8 reasons to love the bookish community // ft. community love & wonderful frens

i was feeling particularly grateful for all that the book community has given me today, so i wanted to *attempt* to explain some of the things i’m most grateful for.

(idk man, i’m an INTJ in the mbti test and i don’t get these mushy feelings very often but apparently today i was feeling all the feels.)

i’m verging on two years (probably more??) in this community and this combined with the fact that my personal blog will disappear later this month, i’ve been giving a lot of thought to why i’ve appreciated my time here so deeply. here’s some of what i came up with!

1. we get to talk about, you know, BOOKS. all the time!!

uhh this might be an obvious point but still ,, it’s the greatest thing! having a platform where i can completely geek out all the time over things my irl friends & family don’t care about is so cathartic. 

books have always been important to me, but taking part in this community has helped me realized how crucial reading is to my mental health and how much i love discussing the intricacies of writing & publishing.

2. it is sUCH a kind community.

book twitter might be an exception sometimes  but the bookish community is generally very positive and super thoughtful, which makes it one of the best support networks i’ve ever had <3 i can always count on my friends here to help cheer me up. 💕

3. it spans so many platforms

we have:

• authors who are active on social media!
• photographers on instagram!
• reviewers on blogs & goodreads
• booktubersss!
• fan artists on essentially every single platform!
• a ton of other people involved in the community who might not be creators !

it’s amazing to me how expansive the community is, and how it has grown even in just a couple years. it’s so cool to see such an interconnected community of thousands of nerds.

shoutout to all the amazing tumblr artists out there making Six of Crows fanart. i appreciate you so much, arting the heck out of my fave.

4. sooo many pretty photos on bookstagram

going back to instagram, i miiight have a little huge obsession with bookstagram right now (follow me @asteriajanvier if you want hehe). i love the creative freedom of it and the combination of reading people’s captions and looking at beautiful photographs.

5. there’s always someone i can rant/vent/fangirl with.

with all the different time zones, there’s literally always someone to talk to! say, hypothetically, that i’m up at two in the morning crying over the end of The Book Thief (HYPOTHETICALLY). because we’re a global community, there’ll be someone who’s probably crying over the same book at the same time who i can keyboard slam with. it’s cathartic, i tell you, CATHARTIC.

6. all the book recommendations i could ever need.

my tbr will legitimately last me until i’m eighty. wait no this might actually be a bad thing.

i’ve discovered my favorite books in the world through my blogging friends, including but not limited to:

• The Secret History (arkdKFJKSJF)
• Radio Silence (my heart hurts when i think about this book help)
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (the most Iconic)

these are just a few of the more recent ones, but i think you get the point. i really only read books these days when i see good ratings from my close friends on goodreads (for better or for worse lol). sometimes i even go full trust fall and don’t even read the blurb and just take the recommendation of a friend (really living on the edge here, obviously)

7. FRIENDS FRIENDS FRIENDS

i’ve already kinda touched on this, but i’ve met the most amazing network of bookish friends, mostly through twitter and blogging. they just get me like no one else i’ve ever met. 

 this might just be my particular niche of book blogging, but there is so much diversity, in race, in sexuality, in EVERYTHING, in my little corner of the internet, and i LOVE it. i love hearing different opinions and experiences, and i’ve learned so much from all these people. 

i don’t know that i’ve mentioned this here before, but close friends here in the community helped & supported me so so SO much when i was questioning my sexuality & identity, and for that, i will forever be grateful. i don’t even know how long it would have taken me to come out irl if i hadn’t met the online frens i did.

8. we’re all connected to each other! (separately! in our own homes!)

i mean, not all of us in the community are introverts, but a large part of us are, which is why the fact that we are an internet based community is so great. i like the fact that a lot of our connected is based through writing versus in person (it’s good for my socially anxious self 😅😅)

i think it’s so cool that i’m in contact with people from all over the world of so many backgrounds and identities?? idk it just blows my mind sometimes how the internet connects us even though we might not be able to meet in real life.

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what are your favorite things about the bookish community? have you discovered any of your favorite books through bookish friends? what’s your favorite platform to screech & keyboard slam about books on? 

xo,

madeline