Hates Reading

"I'm not reading words. It's summer vacation!"

— Ben Tennyson, Ben 10 (2016)

There are certain things that seem to automatically distill hate from people, such as vegetables, but sometimes, there are certain things that seem to go either way for some people, such as books.

There is some Truth in Television behind this, especially as far as children are concerned: since The '50s, with things such as television, video games, and the internet becoming more and more commonplace, many children would rather engage in those kinds of activities, rather than pick up a book to read. Children aren't the only ones, however, sometimes even adults hold discontent with books as well, though most of the time, the adult book haters tend to be CloudCuckoolanders, or otherwise have the mentality of children. Moral Guardians may also apply, especially when they regard all literature they don't approve of as being inappropriate and should be banned. And sometimes such characters may have had a stressful, traumatic, or otherwise unpleasant experience that turned them off of reading (e.g. being forced to read by a Sadist Teacher).

Sometimes, the trope can be subverted if a character initially hates reading, only to end up loving it once they try it.

This kind of character will often be Book Dumb. Compare Book Burning, where hatred and destruction of books are used as a metaphor and tool for control. Depending on how far the character takes their dislike of reading, they may be an Insufferable Imbecile. The trope may involve Persecuted Intellectuals, who usually like to read.

Contrast the Book Worm. Compare and contrast Never Learned to Read for characters who hate reading because they can't. Can overlap with Books vs. Screens if they hate reading, but love the TV or computer adaptations.

If a book hater pops up in a children's show, expect the episode to end with a "Reading Is Cool" Aesop.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• Robin (1993): While Tim Drake has no problem with reading, he doesn't care for reading plays and older fiction, which means he avoids doing so for class, leading to him requiring extra credit for his Lit class at Gotham Heights High.

Films — Animated

• Beauty and the Beast: As part of his Establishing Character Moment, Gaston plucks the book Belle's reading from her hands, flips through it, then dumps it in the mud because there are no pictures and tells her to Stay in the Kitchen.
• How to Train Your Dragon: Gobber assigns the kids some reading while they're stuck inside due to the rain. Ruffnut and Tuffnut are not pleased about the prospect, treating it as if it's a Fate Worse than Death.
  Tuffnut: "Wait, you mean read?"
  Ruffnut: "While we're still alive?"

Literature

• Big Nate: In "Lives It Up", one of Nate's drawings depicts Mark Cheswick admitting that he hates reading and that he's only in the Breakfast Book Club for the snacks.
• Discworld: The Living Legend witch Granny Weatherwax is only marginally literate and is profoundly distrustful of books, believing that recording dead people's words is somehow akin to Necromancy. She does keep an almanac — in her outhouse, for the pages.
• The narrator in The I Hate to Read Book hates books and spends the whole book complaining about them.
• In Matilda, the title character's parents and brother don't like books because they don't see the point of them. This contrasts them with Matilda, who's a bookish Child Prodigy and is isolated for it.
• In A Series of Unfortunate Events, the villains tend to despise reading in contrast with the Baudelaires and their allies, who love to read. This is played up more in the live-action series.
• In The Stand, Stu generally hated reading until he bought a copy of Watership Down for his nephew, and then read it because the one thing he hated more than reading was wrapping presents; much to his surprise, he found himself enjoying the book. By the end of the novel, he's come to love reading.

Live-Action TV

• iCarly: Played with. Sam hates reading and states that the only three books she's ever read are the ones of the Boogie Bear picture book series. However, she makes a bet with Freddie that she can finish a book called The Penny Treasure and quickly finds herself absorbed in it.
• Kaamelott: Very few people know how to read (including several Knights of the Round Table), and of those who do, very few willingly do so. Léodagan the brutal, thuggish king of Carmélide puts it best:
  I learned to read and believe me, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
• Early on in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024), John pretends that a book called The Prophet is one of his favorites out of jealousy from hearing Jane and Hot Neighbor have that in common. In actuality, he’s never even read it and doesn’t enjoy reading in general. Jane figuring out it was a lie down the road puts further strain on their marriage.
  [Jane] kept wanting to understand when her and John are so different, why are we paired? Maybe in some warped way, this company knew to put us together because we have the same favorite book. So the fact that it was all a lie shatters all of that.
  • Ironically, while sharing life advice with John, Hot Neighbor asks him if he'd like to borrow his copy of The Prophet.
    John: She likes to read. I don’t like to read.
    Hot Neighbor: You don’t have to like it. Just start reading, man.
• Seinfeld. Jerry and George are both frequently seen holding contempt for books, as they both seem to be of the opinion that reading books isn't even a big deal, and proves nothing. In Jerry's case, a lot of it seems to stem from his underlying Manchild tendencies: any reading he does do is usually Superman comic books; as far as George goes, he isn't too bright anyway and even feels if the literature has nothing to do with sports, he can't concentrate. It actually serves as a plot point in two episodes:
  • In "The Couch", George joins a book club to impress his Girl of the Week, but can't bring himself to actually read Breakfast at Tiffany's, so he tries to cheat by watching the film adaptation with Audrey Hepburn. Hilarity Ensues.
  • In "The Fatigues", George has to read a book on risk management for work, but literally falls asleep within seconds of just opening the book; among the ways George tries to weasel through the book without actually reading it are getting an audio version of the book (which backfires because the voice sounds just like him and he can't stand it), and having someone else read it for him then tell him what she read.
• Tony Soprano dismisses the idea of reading anything as part of his therapy in his first session with Dr. Melfi, claiming that any time he tries to read anything he falls asleep. Although we do see Tony reading newspapers and the occasional magazine later in the series.
• Wizards of Waverly Place: In "Future Harper", Alex starts out not liking reading but comes around to understanding its importance. The episode ends with a joke PSA message on the importance of reading by Selena Gomez.

Tabletop Games

• Pathfinder: Alongside their many Stupid Evil tendencies, Goblins have a superstitious terror of the written word, believing that it can steal the thoughts out of their heads. This might be inspired by their ancient Magically-Binding Contract with Asmodeus.

Video Games

• Dragalia Lost: The "Hitting The Books" wyrmprint shows Mym to be such a case. When she makes an attempt to read human books, she becomes so frustrated over being unable to understand anything in them that she starts burning the library, prompting Euden and Notte to step in.
  Mym: Worry not, my darling; I don't need books to keep supporting you.
  Euden: That's great — just please stop the fire!
  Notte: Mym's not too big on reading, huh?
• Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam: Roy Koopa comes across the book that contains the Paper Mario universe, laying out in the open. He questions if he should read it, but then declares "nah, books are dumb" and decides to throw it in the garbage instead.
• In Persona 5, Ryuji is Book Dumb since he doesn't like studying. In one Mementos conversation, he says he never reads a damn thing.
  Makoto: It's dark... if I look at the map and notes now, it'll be bad for my eyes.
  Ryuji: Wait... I get it now! I got good eyes because I never read a damn thing!
• World of Warcraft: Parodied with Thrashbite the Scornful, an enormous, dim-witted Mo'arg demon who can be found trashing the library in the Cathedral of Eternal Night. When engaged by players, he will angrily shout "BOOKS ARE FOR LOSERS!"

Webcomics

• Stand Still, Stay Silent: Sigrun is honestly surprised when Mikkel shows interest in books. When she learns that he's getting one of the ancient books she salvaged transcribed by Tuuri:
  Sigrun: Sooo you're going to just read stuff... voluntarily, is that what you're saying?
  Mikkel: It's one book that I happen to find particularly interesting.
  Sigrun: Whoah hey! No judgement here! To each their own, you know?

Web Original

• This Not Always Working story features a girl who's very dismissive of books and those who read them. Against all logic, she works in a bookstore until the manager fires her.

Western Animation

• Angelo Rules: Angelo doesn't seem to like reading. When he pretends to be sick to stay at home the whole day, he finds out he has nothing to do but considers reading not an option.
• Arthur: Deconstructed in "Buster Hits the Books", in which the gang learns that Buster has never read a whole book in his entire life, much to Arthur's horror. With a book report coming up, Arthur and Francine keep trying to introduce Buster to simple, easy-to-read books, only for Buster to lose interest time and time again with each book. It isn't until Buster picks up Robin Hood out of curiosity that he finds himself able to read it, coming to the conclusion that all this time, he just wasn't able to find a book that he enjoyed.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Toph doesn't hate books per se, but is incredibly disinterested in them because she is blind, and though she can usually rely on her seismic sense to compensate for her lack of physical sight, this method of "seeing" doesn't work on writing. When the Gaang helps a professor find a library connected to the Spirit World, she's bored by the task since 1) she can't help in the search because the library is hidden in the desert where her seismic sense can't function, and 2) even when they find it, it's not like she can enjoy reading the books anyway. Throughout the show, she needs other people to read things for her. And remind them that they need to do so.
  Katara: [holding up a Wanted poster for Toph] Well then, what's this?!
  Toph: I don't know! I mean, seriously, what is wrong with you people?! I'M BLIND!
• In the Big City Greens episode “Quiet Please” it’s not so much that Cricket hates reading as it is that his short attention span won’t allow him to focus long enough to get into a book; it doesn’t help that the books his family recommends are either too long or full of extended flowery descriptive scenes. It isn’t until he discovers the library also has comic books that he finds something that appeals to him.
• Bob's Burgers: Louise Belcher does not enjoy reading, and in "The Silence of the Louise" she has to read a book as part of a school competition to win a trip to a water park for all the students. She chose Old Yeller, and forced herself to read it. She's horrified and further put off reading when she reaches the ending, where Yeller gets rabies and dies.
• The Fairly Oddparents: Timmy Turner hates reading. Specifically:
  • In "Shelf Life", Timmy comes up with various ways to have fun with books without reading them during his summer vacation and tries to do a book report on "The Rat in The Spats", a book that isn't on the approved list.
  • In "Future Lost", Timmy becomes interested in a book called Stevie Sparks and the Comet Pirates and wishes his world were like that book without reading beyond the first chapter. Towards the end of the episode, when everything is wished back to normal, Wanda asks him if he learned a lesson. Timmy's reply: "Yep! Never read a book again!"
• Horrid Henry: Henry likes to read comics but doesn't like reading books. In fact, in "Horrid Henry Reads a Book", he has to read a bunch of books for a project and ends up reading one reluctantly and making a bunch of others up.
• The Loud House: In the episode "Read Aloud", the Loud family engages in a quiz at the library that requires every member to read a book, but Lola refuses to participate. In the end, it turns out the only reason she didn't like books was because she found reading difficult. After Lincoln helps her with this problem, she ends up liking it.
• Subverted for Rainbow Dash in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, who initially hates reading because she thinks it's for "eggheads", but in "Read it and Weep", she takes up reading and becomes partial to it.
• Rocko's Modern Life. Inverted in "Yarnbenders", where Rocko tends to an ill-stricken Filburt, who says his mother used to read to him when he was sick; Heffer is appalled at the idea of reading and feels Filburt would feel much better if he watched TV instead.
• The South Park episode "Chickenlover" is a spoof of a typical "Reading Is Cool" Aesop episode in which Officer Barbrady has to learn to read in order to solve the mystery of who has been having sex with chickens. (It was the bookmobile operator, as an elaborate plan to get Barbrady to read.) It gets subverted at the end when the book the bookmobile operator gives him is Atlas Shrugged, which turns him off books forever; he declares that "reading sucks ass", to the cheers of the kids.
• In Static Shock, Rubberband Man disdains reading, but this turns out to be a posture; he's dyslexic and embarrassed about his poor reading skills.

Real Life

• Kanye West loathes books with a passion, and his hatred for them is so strong that when he came out with his memoirs, he kept it to a modest fifty-four pages.
• Neil Gaiman once recalled meeting an elderly man who claimed that he read one book as a child, didn't understand the point at all, and simply never read another for the rest of his life.
• Although Donald Trump hasn't outright said he hates reading, it's notable that his answer to the question "What book are you currently reading" is always All Quiet on the Western Front, even in interviews that are months or years apart. He has never claimed to read anything else. During his time as President, several staffers revealed that he never fully read the President's Daily Brief (a morning summation of intelligence reports) and that they eventually learned to keep briefing memos and other papers to a single page or less, because he'd lose interest in anything longer.
• Leah Remini has said several times on her podcast Scientology: Fair Game that she struggles to read for pleasure because the Scientology teaching methods she was educated with (which are still in use) require you to stop at any word you can't fully define and look that word up in the dictionary. Which is a very strange approach for any author to choose, let alone one who likes to come up with their own neologisms.
• People with disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD can find it much more difficult and unpleasant to try to read even if their intelligence and desire to learn are on par with their peers who don't have those conditions.

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