The 10 Stages of Being a Newbie on Bookstagram // Aka an Emotional Rollercoaster!

Guys, for the longest time, I was totally against getting an Instagram account and joining the Bookstagram community.

I have enough social media to contend with already, I said.
When will I even have enough time to take my own pictures anyway, I said.

But about 6 months ago I caved, and oh boy, I have been utterly enraptured since!!!

I check in on the app AT LEAST once a day to stare at all the pretty shiny things on there, and wow, looking at everyone’s accounts makes me feel so inspired.

Learning how to use, cope, and post on this site has actually felt like a real journey, which is kind of a weird thing to say about something that is essentially a social networking platform! However, I have a feeling a lot of you will:

a) empathise with my struggles
b) feel a little less alone by reading them or
c) find them highly amusing.

…and that’s why I’m bringing this post to you today! So without further ado, here are the 10 stages of being a newbie on Bookstagram from yours truly!

5 YA Tropes that Make Me Feel Old (PLEASE BRING AID AND COOKIES)

So you guys know that I LOVE YA. I live and breathe those hormone filled, perfectly tormented souls who feel everything three times as hard as the rest of the world, and I know I always will.

But the thing is, as a YA reader, I have always been a teenager reading about teenagers.

Now, I’m 24 years of age and I have to face the facts that I am DOING THE ADULTING THING. WHICH IS WEIRD. I still consider myself a ‘young adult’, as I kind of feel this bracket continues to about the age of 25, (wait a minute, that’s only a year away, gulp) but I’ve certainly grown older and wiser, my views have expanded, and my book tastes have evolved.

I feel so incredibly lucky to be living in a time where I have access to talented YA authors whose stories have mass appeal. YA is not just for teenagers folks, it’s for everyone, and I will defend that to the depts of Mordor.

But now that I’m older, I do sometimes come across tropes/storylines, or certain scenes in YA books that make me feel, well, kinda old.*

Thoughts on Returning to Blogging and My (Hopefully) Epic Comeback!

Hello bloggers! Welcome! Pull up a chair. Can I get you a drink? It’s been so long since we had a proper catch up, after all.

You may be wondering why after a hiatus of almost a year, a couple of book reviews suddenly popped into your inbox within the last month with no warning or explanation. I imagine you must have a lot of questions. I always told myself I would never be one of those bloggers who disappeared without a word, but the truth is I never made a conscious decision to take a break. So, where did I go and why? Let everything be revealedddd!!

Pop Culture & Mental Health: Fiction vs Reality

Hello, everyone! This week is mental health awareness week run by the Mental Health Foundation. As this is an area I’m really passionate about both personally and as a psychology student, to do my bit I’ve decided to run a blog feature where I and guest bloggers talk about mental health related topics paired with books and/or blogging to help raise awareness. 🙂 Today I’m welcoming Hattie to the blog!

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Hello, all! My name’s Hattie, and I’m usually found writing over at The Anxious Girl’s Guide to Dating, my advice blog. I am so honored to be taking part in Blogs of a Bookaholic’s mental health week. As a fellow tea-drinker and book lover, I’m thrilled to be here. Becky is seriously so lovely, right? And while I’m a huge fan of books in general, I’m also a huge fan of open dialogue about mental health soo I think I’ve found my blogging soulmate.

Anxiety has been a constant companion of mine since childhood and depression likes to pop his head in the door every once in a while too. Mental health is one of those interesting topics that seems to be everywhere and yet still is a challenge for a lot of people to talk about. For me, my anxiety reached a tipping point when I tried to start dating in my late teens (then early twenties, then mid-twenties…I was a late bloomer). 

Things We’re Tired of Seeing in Books About Mental Health

Hello, everyone! This week is mental health awareness week run by the Mental Health Foundation. As this is an area I’m really passionate about both personally and as a psychology student, to do my bit I’ve decided to run a blog feature where I and guest bloggers talk about mental health related topics paired with books and/or blogging to help raise awareness. 🙂 Today I’m welcoming Leah to the blog!

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Hi readers of Becky’s blog, my name is Leah and I’m usually found hanging out over at Perks of Being a Bookworm, thank you, Becky for letting me guest on your blog today!

As you might have noticed, this week Becky has been featuring lots of bloggers talking about various different topics within mental health for Mental Health Awareness Week, being someone who has been mentally unwell on several occasions I do love coming across books that feature mental health as a subject. You know how it is, it’s great to see yourself in the mediums you consume. It helps when you feel you belong and there are loads of great books that deal with mental health fabulously. However, there are also a lot of tropes that I, for one, am very bored of seeing, so here is a plea to writers everywhere, please avoid the following things!

Mental Health & the Importance of Reading

Hello, everyone! This week is mental health awareness week run by the Mental Health Foundation. As this is an area I’m really passionate about both personally and as a psychology student, to do my bit I’ve decided to run a blog feature where I and guest bloggers talk about mental health related topics paired with books and/or blogging to help raise awareness. 🙂 Today I’m welcoming Charlotte to the blog!

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Hello everyone, I’m Charlotte and normally I can be found ranting and raving over at Miscrawl about books and life!

Oh mental health, how to write about thee? After much thought, I realized that the best way would be to (very loosely) tell my own story. Strap yourselves in; there be talk of depression and books from here on in.

I’ve always loved books and I’ve always loved reading.

Coming from a bookish family, I learnt to read at a young age and I was never one of those children that needed entertaining with fantastical games or expensive trips out. I was perfectly content to be left alone in a quiet room with a book, my imagination running wild. I was the stereotypical image of a slightly geeky, somewhat socially inept kid who always had their nose dangerously close to inhaling musty pages.

Discussion: On Choosing Not to Read a Sequel

As a bookworm, I have always been intent on finishing series, in fact, it’s basically a compulsion. I have finished reading series when I’m not that bothered about the characters or how their stories turn out, I’ve finished series that have awful writing, and I’ve even finished series where I’ve absolutely hated everything to do with it by the end. Why do I torture myself like this? I feel the need to see things through to the end. I also don’t like to quit and finishing books gives me a sense of closure. And until now (despite having had previous resolutions to give up series I’m not enjoying) I haven’t come across anything that has contradicted this.

However, recently I’ve come across two books that were incredibly enjoyable, heartfelt and lots of fun where I’ve questioned if I should read the sequel.

Spoilers, Spoilers Everywhere! Free Speech vs Fangirl Angst.

The internet is a wonderful thing, but it’s also hazardous. As you navigate your way around several social networks in a day you are faced with what seems like infinite information, and within it, lurking around corners you’d least expect, are book spoilers.

There have been several times over the past few years where I have been utterly spoiled beyond the realms of forgiveness, and have been left in seething rages unquenched by even chocolate or cute kitten pictures.

In Which I Talk Optimism, Shiny Things and Fiery Vengeance

Did somebody say reading tag?

Stand back guys, I got this! *Rolls up sleeves.*

Thank you to the lovely Emma over at She Reads Books (*Whispers* Emma’s kind of awesome, you should check out her blog.) for bestowing me with this most prestigious and trusted task of completing The Reader Problems Book Tag. I will guard it with my bookish enthusiasm and gifs! Here we go…

How People React When I Tell Them I’m a Psychology Student.

Having been a psychology student for three years now, I’ve noticed a somewhat amusing and at times frustrating trend to how people react when I tell them what I study. It’s gotten to the point where I can predict people’s responses pretty easily because the same ones pop up over and over again! The funny thing is, people’s immediate thoughts usually involve some kind of a common misconception about psychology, and other times they’re just down right ridiculous! After a recent stint of these reactions recently, I felt it was about time I vented my frustrations. It normally starts something like this:

This is by far the most popular response and oh how it gets old quickly. Yes, psychology is about the study of human behaviours, but that does not mean I have a roadmap to the inside of your head! Plus, just because I study psychology, doesn’t mean I always have my psychology hat on, a girl needs a break you know! It’s not like I’m analysing everything you do. If you tell me that you don’t like cheese, I’m not silently contemplating whether you had a traumatic cheese incident in your childhood.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Review

Overall Impression: An accessible look at introversion – its strengths and its weaknesses.

To make this review a little more fun and interesting, it’s going to be a bit different from normal! Don’t worry, I’ll still going into the basics of writing style etc. (let’s not get crazy here) but I feel like this will be more interesting if I also share with you some interesting facts I learnt from reading Quiet. 🙂 So let’s start off with a little story: Once upon a time there was a young girl with blonde hair. She loved to learn, to follow the rules and do the best she could at school but every time parent teacher night came around or reports were drawn up she would come across the same critique again and again – ‘Student is kind and conscientious, she works hard and always helps others but she needs to speak up and participate more in class.’ This cropped up again and again and the girl soon learnt it was considered a bad thing to be quiet, that it was a fundamentally negative trait that needed to be fixed. It would put her at a disadvantage in the work place, in relationships and in life. But no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t change her nature.
That young girl was yours truly.
And a lot of the ideas expressed above are what introverts are taught to believe when living in a world that has an extrovert ideal. This is one of the many topics that Cain tackles in her non-fiction personality psychology book, Quiet.

The 10 Stages of Bookshelf Reorganisation

It’s a well known fact, bloggers that I’ve been in desperate need of shelf space for quite some time. So long, that I have to squint hard and knock on my head to remember when I wasn’t double stacking or trying to squish books precariously into tight spaces. Well, this summer I decided enough was enough! After spending hours assembling two kamikaze flat packs with a lack of straight edges and a missing piece or two my new bookshelves were finally welcomed into the world! Once I decided where to put my new shelves I was faced with the somewhat intimidating task of reorganising all of my books. I was totally up for the challenge, but what I didn’t expect was the surprising number of emotional stages I went through during the process! So, I thought it might be fun to present thee with a post on the 10 stages of bookshelf reorganisation. 🙂

1.) Excitement.

At first I approached my book reorganisation task with excitement. I mean, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to spend the majority of their day hanging out with their books – staring at their pretty covers, dusting them, organising them?

In Which I Am Interrogated About My Bookish Habits.

When I first saw that I had been tagged in something with the word ‘test’ in the title I became a bit worried. “Test,” I thought, “does this mean I’m going to be graded?!” Bring on the hyperventilation and sweaty palms! Luckily, once I looked further at the tag, I realised it wasn’t that test-like at all, just some bookish fun. Phew.

Thank you to lovely Cristina over at Girl in the Pages for thinking of me! Like me, she’s a fellow book blogger, a bit of a YA addict and a major Harry Potter fan, so her blog is well worth checking out if you have the time. 🙂

So without further ado, here’s my book related interrogation, tag style!

 

1.) Cracked spines: This is THE worst offender in my eyes. I never crack any and will even go to the lengths of reading my novel though a tiny gap between the pages to prevent it from bending. I know it’s a bit ridiculous but I’ve always been that way. It doesn’t offend me as much buying second-hand books with cracked spines because it was someone else’s doing and it’s already done, but if I see it happening before my eyes? I go a bit crazy, it’s like nails down a chalkboard!

Quoting the Quill #34

“I don’t care if it’s Twilight or Fifty Shades or War and Peace; never let someone make you ashamed of what you love to read.”

– Rae Carson

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There’s been a lot of talk in the YA book community lately, well, there’s always been talk about it but a recent article especially has said that adults should be ashamed of reading YA when they no longer fit into that bracket. It’s been suggested that these kind of stories are too simple, too nice, too happily ever after and that adults should be reading more literary, thought-provoking books suited to their demographic.
This is, 

Quoting the Quill #28

‘Always question where your loyalties lie. The people you trust will expect it, your greatest enemies will desire it, and those you treasure the most, will, without fail, abuse it. Some say loyalty inspires boundless hope. Well that may be, but there is a catch. True loyalty takes years to build, and only seconds to destroy.’

– Revenge Season 1 (TV show)

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Before anyone asks, no I have not been horribly slighted in any way and I am not sitting in my room plotting any evil schemes! However, I do love this quote. I have been holding on to it for a year or so to use on Quoting the Quill but have never been able to find the right moment for it. After all, I tend to