesn’t work that way Now.
I don’t remember how far I made it into Shadow and Bone, the first book in a fantasy trilogy, before I took the medicine. Maybe halfway? Maybe through the whole book? Either way, I didn’t get to read the whole series despite how badly I wanted to. I reread Shadow and Bone After—after I could slowly, slowly read again. The plot was one of the memories from that time I lost; I could remember how the book ended, but all the details were lost. It took three tries to make it through the novel, but on that third time it clicked, and I sped through the next two books in the trilogy.
I tried reading Six of Crows years ago, right after I finished the Shadow and Bone trilogy. It’s a duology that takes place within the same world as the trilogy, but I just couldn’t make it through. There were too many locations, types of magic (they call it a small science), and characters. I must have read the first two chapters of Six of Crows four or five times, but I couldn’t keep all the details straight.
Netflix recently adapted Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. Not two different shows—one show that combined both stories so, so beautifully. As a bookworm, adaptations are usually disappointing, but I loved the show more than the novels (not because the books aren’t good, but because the show is just that good).
Seeing the Crows (that’s what the characters from Six of Crows call themselves) made me want to know more about them—I wanted to know the details only a book can provide. I spent days wanting to find my copy of the novel and start reading, but I was too afraid it would be another failed attempt. One night, though (or early morning, rather. My insomnia has been an unwelcome constant since I’ve been home from school), I caved. I thought I knew exactly where the novel was—the second to last shelf on the bookshelf just off the living room—and I was right. I just looked at it for a while after retrieving it, staring down my opponent, tracing my fingers over the textured cover.
And then I started to read. Slowly. Oh so slowly. But reading has no speed requirement. And I have the whole summer.
I used to get so frustrated by my mind. I still do. I talk about missing my old brain, but right now I’m thankful for how much healing my brain has undergone in the past (almost) 6 years. And today, celebration looks like reading.