Tag: read

Bookish

Why You Don’t Have Bookish Friends

India

All the time you can find posts of people saying that they don’t feel part of the bookish community, or how they don’t have friends and each time I see this I roll my eyes. Sorry, I do. I’m always left wondering what are you doing to garner friends in the bookish community. Are you expecting people to just “come up to you” on the internet and just be your friend? If so, you need to change your expectations. Also a lot of the friendships that you see happening on the internet did not happen overnight! They took months sometimes years to become what you see on the internet! It’s okay to be jealous, but it’s not okay to let it taint your view of the entire community. As a friend told me, find your tribe. They are there, but they’re just spread out a bit.

In order to have a friend, you have to be a friend. You have to be willing to put in the time to try and foster relationships and you also have to understand that not every person on the internet is meant to be your friend.  Building platonic relationships take just as much work as building romantic relationships. Are you commenting on their content and doing it in such a way that leads to more discussion or is it just a “Love your video! New subscriber!”? Also, understand that it’s easy to get distracted on the internet and that just because it seems like people are ignoring doesn’t mean they are. They might have seen the notification and just forgot to respond to it. That happens! I do it all the time and then it’s like a week later I’m responding. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Sometimes I take a peek at something, but don’t have the time to respond right away and then because the notification is gone I forget about it.

You also can’t expect to be given everything and constantly take from others without giving something in return. That’s toxic. It’s hurtful plain and simple. Also, don’t try to become friends with someone in order to build yourself up. That’s rude. You also have to respect people’s boundaries! If people say they just can’t do it right now, let them have some space to breathe. The internet only shows so much of people’s lives, and sometimes we assume we know more when we really only know a fraction.

I posted a video on my youtube channel about this, that is not nearly as blunt as this post, but I felt like the blog needed some tough love and youtube needed something a little nicer. Feel free to watch! What have you done to build relationships in the book community? What is some of the advice that you have for others? Let’s talk down in the comments! Until next time,

Keep Turning the Pages

India

Bookish

Do I Only Read When I’m Depressed?

India
I haven’t been reading a lot lately, which isn’t a bad thing, but it is different. If you follow me on Instagram (if you don’t you should just click here!) you would have seen a post about me talking about feeling more happy. I have noticed that with that light feeling that I’ve had, I haven’t wanted to sit in my bed all day with the windows closed and read my books. Now I haven’t given up reading at all, I just have not sequestered myself to the pillows. Who knows it might just be because I haven’t started a book in awhile that has excited me. As I looked into why I haven’t been crushing my reading goals lately, I really had to look into myself and my own moods and see what was going on.
The conclusion in my own non scientific experiment was that I was not feeling the depression that was weighing me down in so many things. Now I want to be out and moving around and taking more pictures of books than I want to read them. I still have the desire to read them, but I don’t have the desire to sit still, so I need to use some of those audible credits it sounds like. As I was finding this out about my myself I then started to look at the book community.
A lot of the book community contains people who have titled themselves as introverts, which is fine, and that’s why they enjoy reading so much, but also why they love the book community. It gives them a place to socialize without having to socialize. Basically socializing on their own terms. There has also been a lot of discussion and talks about mental health going on in the book community as of late, which I think is fantastic, but they’re more discussions of people saying that they have a mental health issue and bringing light to that. Other than a chemical imbalance that some people face with their mental health, I want to explore what other reasons why a lot of book people feel down. For me, it was a birth control that spun my mental health all out of wack. If I was titling myself I would call myself an extroverted introvert. I can make conversation with anyone at any time and it doesn’t bother me at all, but I also need that space to be away from people some time.
I also wanted to explore the thought of reading for escapism. I know that I have said that in videos and looking back at that, I’m not even sure if that’s what I really meant to say. I always meant reading for escapism in terms of escaping to some place new, and now I think the new word I was trying to come up with is exploring. I feel like I read to explore new places, but not necessarily to escape from the place I’m at. I love where I’m at in life even with all of the mixed feelings and emotions, but it took time to get there. Sometimes I fear for the book community and the fact that too many people are escaping from life and not dealing with life, but everyone has their journey to get to where they need to be.
So my questions starts to become, do I only read when I’m depressed and how do I read in the same volume when I’m happy?  Or do I need to change my expectations of myself and not put reading pressure on myself. These are some of the questions that I have and I don’t know any of the answers. I know that I need to take it a day at a time and still continue to read what I enjoy and have fun with it. Do you find your mood determines your reading? Until next time,
Keep turning the Pages
India
Bookish, Unboxings

April 2019 Owlcrate Box, The Dark Side

India

It May, so that means that it’s time for me to do the box from the previous month because I can never do these on time!! So without anymore procrastination or delay or talking about absolutely nothing before getting to the items, let’s get to the items. You can also find my unboxing video of the items here, or down below!

The theme for April was The Dark Side and featured some of the same books that other boxes have featured before, so nothing new, but some different items.

First off we got a pair of socks all about Six of Crows featuring artwork by Out of Print from the special edition of the book,  I do love their stuff, and these socks look great!

If we’re doing one Leigh Bardugo series, we’ll do the other and so we have a scarf representing the Darkling from the Grishaverse and designed by Bookmar’d Tattoos

Up next there was a hardcover notebook designed by Stella Bookish Art, and we all know that I love her designs, this time her artwork features a quote inspired by Throne of Glass

We also got a pin banner, so that you can show off all of your enamel pins, or any bookish pins that you might have acquired and designed by Michelle Gray

For the selfie lovers like myself a Vicious inspired phone holder – pop socket- was included in the box and was designed by Hey AtlasCreative

This months enamel pin was inspired by a beaded necklace the main character in The Wicked Saints, Nadya, wears to help her communicate with the gods. It is absolutely beautiful and designed by Hey AtlasCreative. We also got a fabric book map that goes with the book for the month!

Finally for the book! Of course it is an exclusive cover and it’s also signed. It seems like a world wind of a book featuring magic, princes, blood mage, and assassination plans. The Wicked Saints by Emily A Duncan sounds like it is going to be filled with a fast paced adventure filled with magic.

 

It was a fun box that highlighted some dark characters. I wish that we could get some different series represented in some of these boxes because we get the same fandoms all the time and there are plenty of series out there that people would love to see items for, but these were still fantastic. Did anyone else notice that the art prints have disappeared?! I did! What did you think of the box? What was your favorite item? Let me know down in the comments, but until next time,

Keep turning the Pages

India

 

Bookish

1000 Subscriber Giveaway!!

India
1000 Subscriber Giveaway Items!
Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
I don’t know how many times I can say thank you for all of your support and subscribing to my ever changing and growing channel. I still want to do more be more and create more and knowing that I have the support and am still making friends in the community, which really keeps me going. My interests change and stay the same, and I’m trying to bring you all along on all of my changes. Sometimes it is hard to bring you into my life because I don’t know how much you want to see, but let’s be honest when I’m on social media I want to see it all. The dirty, the gritty, the expensive, the cheap, the happy, and the exciting. I’m going to try and bring you more!
For right now, I wanted to bring you a giveaway! It’s going to be a good one!
First let’s start with some bookish merch.
Let’s start with the small stuff. I’ve got a lot of magnetic bookmarks, and so I’m giving away these fantastic “Where the Wild Things Are” bookmarks.
We’ve got a pencil pouch with a quote from William Shakespeare, “Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious”
And a beautiful cream and gold pillow case
Now for the actual book related stuff. I’ve been working on myself lately and loving myself, so I’m giving away a signed copy of Puddin’ by Julie Murphy
And for a little added bonus I’m giving away this Kelly Moore bag, The Riva! It is great for mirrorless cameras and small cameras or a DSLR with a lens attached.
You can find the link for the giveaway here! Good luck! Make sure to check out the video for the rules of entry! Until next time,
Keep Turning the Pages
India
Bookish

Favorite Reads of 2018!!

India

This post is a long time coming and for some reason I just haven’t put it up on my blog. It has been placed on my youtube channel and you can also watch it down below. These books were some of my favorite reads from 2018. I tried to only pick 5 because I read a lot of good books last year and I didn’t just want to gush about all of the books I read during the year. I still kind of cheated though as I made it into two videos. One video for favorites and one video for favorite romance and contemporaries. As someone who self proclaimed as a fantasy reader, I was surprised at the amount of romance and contemporary that I read during 2018, especially towards the end of the year. Anyway, let’s get down to this list, starting with my favorite reads of 2018! None of these books are in any particular order.

My Favorite YA Fantasy books of 2018:

  1.  Three Dark Crowns, Kendare Blake
  2. Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
  3. Tower of Dawn, Sarah J Maas
  4. Kingdom of Ash, Sarah J Maas
  5. An Ember in the Ashes, Sabaa Tahir

A lot of these books I’ve talked about through out the year, and some of them I have reviews up on my youtube channel of. I will link those above, and I talk about some of these books a lot more in the video!

Next up are my favorite my favorite Contemporaries of 2018:

  1. The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang
  2. The Proposal, Jasmine Guillroy
  3. Dumplin, Julie Murphy
  4. Intercepted, Alexa Martin
  5. Curing Doctor Vincent, Renea Mason
  6. Odd One Out, Nic Stone

I kind of cheated on this list and added in a sixth just because I felt like all of these needed to be talked about.

 

What were some of your favorite books of 2018, or maybe you’ve already read some books in 2019 that have blown your mind! Let me know what you’ve been reading because I’m always looking for something new to add to my shelves! Until next time,

Keep Turning the Pages

India