Welcome to Book Social Media

2025 has barely started and already part of my country is on fire while another part -the part I’m in - is buried under a foot of snow. In my personal life, things have been crazier than ever - mostly good. I was also sick much of last week with a bad cold (thankfully it wasn’t COVID, I tested negative) and finding time to relax has been tough.

I’d say I need a vacation, but I just got back from my winter break (my work closes the last week of the year since so many people take off and not much can get done). So, no vacations for a while. How do I deal with the negativity in the world right now without being able to run off?

Reading.

Since roughly 2022, I have set aside time to read from a book (or two) everyday. I chose to mostly read physical books with the occasional digital or audiobook thrown in because then I have a physical item on my nightstand taunting me to not forget about it. I have a bad habit of forgetting about digital and audiobooks I’ve downloaded. I also am trying to keep up with my ability to actually read words (I struggled with reading for a long time) and analyze text. I also enjoy learning new things in nonfiction books.

To track my books, I joined GoodReads during the pandemic. In addition to helping me keep up with reading, it also provides me with a steady stream of free books in the form of their giveaways. Even though I keep winning these free books, I continue to occasionally hit up my local used/independent bookstore and Barnes and Noble. So now I have a huge TBR (to be read) pile next to my bed and lining one of my bookshelves. The other bookshelves showcase the books I’ve conquered finished. Some of the books I finish end up going to my sibling or mother (and my dad while he was still with us), some end up in one of the local little libraries (usually the advanced reader copies I wasn’t thrilled with), and some are traded in at my local used bookstore (in order to buy more books).

After completing a book, I like to go through what other readers have said. What they liked or didn’t like about the book and what they also recommend reading.

This is how I first stumbled upon the remains of BookTube.

BookTube is the part of YouTube dedicated to, what else, books! Mostly comprised of readers (there are some writers and publishers mixed in) and their reading lists. Prior to watching BookTube and joining GoodReads, I wasn’t super interested in connecting with other readers (writers yes, reader shrug). I felt that my reading was more of a private activity and would only provide reviews and recommendations on books my writer friends had written (and I had read).

I still think of my reading as a private activity and I don’t feel like my reading choices say all that much about me. Sure I have preferences - romance is okay in small doses, cozy mysteries are always a delight - but the books I read and am interested in are all over the place. 

However, I have noticed that some people on social have made reading their entire personality.

Now, I’m sure most of the reading “aesthetic” floating around online comes from a genuine love of books and stories. There is no denying that, especially when some of the BookTubers are spreading information about book bans. The funny skits are entertaining and I enjoy getting good book recommendations.

What I’m not enjoying is the gamification, criticism, and superiority complexes the overall book community is currently tearing itself over.

Enter stage left BookTok.

BookTok is BookTube with shorter video times and a younger audience. One might say it’s cesspool of the battle of the generations with Gen Z leading the charge on TikTok and the older generations still preferring the longer videos of YouTube. BookTok is a natural evolution in the current ongoing social media shifts. It’s easy to go viral and take things wildly out of context with the limited amount of time per video - like Twitter before it became X or Vine. 

Pared with GoodReads and an unexpected pandemic keeping everyone home for over a year, BookTok has made “reading cool again”. There are tons of videos providing reviews, recommendations, analysis, book hauls, and character studies.

Wait…book hauls?

Yeah, I guess some BookTokers and BookTubers are getting famous for how many books they have gotten their hands on (usually bought) and how excited they are to read them. Similar to clothing hauls from thrift stores or cheap online retailers like Temu (ugh!), book hauls are somewhat seen as a status symbol for having extra cash and intelligence for how many books a person owns. I’m a little fuzzy on how many books these influencers actually read, but they are buying tens to hundreds of books at one time to show their audiences.

At least the authors get paid (as long as they aren’t used or second hand).

GoodReads has made it possible for readers to easily share with each other their read count. Every year, GoodReads allows readers to set a goal for how many books they hope to read. At my most ambitious, I went for 50 books in one year. This year I opted for 30 because my goal of 40 for last year was tough and I have a few really big reads (between 500-1000 pages) I want to try this year. The people putting over 50 books are impressive. I’m baffled by the people who want to read more than 100. Clearly they read a lot faster than me (I’m a notoriously slow reader).

This massive amount of reading is reflected in the posting schedule for BookTok.

To keep the algorithm happy, YouTubers and TikTok creators have to constantly be producing content. This massive workload is one of the many reasons I never want to be an online content creator (my online stuff is for me and I am uninterested in going viral). This has also led to people accusing BookTok creators of not actually reading the books they are reviewing and promoting or that these influencers are only picking “easy” books to read.

I don’t know what makes a book “easy”, but the biggest targets of these critiques are influencers promoting romance, fantasy, the combined genre of romansy (the words romance and fantasy squished together), historical fiction with an emphasis on romance, and cozies. As a reader of cozy mystery, I take umbridge to this. However, I also can’t help noticing that these genres (and combined genre) are geared towards young women.

Oh boy, do we have a new can of worms to open.

Now, I admit that I’m not a fan of a lot of the most criticized authors. Sarah J. Maas and Colleen Hoover book descriptions make me cringe. But I will not yuck someone else’s yum. They clearly have fans for a reason. Even if I think they aren’t great (and at times deeply disturbing), that doesn’t mean I should knock down someone who enjoys these stories. After all, I have my schlock that I like to read and would never consider “high art” (eyes my Uglies, Pretties, and Specials books from my teen years that have been getting some heat lately).

I won’t even knock the people going out of their way for “spicy” books. I will question the choice to make some of the cover art look like the book is appropriate for people under the age of 16, but I won’t knock the people reading these books. They help satisfy an escape fantasy for the readers. I do not enjoy sex or “spice” in my books - the use of the word spice instead of sex is due to censorship on YouTube and TikTok to create an advertiser friendly environment (someday soon, I hope linguist scholars come out with a series of studies about language shifts around this type of censorship and the effects on language overall). I tend to skip over those scenes if they pop up. Other people are into it. 

And that’s okay.

The amount of hate outside of valid criticism is obnoxious. I admit I enjoy listening to valid criticism with a good analysis of text, but I don’t enjoy listening to people saying that a book is simply “trash” because it’s not their preferred genre. 

No one is a superior reader because they only read the “classic”; those books are  mostly written by dead white guys anyway so the classification is relative. And no one is a “fake reader” because they only read “spice”. People are allowed to like what they like. People are allowed to provide criticism without name calling or judgement. 

Stop telling young women and teenage girls that the stuff they like is “bad”. Their taste is still growing and changing. For all you know, the next Austen or Brontë or Plath or Morrison is mixed in with Maas and Hoover.

I’m not even going to get in to it with some of the other big controversies going around. The book tracker Fantasy is having some interesting bugs with its AI interface and the woman who said that there were too many words on book pages are not topics I have enough information on to form an informed opinion. Also, GoodReads seems to have started a new badge system for when people read popular books in certain categories, further adding to the gamification of reading, which is a thing I guess.

It’s no one’s business what I am reading. If someone wants to share or vlog about their favorite books or current reads, more power to them. Healthy and valid criticism is fine. Unrelenting hate is not. Reading shouldn’t be treated as status symbol - though there are decent arguments as to why it inherently is - and “spicy” books aren’t necessarily bad (see the Bible for details).

I am a reader and by virtue of you reading this blog, so are you. Enjoy the “classics”, learn something new, be political, or try a new genre. You never know what gems you might find.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you like hearing from me. 

Until next week.

Welcome to an Unexpected Accomplishment in 2022

Over the past few years - at least since I joined GoodReads - I’ve included a blog post about my reading habits over the course of the previous year. Typically, I included a review of a few of the books and a bunch of recommendations. I would try to read one book or more than the previous year.

2022 started similar. I set a goal to read one more book than 2021 on January 1st, 2022. I was so excited, that I picked up my first book of the year (well downloaded it - it was a digital book) and started reading. The book was on self publishing by a friend in one of my writer’s groups (Hank Quense’s Self Publish a Book in 10 Steps). He had asked a few of us to read the recently released book and provide feedback - which I did.

I quickly finished the first book and dove right into the second, followed closely by a third and forth. Occasionally, I would be reading 2-3 books at a time (I do this to give myself a “break” from books I find emotionally draining or difficult to read).

Now I am not a fast reader. The stack of books in my “to read” pile continues to grow and outpace my reading ability. I envy the TikTok posters and YouTubers who can post a new book review a week. 

I just can’t do that.

What I did end up doing through 2022, was read from one book (print, digital, graph, comic, poetry, and short story collection) every day. Sometimes I was only able to read a page or two. A couple of days I could breeze through an entire poetry collection in one sitting (it helped that I was on a plane and had nothing better to do).

I didn’t even do this on purpose at first. I only noticed at some point in April that I had read every day in 2022. I thought to myself that it was an unusual thing for me to do. Which lead me to wanting to see how long I could keep up reading every single day. By September, I was determined to keep up the pace to December 31st.

New Years Eve came. I didn’t go out, staying home with my cat and finishing my annual reread of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. As I closed the 41st book of 2022, I felt a huge wave of accomplishment. I’d read every single day in 2022.

This was big for me. I was never a big reader as a kid - it was a difficult activity for me to do. I think I actually read more as an adult than I did as a child. Maybe it’s because I’m reading for my own pleasure than for some boring assignment for school. However, 2022 was the first year that I had actively dedicate so much time to reading.

Though I may have occasionally stayed up reading a little too late, I think this unexpected accomplishment was really good for me. I learned a lot, enjoyed some new adventures, and bonded with friends over what we were currently reading. The ritual (usually right before bed) was calming and may have given me some interesting dreams.

Overall, I recommend fitting in 10-15 minutes a day to read a little. It doesn’t matter what kind of book you’re reading (you saw my eclectic list) or if it’s in print or a digital download. What matters is that you enjoy yourself.

I am currently still taking the time to read a little each day, though I don’t know if I’ll do another year of reading each day. I don’t want to commit and put pressure on myself that could add stress. Instead I want this to become a part of my nightly routine to help me get ready for bed. I could always use better quality sleep.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Books of 2021

 I had a conversation last night with a friend of mine. She asked me what my favorite books were. That's a tough answer as it varies from moment to moment and genre to genre. We ended up talking a lot about books in the fantasy and science fiction genres with a heavy lean towards queer and LGBTQ+ narratives - likely helped by the fact that I'm currently reading Stina Leicht's science fiction and very queer Persephone Station.

The cover art is amazing for this book!

Growing up my book list tended to be comprised of cozy mysteries and most things written by Agatha Christie. There were a few fantasy books here and there (naturally I was big into Harry Potter - though I am currently greatly displeased with the author). My family also seemed to favor mysteries and I ended up with a whole collection of Nancy Drew books and the "Cat Who" series. 

With few exceptions, it wasn't until high school and college that I began to branch out and read other genres. While in Japan at 11, I read Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series since they were a few of the only English books in my aunt and uncle's home. In high school, I received my first science fiction books with Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series (I did not read Extras) and branched out to the fantasy series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (the first few books are great - I don't know what happened in books five and six, but I was too invested by that point not to finish them) by Michael Scott. I even picked up the mid-grade Disney series The Kingdome Keepers by Ridley Pearson.

The only genre I can't seem to get into is Romance. 

I'm fairly certain it's because Romance as a genre relies on trope (all genres have them stop groaning) that I don't enjoy. Lack of communication skills, sappy situations, and important information from people isn't how I like my drama to unroll. 

That's not to say I don't like romance or pairings in my stories. When done well, I love a nice sweet romance. I just want other outside factors to play a roll - like a dragon, scary ghost, or social issues that need to be confronted (*cough* LGBTQ+ *cough*). 

This is just a sampling of the books I like to read and doesn't include my (extensive) manga, graphic novel, or poetry collection. I've collected Astrix comics since I was a little kid and my collection continues to grow.  Yu Yu Hakusho and Fruits Basket (see I do read some Romance) were my jam in high school. In college is was Black Cat and Ronin Kenshin. Now, I've included the works of Junji Ito to my shelf, right next My Brother's Husband and Another. 

My poetry collection is a monster unto itself and I find that I like modern and traditionally studied poets.

The books I read in 2021 reflected my eclectic taste in literature. Some how, in the stressful 12 months that are currently a blur in my mind, I found the time to read 34 books - surpassing my goal of 32. This is 3 more books than 2020.

The books I read consisted of several Goodreads giveaways (mostly non-fiction, but there was a very long horror novel in there somewhere), a poetry collection that featured one of my poems (it needed editing), several graphic novels I found at used books stores, a lot of poetry, a novella that I beta-read for a friend (and I plan on rereading this year), a short novel about ghosts at one of my favorite railroad museums, a couple of classics, and one book about birds with lots of swear words (this one was a lot of fun to read before going hiking in the Shenandoah).

Some standouts from last year include: 

• Harpyness is Only Skin Deep, Hazelhearth Hires Heroes, and Love, Death, or Mermaid all by my friend D. H. Willison. His books and series, Tales of Arvia, are a lot of fun. They're episodic D'n'D style adventures that are engaging and funny. And guess what! He now has a merch store. Go check it out.
• Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas - probably my favorite read of 2021 this book is queer, Hispanic, and takes place around El Día De Los Muertos. It has ghosts, murder, mystery, fantasy, and (gasp) a great teenage romance. I highly recommend it.
• Your Corner Dark by Desmond Hall - a YA novel that takes place on Jamaica and deals with the struggles of poverty, racism, and gangs. 
• Living in Data: A Citizen's Guide to a Better Information Future by Jer Thorp - a mixed back of Thorp's incredible career, how to visualize data, and understanding how data shapes our world. I really liked it.
• Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans which was robbed of it's Goodreads award for best poetry of 2021.
• I am The Rage: A Black Poetry Collection by Martina McGowan.
• Doggolescence: Poems by Kyra The Staffy by Kyra The Staffy and her mama Rachel Oates - I bought this one because I like the YouTuber Rachel Oats and she ran into some trouble when another YouTuber couldn't handle the (very valid) criticism Rachel gave them. I wasn't expecting much, but found that I really liked reading poetry from a dog's point of view. 
• Some Things I Still Can't Tell You: Poems by Misha Collins - actor Misha Collins released a poetry collect? Why yes, I will be adding it to my collection. Fans of the actor will enjoy his poetry - that I can guarantee.

The above list is only a sample of the books I read. 

One of my goals for 2022 is to read 35 books (one more than 2021). I've already mentioned that I'm knee deep in Persephone Station, but I've also started Self-publish a Book in 10 Steps by Hank Quense who is a member of my writer's group in New Jersey. I received a copy in exchange for a review (which I'm happy to provide). 

I have a huge stack of books that need to be read next to my bed - not including all of the books recommended to me by my friend last night. Some are carry over books from last year I haven't gotten to. Some are books that have been in my "to read" pile for multiple years. 

Maybe this year, I can make a decent dent in the stake (before obtaining more books) and surpass my 35 book goal.

Happy 2022 everyone! May you find peace and joy in the new year.