I can pretty much only read “hard” fiction. I can’t ready fantasy, can never get through it (exception being Harry Potter). I also can’t read biographies or self help books.

I really really struggle with it too, luckily my partner is a writer and reads fiction pretty voraciously. If you can reach out to a friend who reads a lot of fiction and they know you well, they may be able to point you in a good direction. Otherwise, I’m a fan of just going all out, as weird or shocking as possible, to help hold your attention. My partner had me read Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker and it really opened up fiction for me again after years of not being interested.

“Fiction” is such a broad spectrum that you’re really going to need to be more specific. You could have no interest in a five-book high fantasy series when you want a romance novella, or vice versa.

What kind of fiction have you tried? Why didn’t you like it?

What type of non-fiction are you reading? You can probably find a fiction book that’s in the same style.

Eg. If you’ve read autobiographies you can find similar first person novels. If your reading history books then you can find similarly styled books.

Both fiction and nonfiction are very large genres with many sub-genres, most people are going to like one of these sub-genres.

Also note that fiction isn’t all fantasy, I’m sure you know this but there are many books which have no distinction from non fiction except that they didn’t happen.

Are you sure you want to get into fiction books? If you don’t like something, you don’t like it. If you’ve got it in your mind that you absolutely must read fiction, you may want to try thrillers/suspense. Dan Brown is pretty good in that area. I also read under the dome in about a week, and that’s 1,000 pages. King kept up the pressure the whole time. The Dresden Files by Butcher also have good pacing, and he’s a great writer.

I’m the opposite. I can’t bear to read non-fiction all the way through. Especially biographies/autobiographies. Those are the worst.

I’m wondering if you’re feeling fiction is a waste of time, or that you could/should be doing something more productive? That’s just a hunch, but if it is correct, I’d remind myself that rest and relaxation are incredibly important to a balanced life.

I love both fiction and nonfiction. I love reading historical fiction and love when a story has so many factual elements that I have to double check if it was a true story or not.

I would seek out fiction that is on the same topic as your favorite nonfiction books. If you like science there are scifi authors who use a lot of real science in their writing. If you like true crime there are a lot of authors who write very realistic crime fiction. Politics, history, etc all have fiction writers who know their stuff.

Edit: it’s also OK to just stick with what you like. Not everyone needs to like fiction.

Try starting with short stories.

Me too. I never got into Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, or any other best selling YA novel. You might like to read some historical or realistic fiction books.

What is it about non-fiction that you like? Figuring that out can help you look for fiction books that give you the same type of feeling.

For an example in the opposite direction, I really love fantasy and fiction books that make me feel transported to another world and fill me with a sense of wonder and adventure, so when I tried to get more into non-fiction I tried to find non-fic books that gave me that same sort of feeling. Ended up really loving non-fic books about nature, science, different cultures, interesting time periods through history, and I love biographies bc I live for the drama lol.

It’s totally fine to not read fiction, but if it is something you’d like to work up to, have you read short stories?