@lobaa@hexbear.net

While you are getting the hang of it, go put your phone away. Make sure you are reading in a place that is quiet and free of distractions.

And the fact I'm noticeably behind my peers in amount of books read makes me feel like I don't belong.

First off, this is probably not true. Reading is down to its lowest rate since 1992. And this is the results from the national report card website:

How to learn to love readings books

Start reading fantasy, science fiction, romance, drama, and comedy interspersed with your actual reading assignments for class. To love reading, you have to enjoy the subject.

get immersed or enter flow state or whatever, and also retain information? Is it some kind of talent or superpower?

Use SQ4R, it is a form of active reading and study strategy designed to improve comprehension and retention of text-based information. The acronym stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Relate (or Record), and Review. Whether you are reading in physical or digital format read actively and be sure to use a highlighter or pencil to take notes. When you are reading for literature, philosophy and drama be sure to annotate and tag things that stick out to you. Pay attention in class, because often the instructor will tell you what to look for. Read about the author, their life, their beliefs, and the time they lived in to help you have a clearer picture about why they wrote what they wrote. You can also read with an eye towards marxist ideas. Marxist analysis can be used to make sense of literature. It might not work as well with say, Shakespeare; but there were artists and writers that were marxists or had specific themes of class rule and worker struggles. You can also analyze things from a feminist lens, or other ideologies.

If you read digital copies or PDFs, download and install hypothes.is. It is an annotation tool that lives in your browser and lets you annotate everything. I used it all of grad school and it saved my life. You can highlight, annotate (what you should be doing the most) and take page notes (connected to the document or webpage, but not a specific sentence); you can also tag comments to help you organize your comments into parts for your essay and homework assignments.