Is it normal to start reading a book but then suddenly realize that you have no idea what's going on in the plot because you have been reading the words but ignoring their meaning?

https://lemmy.world/post/74790

Is it normal to start reading a book but then suddenly realize that you have no idea what's going on in the plot because you have been reading the words but ignoring their meaning? - Lemmy.world

Happens way too often to me.

This is the only way I can read fiction, I can't connect the words to build a story, also I'm bad with names so I have trouble keeping character stories straight in my mind. For non fiction on technical articles I do not have an issue.
I forget character names too. The X-Ray feature on many Kindle books helps a lot with that. You can just press a character’s name and check back previous references to them.