December 4th 2023.
In 2022, Oliver James made an incredible transformation. He started off the year barely able to read, but ended it with a newfound confidence and a viral TikTok post that would make him an overnight celebrity.
"What's up? I can't read," he started the post, and soon he had 273,000 followers, watching as he posted videos of himself slowly working through books to teach himself to read.
It may seem hard to believe, but James was functionally illiterate. He attributes this to ADHD and other learning disabilities he experienced as a young person. He was able to graduate high school without being able to actually read, which he told People Magazine was unsurprising.
It was also in October of 2022 that James told his long-term girlfriend, Anne Halkias, about his inability to read. He thanked her for helping him reveal his challenge, saying "It was my big secret. I kept it hidden from everyone."
James' story has been inspiring others to read books, and it still amazes him. "Every time I get a message from someone who writes, 'Yo, I started reading today because of you,' I tell myself that this is priceless," he said.
Incredibly, James has finished 81 books in 2023 and is aiming to finish a hundred. He estimates he can now read at a third-grade level. His 10-year-old even reads better than him now!
In October, the Barbara Bush Foundation honored James with the National Literacy Honors Award. He was equal parts nervous and excited to read from a teleprompter to a large audience. "I was nervous," he told People Magazine. "But knowing that I was about to do something in front of all those people that I wasn’t very good at was an exciting type of nervousness that I’ll never forget."
James' journey has been a remarkable one, and it's no surprise that it's been an inspiration to many.
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