Abandoning my YALC TBR

Admittedly, i know i’ve not stopped banging on about my YALC TBR for a good three months now. Ever since authors started to be announced for the event, i took the time to really think about what i would need to read beforehand and what i would enjoy the most. It’s not even to have the most books signed, i just hate going to events where everyone’s read a book and you don’t have an opinion on it!

It’s getting to the middle of July now and i’ve read thirteen books that were originally on my YALC TBR. Now, my TBR was a lot bigger than this, i think i aimed to read about nineteen books. So with just a few weeks to go (and me stupidly adding a book here and there) i have seven or eight books that i still aimed to read before YALC came around.

I have been stressing myself out a lot in the last few months to read as much as i can from this limited pile of books. I have actually found so many books that i now adore from starting this challenge, Noah Could Never by Simon James Green is one of my favourite books of the year. And I Am Thunder by Muhammad Khan is breathtaking. However in the last few months i’ve ended up falling in to a trap of ‘technically a YALC book but i now don’t have to read it for YALC.’

What i mean by this is, when i’ve been to events or interviewed authors in the last few months, i’ve had to read their books pretty quickly in order to actually go to those events. These were books that were originally on my YALC TBR but obviously now, they’re signed and ticked off and no longer have to be taken to YALC with me. So in a way, i’ve been slacking on my TBR anyway.

In the last few weeks i’ve been thinking a lot about reading, and specifically reading for pleasure. I think a part of me lost the sense of reading for pleasure with my YALC TBR because i was constantly thinking about all the other books that are on my shelves or the new books i was buying for ‘after YALC’ that i wanted to read desperately. Why was i not picking them up when all i wanted to do was read them? I HAVE NO IDEA!

The TBR was putting a lot of pressure on me to read as fast as i could, and i started to get frustrated when I’d read a not so great book because it wasted my time. That’s not what reading is about. Obviously as bloggers we have times where we do have to read very quickly and maybe not books we’re 100% in to. However this was a challenge i set myself and i didn’t need that added pressure.

Last week me and Sophie went to a Matt Haig event in Doncaster to promote his new book Notes On A Nervous Planet. I’ve been a huge Matt Haig fan since the release of Reasons To Stay Alive and when i picked up his latest non-fiction, i was saddened by the thought that i wouldn’t get to read it for another few weeks. And then i started thinking about all the other things that i wanted to read straight after YALC, and that started to get a little overwhelming that i now have an order for that.

So the next day i sat on an hour long tram ride and started Notes On A Nervous Planet. It felt great to not read something YA like i have been doing for the last four or five months and it felt like a relief to actually be reading for the pleasure of reading. I was also reading something that would benefit my mental health and i would take something away from.

In conclusion to this ridiculously long ramble, I’ve let my YALC TBR go. There might be one or two books left on that pile that i will pick up before YALC, but because i want to pick it up and i actually feel in the mood for it.