Thoughts on Thursday: How I’ve Changed As A Reader

How I’ve Changed As A Reader

Since I started blogging, a lot about my life has changed. There are more deadlines, more stresses, more responsibilities, less time, less energy and at times it seems less supporters.

But those are only the negatives. It is so easy to get caught up in the negatives, but reading is a journey and there are always ups and downs. With blogging, we can stress out over our slumps and deadlines, feeling like we aren’t “keeping up” with everything like we should.

When I started blogging I had no idea what I was doing, and I followed suit of most of the blogs I discovered: I tried to make myself a one-genre blog. I quickly found I didn’t like being stuck only reading YA. It got old quickly, especially the tropes.

I decided I wanted to branch out. I wanted to read what I wanted to read. That’s not unreasonable, is it? I didn’t want to be tied to only one genre and feel obligated to read only that genre and ignore all these other great reads because I didn’t have time for them. What’s the point in that?

When I first started, I was very anti-fantasy. I am still kind of anti-sci-fi. I’ve never liked sci-fi. But in the beginning I didn’t like fantasy much either, and I have slowly come around to it in these last (almost) three years.

I also completely broadened my range of reading. I no longer read books that are specifically targeted toward my age group. I read everything from children’s to adult fiction to the good ol’ classics. At first I thought working down the age ladder into children’s was going to hurt my blog traffic and it would turn away the readers I’d already established.

I was so wrong. SO wrong. Now I am glad that I have a fuller offering to share with viewers. I feel so…versatile. I do every once in a while go on a kick where I read the same genre for a couple of reviews in a row, which I know I’ve done with middle grades several times. Middle grades are just awesome!

Last year I tried doing a monthly Reviews by Genre thing from September to April and it failed horribly. It was inspired by that idea of wanting to genre binge read. There were about three months where I had read and reviewed multiple books during that whole time span. It was less than 50% success rate for what I intended. Obviously I decided to never do that again.

My reading habits have changed, and I as a reader have changed. I am more appreciative of books that feature connections and relationships between people more so than anything else. I find that I can identify and take more value from those types of reads than some of the others.

I have broadened my reading horizons since starting on this blogging journey, and I hope it continues. One new thing I want to really try hard to maintain and utilize fully is a TBR jar. There are so many cute ones out there, like Jessi’s on Etsy. I want to take the plunge and just do it.

 

What do you think? How have you changed as a reader since starting your blog?

Do you review any genre, or only specific genres?

Do you read books outside of the genres you review?