Why I read- an update.

Dear Reader,

as some of you may know this blog kinda switched to a book blog when I posted my why I read blog about 2 years ago. Well, two years is a long time and a girl changes a lot in her teens anyway so I'm here with an updated version. I made that blog because I thought it would inspire my, at the time only 137 loyal fans to start to read. I'm doing it now because two years later I'm still in love with reading, but my love for it has definitely changed form.

I went through this phase of reading back then when it was my life. Like I had friends and stuff but God, I loved my books. I'd try and convince my friends to go to the school library with me at lunch and I'd spend my days sneakily reading pages from my confessions of a shopaholic books under the table when I was supposed to be watching a video about some guys murder from 700 years ago in my history class. Don't get me wrong, those days were great, but I've changed. The books I'm reading have changed. I used to be, as you'll know from my older blogs, an extremely non-cryptic reader. I used to pay no attention to whether I thought the writing was good or the characters where developed. It was all about the best fictional book husbands and the cutest romances. Okay okay, not much has changed with my book husbands- I still love Jake Romano with all my heart, but I'm reading books for different reasons now. 

Reading used to be my passion and now it's my hobby. The blog got some love from the public and I started to feel this crazy pressure to deliver. I was reading 4 books a week not because I wanted to read them but because I wanted to review them. I kept going in and out of these phases where I was so not bothered about the blog or books and then all of a sudden I was small little Issy and I was so into it again, fangirling about whatever novel I had my nose in. 

I went through a massive phase (this is still a phase lol) where I just brought a whole tone of books and bookshelves. I needed every book that was in the ya section, and I really couldn't settle for less. I think as far as phases go I completed this one with distinction. Lunar chronicles? I got em. Shadow hunters? yep. Throne of glass? Duh. The selection? The 5th wave? The shatter me series? Illuminae books? The cruel prince books? ACOTAR? Scythe trilogy? In my shelves, as we speak.  Wayward son, renegade, the red queen. The list literally goes on forever. Have I read all these books? Girl, of course not- I am only human. It also doesn't help that I keep buying them. But nowhere as bad as before.

I think what I realised in the past months is that I'm really just wasting my money if  I don't take time to enjoy a book haha. But seriously, I learned I need to chill and to remember why I love it so much. Books are fudging amazing. And I can back that statement with a billion great recommendations. I honestly think anyone who hasn't read a really good book that they just absolutely loved in their lifetime has really missed out. I can look up from my computer right now and see a whole shelf of brilliant peoples lives work in my bedroom. I've seen videos and read up about writing and publishing books and that ish is hard and long as hell. This is actually one of the reasons I don't let my friends borrow my books haha. I know you probably think it's bad that I don't do that but when you finish a great book and it's yours and you get to keep it, write notes about it, reread it you don't want someone else taking it. Plus my friends don't return them, but thaaaats besides the point haha (I'm looking riiiiight at you Sof). 

People, annoying people, ask me why I don't just sell all my books when I've read them. Why? Because one, I don't know how eBay works and two- hmm I normally say because I'll reread them all one day. (pfft yeah right) I don't know to be honest. I love seeing all the books I've read and remembering what they were about. I guess I've never read a book I didn't like enough to chuck, except a few. Which I have hated so much I literally just chuck- it out the window. 

I love books because they're kind of like people. All the pages basically look the same but something could have completely shifted the entire plot in one of those lines and you have to take the time to read it to know what's really going on between the pages. There is so much depth in those pages and you'll only appreciate it once you explore it. 

However, even after all that random stuff you just read through, the main reason I still love to read is my fictional boyfriends. Bahaha just kidding. Kinda. (Real boyfriend I love you forgive me 😂) No seriously, I think the real reason is that it's my best escape. I probably should make the mature decision not to talk about my private life now I actually have a following on here but, I was never that mature. I love my family but they're flawed, like every other family. Sometimes I deep that I have a better understanding of the characters in my books then my dad will ever have of me and that's a bit shit. But I think that they also allow me to get away from it all. If I'm upset about something I know I should really not care about I look to the strong girls and boys I read about who genuinely go through so much worse and how they represent the people who do the same in real life, and I think it totally grounds me. It makes me smile, laugh, completely dissolve in tears (only the very greatest) and just get the hell out of the place I'm in. I'll always be thankful to some of the authors out there who provided that escape, even if those sons of witches did kill off my favourite character. 

So here we are, two years later telling you the same thing I told you then. 

Go read a goddamn book you lazy swine,

Lots of love,

Issy 

x