In my pursuit to accomplish Bucket List number 54,”Write a blog a week at least one year,” I have been brainstorming blog ideas. In previous blogs, I focus significantly on my mental health to share mental health related content. I post silly things to bring me and others joy. I share my bucket list and bullet journaling adventures. I have posted a few blogs about parenting. I have written blogs about past books I’ve read with my book club. This new blog idea is similar to my book club blogs except with any books I read in general.
I would like to share my thoughts on the books I read. Reading means so much to me. I remember in third grade getting to go to the school pizza party for having over 100 accelerated reader (AR) points. Not many third graders had that many. In high school, I was in the top ten of my class for AR points on the regular. Reading so many fun books helped build my dream of one day being a published author. I started a book club because I wanted to read more and talk about them with people that also love to read. I love talking to people about books.
This is why I want to write more about the books I read. I want to open more dialogue about books and inspire others to find books they enjoy. I also want to dive into more video content to share my thoughts on books since social media is a huge space for book related content. My husband and I came up with an idea for video content this year to post on my author Instagram. After I read a book, I’ll try to sum it up to him in three minutes or less and we’ll record whatever comes to my head. I posted the first of this little series we hope to do on my author Instagram the other day! My hope is to post a follow up blog about the books to explain more in detail about my experience reading the books.
I don’t necessarily want to consider these book blogs as reviews. I want to get better at writing reviews to help authors, but it’s not my specialty. I write about my experience, not really to offer any type of criticism or feedback. Even if a book is cheesy, or not as emotionally deep as some, I generally still love the experience of reading. There have been very few books that I didn’t enjoy in some way. I love seeing the little movie that plays in my head as the words melt into my brain. I value the time authors spent on their books and try to remember that someone is behind the words. I will likely write things I liked and things I didn’t, but that’s my personal opinion. Literature is up for interpretation. Everyone experiences a book differently. I would never want my opinion of a book to influence another person’s opinion of it. I would never want someone to feel bad for loving a book I didn’t, and I wouldn’t want someone to make me feel bad for loving a book they didn’t.
I read eight books outside of my book club books last year. I’m on my third book of the year (It’s January 20, 2026 as I write this), that’s not a book club book, so I anticipate I may have plenty of blogs for readers to check out if my pattern continues.
I honestly never know what I’m going to write until I sit down to write. With my book club blogs I’ve written previously, sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough content. I don’t really have any set length I aspire to for my blogs. I just write until I love it. So, I may try to write individual blogs for each book, I may group a couple if I’ve read a bunch before I get time to compose a blog, and I may just end up doing a monthly wrap up on everything I read that month. I am all about finding joy in my life. I am not bound by anyone else’s expectations, so I’ll pretty much just wing it and hope readers enjoy it for what it is whenever it gets posted!
I try to branch out as much as I can with different genres, but the reality is, I know what I’m mostly likely to read, and what I tend to avoid. The books you’ll probably see me reading are romance, fantasy, YA, and historical fiction. I tend to read books written by Black authors, books that have LGBTQ+ representation, and I am branching out into finding middle grade books for my children to read as they get older. I avoid horror as much as possible (I like to be able to sleep and I’m a paranoid girlie when I see or read anything scary). I love reading books in a series, it’s so satisfying.
I’m not going to write about any books in this blog, I simply wanted to introduce my plans so anyone that follows along with my blogs can keep their eyes out if they are interested. I would also love anyone who can to comment here or to comment on my author Instagram any book recommendations they have. I love reading books recommended by others. Honestly, reading a book someone loves truly gives insight into them as a person, and that’s so fun for me to be able to experience! (It also gave me clear red flags for people I’ve dated in the past, HAH!) Anyways… I would love for everyone to follow along and read some fun books with me!
I hope, if you’re reading this, you know how wonderful you are! I truly hope joy finds you in this life. Be kind to others, but don’t forget to be kind to yourself as well! Being human is hard, but you’re doing great (unless you’re racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc., then you need to be better)!
Ariel Pierce 