Does the E-book Format Make Big Books Less Daunting?

Don’t you miss those days when you were in school and you used to finish big fat books in a single day? I know I do. No kidding, I used to read 600 pages long books in a day and all my friends would whisper rumors about how I actually ate books. Anyway, those were the golden days. Now my attention span has grown smaller and most big books terrify me.

Child screaming out of terror

If I were to make a list of books I’ve been putting off they’ll probably all be 500+ pages.

It’s scary, okay. Why is it scary? Because I’m afraid to commit to such huge books, not knowing whether I’ll even like them or not. Because now I’m more concerned about the number of books I read and my ever-nagging TBR with hundreds of books demanding to be read. It’s a stress I try not to take but I’m no superhuman, it keeps creeping up on me.

And I’ve realized that one way to keep my fear of big books at bay is reading them e-book format.

First off, you can’t see how thick books are in the e-book format. Seriously, half my struggle is knowing that the book is thicker than my wrist like wow, we’re crossing a limit there. It’s hella intimidating. Plus some books are tall and thick which is really the scariest combination. But with e-books you can take it one page at a time.

Sure, sometimes it shows you a thousand pages in e-format but I know that page numbers in e-books are irrelevant. Sometimes 5 pages of the e-book make one physical page so that makes me feel more accomplished. Also sometimes on certain apps you only see the amount of time you can finish reading the chapter in so there’s no anxiety regarding the pages!

I often feel that even though I’m engrossed in a book I kind of keep checking how many pages are left. But with e-books I just keep swiping through the pages and I kid you not once I finished a book just like that and wondered if some pages were missing. It’s crazy!

Woman saying “I blinked, and suddenly here I am“

Oh and I don’t have to break the spines of fat books or struggle to read the words that dip into the spine when I’m reading an e-book. Seriously, you can’t tell me you’re a reader and haven’t struggled with handling a thick book. I’m not particularly fond of breaking spines but I have to when I’m reading such big books because otherwise it really interferes with my reading and I get frustrated.

So yes, those are all the reasons why if I want to read thick books I usually prefer the e-book format. Plus if you’re travelling they don’t add to the luggage so it’s basically a smart decision all over 🙂

So, this is shorter than my normal posts but I really wanted to see if I’m the only one who prefers reading fat books in e-book or audiobook format. What do you think?

What are some thick book you are intimidated by?

Do you disagree with any of my points? Or are you just a person who isn’t scared of big books?