By Celina Raymond

Let’s be real for a minute. Summer reading is not the end of the world.

You are given three months to complete a task that you would have easily completed in three weeks of school.

You have access to audiobooks, ebooks, book stores, and even libraries–yes those still exist.

You can even do it with a group of friends to make the ‘horrible’ summer reading just a little more fun.

The assignment doesn’t even have to be the best work of your life. This is an assignment to see what you can do on your own before you start your next year of learning.

And it is an assignment designed so that you don’t slide down the summer slump which would make coming back to school harder than it already is; as math equations, history, common knowledge, academic writing, and your overall focus gets lost amidst tanlines, pool days, Netflix binges, and late nights.

With all of the time and resources you have access to, how are you still complaining?

The problem most students have with summer reading is the fact that they procrastinate. Which causes a last-minute Sparknote cram which won’t give you the information you actually need.

To help you avoid this last minute Sparknote cram, let me give you some helpful advice and tips.

First, just suck it up and do it. Get it over with. Set a “due date” or little milestones just to give you a little more motivation than you would have normally.

Second, don’t just say you’re going to read a chapter a day. A, you’ll probably never stick to it. B, you should write it down. And C, one chapter might be 12 pages while the next one might be 37 pages.

Set a number of pages to get done in one day, pick a few days out of the week that you’ll read for a half hour or so, or you can even just set reward days for when you get done with, say, a fourth of the book

I’ll also let you in on a little secret: if you focus on the story, it will most likely come alive in your head as you picture the scenes and hear the characters talking. You don’t need to watch Netflix for a story to come alive!

The third tip is set aside time to do it with your friends.  It will be more fun and it may even go quicker. Friends also provide a different perspective that will be helpful in the long run.

The final tip I’ll give you is for you just to find your own way to make it bearable, because even though summer reading might feel like an execution, it’s really not.

So, this summer just turn off your phone, figure out how to manually open a book, and read the words on the pages as if you were reading the comment section of your friend’s latest Instagram post.