There has been a lot of discourse lately on BookTok and Bookstagram about whether audiobooks “count” as reading.

You’ve probably seen the posts.

“I read 100 books this year.”
“Okay, but were they audiobooks or real books?”
“Listening isn’t the same thing.”

And honestly? This conversation is exhausting.

It’s exhausting because it’s gatekeeping.
It’s exhausting because it’s classist and pretentious.
It’s exhausting because it’s ableist.
And it’s exhausting because—for many of us—it’s deeply, painfully personal.

So let me be clear from the start:

Audiobooks are reading. Full stop.

And if that statement makes you uncomfortable, I invite you to sit with why.

The Gatekeeping of “Real” Reading (and the Amnesia Behind It)

At its core, this debate isn’t actually about books.

It’s about who gets to belong.

When people insist that only physical books—or only eye-reading printed text—count as “real reading,” what they’re really doing is drawing a line around legitimacy. They’re deciding whose engagement with stories is valid and whose isn’t.

Gatekeeping often disguises itself as tradition.

“This is how it’s always been.”
“Reading means eyes on a page.”
“Listening is passive.”

But here’s the thing: that version of “always” is historically inaccurate.

Storytelling predates the written word by tens of thousands of years.

Long before bound books, long before printing presses, long before standardized spelling or grammar, humans told stories out loud. Stories were sung, spoken, performed, repeated, and remembered communally. Knowledge, history, morality, identity—all of it was transmitted through voice.

Even when humans did begin recording stories visually, they didn’t do so through alphabetic text alone.

Ancient cultures around the world used pictographic and symbolic storytelling systems:

• Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Minoan iconography
• Aztec codices
• Native American pictographs and oral-symbolic traditions

These systems were not meant to be “read” silently and privately the way modern Western literacy often is. They were interpreted, narrated, explained, and shared aloud. Meaning lived in community, voice, memory, and repetition—not just on a surface.

If anything, insisting that reading must be silent, solitary, and visual is the historical anomaly.

Audiobooks are not a modern corruption of reading.

They are a return to one of humanity’s oldest ways of engaging with story.

Reading Is Not the Same as Decoding

One of the biggest problems with this discourse is the confusion between the process of reading and the act of reading.

Decoding symbols on a page is a mechanical skill.
Engaging with a story is an interpretive act.

And those are not the same thing.

Let’s say we put 50 people in a room.

They all read the same printed book.
In the same language.
At the same time.
Under the same conditions.

If we ask them to summarize the plot, the summaries would look broadly similar. Characters, major events, and outcomes would largely align.

But if we ask them:

• What stayed with you?
• What moment felt most important?
• Which character did you understand most?
• What did this book mean to you?

We would get 50 different answers.

Because reading is not passive absorption.

It is an active, interpretive exchange shaped by:

• Personal history
• Cultural context
• Trauma and memory
• Identity
• Desire
• Fear
• Bias

The meaning of a story is co-created between text and reader.

That process does not disappear because the words enter through sound instead of sight.

When someone listens to an audiobook, they are still:

• Tracking narrative structure
• Interpreting character motivation
• Recognizing themes and symbols
• Making emotional and intellectual connections

That is reading.

If decoding symbols were the defining feature of reading, then speed readers would be “better” readers than slow ones, and rereading would be unnecessary. But anyone who loves literature knows that meaning deepens through engagement—not efficiency.

Audiobooks do not bypass interpretation.

They demand it.

The Classism Hiding in Plain Sight

Let’s talk about access.

Physical books cost money.
Hardcovers cost more.
Special editions cost a lot more.
Quiet, uninterrupted reading time costs privilege.

Not everyone has:

• Disposable income for book hauls
• Space to store physical collections
• Homes that allow for silence
• Schedules that permit long, uninterrupted reading sessions

Audiobooks allow people to read while:

• Commuting
• Working multiple jobs
• Doing household labor
• Caring for children or elders
• Navigating exhaustion

When audiobooks are dismissed, so are the realities of people whose lives don’t resemble aesthetic reading vlogs or curated bookshelves.

That isn’t literary purity.

It’s class blindness.

The Ableism at the Heart of the Debate

This is where the conversation stops being merely annoying and becomes actively harmful.

Many people rely on audiobooks because of:

• Visual impairments
• Migraines
• Dyslexia
• ADHD
• Chronic illness
• Neurological conditions

For them, audiobooks are not a convenience. They are access.

I was a bookworm long before audiobooks were mainstream. Books have always been my past, my present, and my future. As a child, I could read through chaos—my mother blasting reggaeton while vacuuming around me—and disappear entirely into a story.

I loved holding books. Smelling the pages. New or old—it didn’t matter.

That little girl had her world planned out.

Her life would revolve around books.
She would study English.
She would work in publishing.
She would earn her PhD.

And at 34, many of those dreams have been met—or are still in progress.

But they don’t look the way I expected.

Because no one expects to go blind in their early twenties from something as routine as a migraine.

When that happened to me ten years ago, audiobooks were not a preference. They were a lifeline. I embraced them reluctantly, because I was terrified of losing the most important part of my identity: my connection to stories, to language, to the world.

Audiobooks did not make me less of a reader.

They allowed me to remain one.

So when people say audiobooks “don’t count,” what they are really saying—whether they realize it or not—is that some readers don’t count.

Why This Matters for Writers, Too

If you’re a writer, this conversation should concern you even more.

Audiobook listeners are:

• Reading your work
• Recommending your stories
• Supporting your career
• Experiencing your characters and worlds deeply

Many authors now earn a significant portion of their income through audio editions. Narrators bring texture, rhythm, and accessibility to stories—often enhancing emotional resonance rather than diminishing it.

If your story only “counts” when consumed one specific way, that’s not a reader problem.

That’s a craft problem.

Reading Is Relationship, Not Performance

Reading is not a competition.

It’s not a purity test.
It’s not a suffering contest.
It’s not about how your body interacts with text.

Reading is a relationship between a story and a human being.

If someone has read the same 100 titles you have—understood them, carried them, argued with them, loved them—then they have read those books.

Audiobooks do not dilute literature.

They keep it alive.

They return us to our oldest storytelling roots while expanding who gets to participate in literary culture today.

So yes.

Audiobooks are reading.

And anyone who tells you otherwise is more invested in gatekeeping than in stories.

Pull up a chair.

There’s room for all of us.