Fixing my brain, one book at a time
My brave attempt to repair the damage the Internet has done to my attention span
Since the start of 2025, I’ve read 17 books. There are a lot of reasons for this — but when someone asks why, my answer is usually that I’m trying to “fix my brain.” Various video-based social media apps have done the equivalent of fifteen 9/11s to my attention span, rendering my brain completely useless if I want to do anything that requires more than 30 seconds of my undivided attention.
I almost always feel worse after a scrolling session, and rarely do I ever find myself putting down my phone and thinking, Man, I sure am glad I just spent an hour of my life watching those TikToks! That algorithm really knows me, and I feel so seen by my TikTok feed!
The algorithm in question: a band or artist I like doing a silly dance to their own song, someone trying to sell me The Perfect Pair Of Jeans, a stupid trend using an AI-based filter, “Hey Guys, Get Ready With Me To Go To Cabo With Tarte,” one video actually worth watching, someone trying to sell me a supplement that will make me lose 40lbs in 3 days, someone trying to sell me a pair of Crocs(?), some country music star that has the little “People You May Know” banner above the username, a TikTok Live video of someone playing Guitar Hero on 2x speed.
Embarrassingly, just now, as I opened the app to make an exact transcription of what the algorithm was feeding me, I got sucked in. I mindlessly—and unintentionally—scrolled for 15 minutes before my brain snapped me out of it. It’s humiliating (to no one except me, frankly) that this still happens to me after nearly 2 and a half months of practicing an insane amount of restraint in the form of reading constantly and very intentionally not allowing myself to scroll until my brain is numb.
Is that part of my brain always going to be broken? When TikTok went down for 12 hours, I felt free. I had been on my “Fix My Brain” journey for a couple weeks and was deep in a book that I was really enjoying, so the app’s shutdown didn’t even faze me. Not even having the option to scroll made it so much easier to move on. I wanted it to stay gone forever, and was disappointed when it immediately came back, knowing that I could easily be sucked in again.
“But Carly, just delete the apps,” you might be screaming at your screen right now. That’s a great suggestion. Unfortunately, I can’t. My job is mostly social media, and all my friends live in my little phone. I would feel so disconnected if I didn’t have any access to the apps. Sometimes I’ll deactivate my Instagram as a little treat to my brain, if I really need a break from it, but deleting any of the apps from my phone just isn’t realistic for me. Plus, in my mind, that’s like putting a teeny little bandaid on a giant, gaping wound. I’d rather try to fix the problem from within.
So, in an attempt to repair what the video apps have done to my brain, I’ve decided that I would read as many books as I can this year. I’ve always been a reader, but in the last few years I have barely been able to sit down and read without picking up my phone and doing some scrolling after every 5 pages as a “treat.” Last year, I only read 7 books. Total. It was embarrassing to be friends with so many avid readers, always talking about what book they were reading, when I could only say, “Yeah, I’m still trying to finish that book I started 3 months ago,” or “No, I didn’t read the book club book this month, sorry.”
I grew tired of having to explain this lack of brainpower over and over again, so I resolved to fix it this year. I keep my Kindle in my bag with me at all times, and when I’m able to, I pull it out instead of mindlessly scrolling on my phone. I read while I got a tattoo yesterday. I’ll read at the laundromat. I’ll take myself out to dinner and sit and read by myself for a few hours. Day by day, I am slowly repairing what’s wrong with my attention span. I’m not not scrolling on the apps, but I am trying to be more mindful about it, and it seems to be working. So far, at least.
I set my Goodreads 2025 goal at 30 books, and I’ll definitely pass that in the next few months, which feels good. As for the 17 I’ve read so far, here’s the full list, what I liked and didn’t, and what I would recommend:
Sharp Objects — Gillian Flynn
★★★
I did not enjoy this very much, but I loved watching the show. Would recommend if you like thrillers and insane female protagonists.
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing — Lara Love Hardin
★★★
A memoir about a woman’s journey in and out of incarceration that was hard to read at times, but hopeful and beautiful as well.
From Here to the Great Unknown — Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keogh
★★★★
Felt like reading Riley Keogh talk to her mom in the afterlife. A beautifully written, painful story.
Black Friend: Essays — Ziwe
★★★★
Ziwe is hilarious and this collection of essays made me laugh out loud multiple times. I could have done without the excessive footnotes.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin
★★★★★
My favorite book I’ve read this year, by far. Unbelievable story and characters with so much depth that I felt like I knew them by the end of it. Cried when it was over. Can’t wait to get far enough away from it that I can read it again.
Remarkably Bright Creatures — Shelby Van Pelt
★★★★
A sweet story about an unlikely friendship between an old lady and an octopus.
The Ex Talk — Rachel Lynn Solomon
★★★
I work at an NPR Music radio station, in the same building as an NPR news radio station, so this felt uncomfortably (and hilariously) close to home. Anytime anyone asked what I was reading, I felt compelled to call it “NPR porn.” It was silly, extremely smutty, and very fun to read.
How to End a Love Story — Yulin Kuang
★★★★
I found this because I am a huge fan of Emily Henry, and Yulin Kuang wrote the screenplay for AND will be directing the movie adaptation of Beach Read, one of my favorite novels of all time. I really enjoyed her writing and I loved the characters. It was a really unique and realistic love story with twists and turns that I did not expect.
I Who Have Never Known Men — Jacqueline Harpman
★★★
I think I am the only person I know who does not get this book, and that’s fine with me. I didn’t enjoy reading it — though I know you’re not supposed to enjoy a book like this — but at times I felt like I was wading waist-deep in mud trying to get through it.
Heartburn — Nora Ephron
★★★
I listened to the audiobook for this one because it was read by Meryl Streep. Felt like being on the receiving end of girl gossip for several hours, which was fun at first but then got old pretty quickly.
Actual Air — David Berman
★★★★★
Perfect poetry collection by a perfect writer. I’d read most of the poems in this individually, but I had never sat down and read through it start to finish until now. Made me cry several times.
Bury Your Gays — Chuck Tingle
★★★
This was insane. Recommend if you like thrillers and over-the-top gay pride?
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music — Rob Sheffield
★★★★
I love Rob Sheffield’s writing and have read quite a few of his books. I didn’t think I’d learn anything new or develop any new perspectives on Taylor Swift because, in my mind, I already know everything there is to know about her. I was wrong. This had a lot of insight into her career that I hadn’t considered or known before, and I really enjoyed reading it.
These Precious Days — Ann Patchett
★★★★
Ann Patchett, queen of Nashville. I enjoyed this a lot.
Seven Days in June — Tia Williams
★★
Did not like this at all, really, which was surprising given the average rating on Goodreads is over 4 stars (?). I just didn’t like the characters or the story or the writing.
The God of the Woods — Liz Moore
★★★★
Took me a while to get invested in this. There were so many characters. Once I got about halfway through, though, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. I didn’t love the ending but loved pretty much everything else about it.
Lo Fi — Liz Riggs
★★
I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did. In theory, since the story, characters, city, and industry are so close to me, I SHOULD have loved it, but something felt off about it to me. It felt masturbatory, almost—like the gratuitous mentions of people/places/things/songs extremely specific to Nashville felt over the top, at least to someone who lives here. Maybe I would have liked it more if I didn’t live here and didn’t work in this industry and didn’t frequent nearly every place she wrote about. Someone in a Goodreads review wrote that it read like “Nashville fanfiction,” and that couldn’t be more accurate. It felt like the author was trying to convince me how “Nashville” she is through some aggressive name-dropping in a way that really didn’t work for me. I did think the actual writing was beautiful, though (except for the lack of quotation marks). A lot of sentences stopped me dead in my tracks. I was invested in the story until the end, despite rolling my eyes every other page. I don’t think I actually liked a single character, though.
Here is a shoppable link to all of the books listed above.
If you have a recommendation for me based off of this list, please leave a comment telling me about it! If you disagree with anything I wrote, leave a comment and let’s fight! Tell me about the books you’ve read this year, the ones you love and the ones you hate!