The inimitable Nikki DeMarco is as well-traveled as she is well-read. Being an enneagram 3, Aries, high school librarian, makes her love for efficiency is unmatched. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is passionate about helping teens connect to books. Nikki has an MFA in creative writing, is a TBR bibliologist, and writes for Harlequin, Audible, Kobo, and MacMillan. Since that leaves her so much time, she’s currently working on writing a romance novel, too. Find her on all socials @iamnikkidemarco (Instagram, Twitter, Threads)

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I spent a lot of years thinking I wasn’t a real reader. The irony was that books were my whole life: I collected them, stacked them by my bed, carried them around like talismans. But the amount of time I spent, and the way I actually read, never seemed to match what counted as “real.” I would start one book and abandon it after twenty pages, not because I didn’t like it, but because my attention snagged on something else. I would pick up three new books and rotate between them, half-forgetting what had happened in each. Other times, I would fall into hyperfocus and stay up until two in the morning, tearing through hundreds of pages without stopping, only to crash into a reading slump the next week, where nothing seemed to stick.

For a long time, I thought this meant I was failing at reading. That image of the “good reader” had been drilled into me since childhood: sitting still for long stretches, turning pages steadily from beginning to end, never skipping, never faltering, and finishing every book before moving on to the next. When I became a teacher, I saw those same systems play out in real time. Reading logs and tests were supposed to measure progress, but what I saw was kids shrinking under the weight of them. Instead of building a love of reading, the metrics turned it into a performance for some and a chore for others. To students whose brains didn’t line up with those expectations, the message was clear: you’re doing it wrong.

When I became a librarian, I started hearing the same stories echoed back from my students at my new school. Kids would whisper apologies about only reading manga. Teens would say they weren’t “real readers” because they liked audiobooks. Adults confessed that they just reread romance novels instead of trying new books. Over and over, people framed their reading life as a failure, because it didn’t look like the neat, linear version we’ve all been sold. That’s when I realized I had to spread the word: the problem isn’t with the readers. It’s with the rules.

I decided audiobooks absolutely counted, not as cheating, but as reading in a different key.

The model we call “good reading” is neurotypical reading. It assumes a brain that can sustain focus in long, quiet stretches. It assumes a taste for certain genres and formats over others. It assumes a clean memory and a steady pace. It does not account for wandering attention, or sensory overwhelm, or the comfort of repetition. It doesn’t make room for audiobooks or fanfiction, or the way a comic book’s art carries half the story. It doesn’t acknowledge the stop-and-start rhythm of someone reading through depression, or the compulsion of someone who can’t move on until they’ve reread the same passage enough times to feel sure they’ve “gotten it right.” It excludes more readers than it includes.

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When I realized this in my early diagnosis days, I stopped trying to fix myself to fit the rules. I gave myself permission to quit books whenever I needed. I decided audiobooks absolutely counted, not as cheating, but as reading in a different key. I embraced rereads as a form of care, not a waste of time. I let myself read out of order, skip around, skim, and double back. The strange part is, when I stopped holding myself to those old standards, my reading life expanded. I fell back in love with books—not as assignments, not as tests of discipline, but as companions I could meet on my own terms.

Now I’m thrilled to be able to let my students give themselves permission to read wildly and without judgment. When someone tells me they’re not really a reader, I get to tell them they already are. Reading manga counts. Listening to audiobooks counts. Picking up a stack of picture books in high school counts. Taking three months to finish one fantasy novel counts. Every way of engaging with stories is real and valuable, whether it looks like the stereotype or not.

Reading isn’t about discipline or performance. It isn’t about how many books you finish or whether you’re caught up on the year’s prizewinners. It’s about connection. And once you let yourself dismantle the idea of neurotypical reading, you get to build a relationship with books that is joyful and sustaining, not shame-filled.

If you need a guide to start, here are three things I hold on to:

1. All formats count. Audiobooks, graphic novels, ebooks, fanfiction—if it gives you story, it’s reading.
2. You don’t have to finish. Skim, skip, reread, quit. Books don’t expire if you leave them half-read.
3. Joy matters more than rules. If your way of reading brings you back to books instead of pushing you away, then it’s the right way.

Books are not judging you. They’re companions, waiting for you in whatever way you’re able to meet them. However you read, and however often, you are already a reader.