Under the Influence

In the midst of the Pandemic, like so many others, I was on a quest to find a new hobby. Lucky for me I had a crafter mother that encouraged me to try many different skills, so I was equipped to dabble. I had sewn, quilted, painted, knit, crocheted, and on and on. I remember five days into the pandemic, getting my sewing machine and whipping up cloth masks. We now know how popular that became so I couldn’t have been the only one. I started cooking more, I put puzzles together daily, I developed at-home exercise routines, I devoured podcasts, I played Animal Crossing like my life depended on it, and I started reading for the first time since college.  

While several diversions affixed themselves to me, reading really took over everything. It was a getaway from the reality we were all living at the time. I started with reading books I previously loved; like the dystopian series’ The Hunger Games and The Giver. Next, with racial unrest at the time, I was reading things like White Fragility, Me and White Supremacy, and How to be an Antiracist. The weight of those works led me to seek lighter topics in the form of comedic autobiographies and inspired me to think deeper with the vulnerable and relatable works of Brene Brown. With all of this thought provoking literary consumption, I wanted to find ways to discuss what I was taking in. Of course, we were all isolated and I wasn’t about to use a phone and call someone. Who does that? 

What’s a girl to do but turn to the ever-engaging (i.e. addictive) world that is social media? There I discovered my new best friend “Bookstagram.” It was such a comfy-cozy way to escape both the chaos and the monotony of the time. I was instantly hooked. I would scroll through posts, taking in the beautifully staged photos with books as the focal point that also included lushly crafted captions. I entered the comment sections to discover the friendly discourse I was seeking. Here was a place to “talk books.” I had found my people.

After a time on the platform, I started to see the same new release being shared across multiple posts. I noticed huge hauls of recently purchased books displayed in beautiful arrangements. I would take note of how many novels were being gobbled up in a month by readers. I learned about audiobook apps and the settings that allowed one to speed up the output. People were setting goals, completing challenges and writing reviews at such a rapid pace. I was influenced to go from being a passive reader to a competitive one before I even knew what was happening. I was invested in this. I went from reading maybe 2 books per year to 25 books in 2020. The following year, I read 81. In 2022, I read 189 books. This was my peak year. I was going hard for this bookish lifestyle. 

But by 2023, I was starting to get burnt out. I would find myself in a cloud of “fear of missing out” if I couldn’t get my hands on a book that appeared everyone was reading. I started feeling like people were making unnecessary purchases of books just to take the perfect photo. I was also really terrible at crafting aesthetic posts and found myself spending absorbent amounts of time trying to get it right just to look like an amateur. All of that said, my biggest “ick” was that I was scrambling to read books as fast as possible at the cost of not really enjoying the books I was reading. I essentially ruined it for myself for a time there. I needed to unlearn the hustle I had constructed.  

So with the world being open again, I had found my way to book clubs. This meant I was back in person with other humans. Book club discussions removed a lot of the competition because we were really only talking about one book at a time. This was a fine juxtaposition to scrolling endless content. Additionally, I found with less screen time, I chose books on my own terms. I was less likely to make selections based on influence. Also, I was back to work with less time on my hands to be so hyperfixated.   

All of this to say, I am still very much an avid reader. I do still follow some favorite “Bookstagrammers” and I still track how many books I read in a year (102 for 2025!), but I have unlearned the need to follow the herd as much as before. I now read more based on vibes. I don’t finish books if I am not enjoying myself, regardless of how many people love them. I still get caught up in new releases, but usually they are authors I have read and have loved. I am very much less likely to pick up a book just because everyone is reading it. I have unlearned the obsession, but continue to love the joy of reading.

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Erin is a wife and a mother of three children, a crochet fiber artist and an avid reader of unabashedly spicy romance. She just completed her 15th year as a special education teacher. She’s dabbled in writing fan fiction and would like to explore writing more.

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