Okay I can't really word it any better than that at the moment and I'm sorry about that, english isn't my main language, but even if it was i think i would still struggle to convey how I feel so my best bet i think is to try to explain myself in a bit more long form way.
I'm 23 years old. Graduated high school in my country when I was 20 and have not read a single book since graduating (until now, that is). It's not like I hated reading in school, but I just could not get myself to actually commit to doing my homework, so 90% of the time I took the easy way out and just read the Sparknotes version to get a quick overview. It's kind of funny because at some point I started to think that it wasn't just because I was lazy, but gradually i started thinking that maybe i'm just not smart enough to read books, analyze literature and that sort of thing.
Now, a couple months ago I was talking to one of my friends, and she was reading a copy of Crime and Punishment. At the time i think i said something along the lines of "Ohhhhh look at you so fancy with the russian literature" because even though I've never been into books I've seen quite a few people acting snobby about Dostojevskij, so I automatically assumed that stuff was just too "high brow" for me. My friend on the other hand just turned to me and started telling me about how fun it was to read and how Raskolnikov's name was pretty damn rad and was just really down to earth about it. She then asked me if I wanted to read it and I said yeah, sure.
Initially I just did it to see if I actually could GET myself to read it through. All i've heard about russian literature is how they go on and on about philosophy and being depressed and what not, so I thought i'd almost have to fight my way through boring paragraphs just to say "Yeah, I've read Dostojevskij" but surprisingly that wasn't the case. Sure, the beginning was a bit rough to get used to, as the book is quite old and written in a way that I at least had to get used to, but the story gripped me quite easily. I loved Raskolnikov's unceasing paranoia and self loathing, and the way the characters around him try their best to get through to this selfish asshole. I loved Porfiry and how he always managed to confirm Raskolnikovs worst thoughts. Saying i loved seeing the family of Marmeladov and Katerina Ivanovna is not exactly right, but it was interesting seeing their family spiral more and more into despair like a car crash you can't look away from. And i quite liked the brief stay of Lebeziatnikov, who goes to show just how much some things have stayed the same, even after over 150 years.
And the best part is that I actually found it all very easy to do, mostly because the story was just so good I actively wanted to keep reading it. No longer as a self imposed challenge, but because I WANTED to know what was going to happen next.
I know this is a very "no duh" moment saying "good book actually GOOD??????" But i think there's a lot of people who's felt like me, where they doubt how smart they are and whether or not they can actually read these classics. In fact one of my friends actually said to me as he saw me read that he didn't think he could do that and that I was "smarter than him" or whatever, and I was shocked because i recognized i had the exact same mindset when I was talking with my friend who gave me the book. Maybe i should tell him about Raskolnikovs cool ass name, maybe that'll get him to read it too.
TLDR: I wanted to challenge myself with starting my reading journey with Crime and Punishment because it had this reputation of being really hard to read, but as i kept reading i got more and more invested because surprise, it's a good book, and I think it has generally installed more confidence in me and the process of reading books