Why I left the Book Community & Returned.

Hello,

It’s Hannah, you might remember me and you might not since I’ve been absent for nearly a year now. I never had any intentions of leaving blogging and the book community behind, but life happened and here we are.

This post is all about why I left the Book Community and why I’ve chosen to return, but don’t worry I don’t plan on boring you with what I was up to for the past year. What I really want is to start a fresh if you’ll let me?

Firstly, can I just say a massive thank you to everyone who has stuck with this blog and continued to be cheerleaders for me. This community truly is so supporting, and it changed my life to be a part of it.  I owe you a little explanation for leaving you all so suddenly and to sum it up, my mental health and physical health really took a hit and I just couldn’t carry on anymore like I was.

One of the reasons why I stayed away for so long is because of my lack of reading. I truly fell out of love with reading, it first started after finishing my Masters. I had to read so many books analytically, that by the time I was done with university, the idea of picking up another book wasn’t appealing to me. Then I got a job in Marketing and often my brain is completely scrambled after a day of having to be so creative that I dread picking up a book even more because I would need to think again… so Netflix took it’s place.

I’ve thought about returning many times but the idea of re-joining is such a daunting prospect to me and I wonder if it is for anybody else too? The book community is one that is constantly moving and changing, there are always so many books being published, and I thought I am going to be so far behind everyone else.

I’ve always felt like I’ve never truly fitted in to the book community because I wasn’t always reading the same books as everyone else and I wasn’t getting new releases or pre-orders religiously. I felt like I was falling behind and I couldn’t keep up and my content was boring. It’s one of the reasons I struggle to watch Book-tube because there are just so many books and hauls, it makes me anxious to think how far behind I am.

Not reading and having lost the love for reading that I once had, is really difficult for me because I truly loved to pick up a book and binge a series. I loved finding that book you can’t put down, considering I did two degrees on English Literature, you can sorta tell that books meant a lot for me. Losing those moments is hard and I hope that by returning and with your support, I manage to find it again.

I hope you’ll join me.

If you have any questions or recommendations for me, please let me know in the comments!