Reading Speed (Like Speed Reading, But Backwards)

Like many other people, I went out and bought Mockingjay on Tuesday this week when it came out. (Actually, I had preordered it and my copy didn't arrive on time, so I went and bought a store copy and then returned the preorder when it arrived, but anyway.) I was all for staying up that night to finish it. Instead, I had to do lots of homework and get a little sleep and then go to school and take lots of quizzes and do work and suchlike...so I finished it after school on Wednesday. (My review is here.)

Four-hundred-page book. Just a few hours' total reading time. No big deal, right?

Then there was Extraordinary. Not a terrible book, not fantastic either (my review is here). I spent several days on this one, and it's a good thirty pages shorter than Mockingjay.

I'm not really surprised that it took me a lot less time to read Mockingjay than Extraordinary. The former had a lot more action, was a lot less predictable, and was one that I'd been a lot more excited for (because really, it's hard to get more excited about a book than I was for Mockingjay - except for the Harry Potter series). But I usually read pretty quickly, and over the summer there were a few days where I had nothing else to do but read, so I could get through a 360-page book in a day and then most of another one, so it was kind of weird to have Extraordinary take me that long. And now John Belushi is Dead is taking a while too.

Then, of course, there are textbooks. It has taken me an hour to struggle through a twenty-page chapter of a history textbook before. Nowhere close to my normal reading speed.

I think it's kind of interesting to note how much faster we read when we're excited for stuff, but some of it may also be the amount of action in the story. I tend to go through a book a lot faster when I'm desperate to find out what happens and spend longer on a story that's more about character development. Is it the same for you guys? What sorts of things affect your reading speed? Let me know in the comments!