My Bookish Quirks

Everyone has their quirks.

I personally have a number silly habits when it comes to reading and blog-hopping that I thought would be fun to share: 

WHEN BLOG-HOPPING

I GET TOO SHY TO COMMENT

I’m a pretty shy person in real life. I rarely go out of my way to talk to strangers and get caught off-guard when random people approach me. You’d think that with the anonymity of the internet and luxury of time to think about what I want to say before saying it, commenting on other blogs would be easy. Those things do make it easier to converse with people online, but that doesn’t stop me from second guessing myself before I comment on a post.

Am I bothering this person by commenting?

Do they care about what I have to say?

Was this a rhetorical post? 

These are the thoughts that race through my mind when deciding whether to hit the “send” button. It gets ridiculous when I decide to not comment on someone’s post because I recently commented on another one of their posts and don’t want to be a nuisance 🤦🏻‍♀️.

I DON’T COMMENT BECAUSE IT’S BEEN SAID BEFORE

This quirk kind of stems from the previous one.

Most bloggers would insist that any reply to their posts is appreciated. However, sometimes it feels like it would be redundant to comment my thoughts on a post when someone has voiced the same thing or something similar before. I get shy to comment in these situations because I don’t want it to seem like I didn’t take the time to think of a genuine response or I just copied and pasted another comment without reading the post. Instead, I usually leave my response to a “like” which definitely isn’t the most thoughtful feedback.

You can’t win when you overthink.

I GET SHY TO ADD PEOPLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA EVEN THOUGH THEY’VE DISPLAYED THEIR ACCOUNTS ON THEIR BLOG FOR THAT PURPOSE

*sigh*. I don’t even know how to justify this quirk except by reiterating how shy of a human I am and emphasizing my annoying tendency to overthink the most trivial things 😩.

WHEN READING

I ONLY LIKE TO READ ONE BOOK AT A TIME

Don’t let my “Currently Reading” shelf on Goodreads fool you. Even though it may show that I’m reading two or three books at the moment, I’m only ever actually reading one. I don’t like jumping from story to story and having to constantly reorient myself to where I left off in different books. It’s easier and more enjoyable for me to start and finish a book ASAP without the distractions of another narrative.

As for my “Currently Reading” shelf, the extra books are there because I started them at one point and they remain there in the hopes that I’ll return to them and complete them in the near future. Wistful thinking.

I MUST BINGE READ SERIES

If I read and enjoy the first book in a series, you can bet your butt that I’m not going to be reading anything else until I finish that series. The reason for this is probably because most books in series end in cliffhangers, and I can’t leave it at that! Even when a book doesn’t end in a cliffhanger per se, my yearning to uncover all the mysteries of the overarching plot is usually incentive enough for me to pick up the next book.

It’s a sad day when I discover that I’ve read the first book in a series that isn’t complete yet 💔.

I AM A TERRIBLE MOOD READER THAT RARELY READS BOOKS FROM MY “FAVORITE GENRE”

This quirk is pretty self-explanatory. Although I’m constantly screaming at people that Science Fiction is my favorite genre, I tend to read one science fiction book for every twenty contemporaries. I mentioned this briefly in my review for—probably my favorite science fiction book ever—Dark Matter. Reading light-hearted YA books in between more serious science fiction books prevents my brain from short-circuiting and also provides me with my fill of ✨fluff✨.

BONUS/OLD QUIRK

I USED TO READ THE LAST PAGE/CHAPTER OF A BOOK WHEN DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT I WANTED TO READ IT

I know what you’re thinking, “spoilers alert!” But, often times, reading the last page or chapter of a book made me curious as to what happened previously in the story for it to lead up to that point. By previewing the end of the book, I was able to skip the tedious exposition in the beginning of books and fairly size up how much I’ll enjoy a book.

How about you? Do you have any bookish quirks? What are they? Can you relate to any of mine? Let me know 😊. Don’t be shy to comment ha ha ha…*cricket*

18 thoughts on “My Bookish Quirks”

  2. I can relate to almost all of the points that you mentioned! I always find it so difficult with commenting because I always think what I say never makes sense haha! Great post 😊

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    1. I’m glad we’re in the same boat! That’s another reason why I’m apprehensive to comment. If it makes you feel better, I totally understood your comment haha. Thank you 🤗!

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    1. I totally get you! If it makes you feel better, from what I gather from the previous replies to this post, you’re not the only one who gets anxious when commenting 😁. Thank you for commenting haha 💓.

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  4. When I first started blogging, I was so shy as well! I barely commented and when I did, I always wondered if I wasn’t being annoying or.. sounded ignorant in any way.. I doubted myself over and over again until I just.. got over it, I guess?
    I simply realized that I started my blog to connect with other bookworms, so I just figured those book bloggers kind of had the same motivation I did. Which pretty much equals wanting people to comment and.. well, voila. I’m commenting! [Honestly, it’s gotten so bad that I sometimes end up posting a comment the length of a blog post because I simply cannot shut up anymore. Oops.]

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    1. That’s a good point to keep in mind! I’m finding out as well that the more I comment, the less foreboding it seems. I guess I just need to desensitize myself to this whole thing until I get to the point where I’m replying with whole posts like you 😂.
      Thanks for your comment, Kathy 😁!

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  5. Awww I love when you share personal posts like this one Belle! ❤️ I too used to read the last few pages of a book. Sometimes I’d read the first chapter and then do that… just to make sure I wanted to continue, hahaha. Now though I don’t do it because my mind fills in what probably happened and so I would dnf the book. (I’m so odd, right?!)

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  7. It does take a while to get used to commenting! But I think your comment on my post was lovely. I used to overthink it as well and then I started mostly ignoring the other comments so that I could just say my honest thoughts (cos if I looked I worried I was repetitive- I’m an overthinker too lol 😉 ) And yeah I read one book at a time and think binge reading series is *so much better* than waiting between books. And I am absolutely a mood reader too! Awesome post- I really relate to it!

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    1. Aww, thank you haha. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has felt this way about commenting.
      Right! It’s too confusing reading more than one book at a time and binge reading is so rewarding!
      High five to mood readers 👋🏼! Monthly TBRs are beyond me 😅.
      Thanks for your comment! I’m glad you could relate to this post 🙂.

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