I have loved the “Harry Potter” series since I was a child, but I always used to turn down the volume when I watched it at home in hopes that my mom would not hear and come in. It’s not that I don’t love my mom, but — until recently — I could not stand the incessant nagging that “the book is better” and her response of “read the books to understand” after I asked questions about the plot. Until this summer, I was adamant about the fact that I would never actually read the “Harry Potter” books, but the peer pressure finally got to me and I broke down. Once I finished them, I realized I didn’t want to go back to my routine of watching sitcom-after-sitcom. Something about being straight-up told what a character is feeling instead of having to make an inference from actors made reading so enjoyable, so I downloaded the app Goodreads and started following “booktokers” on TikTok.

Starting in July, I read nearly 50 books in 2021, and by the end of January of 2022 I had read 18. Tracking these on Goodreads is genuinely the most euphoric feeling. I am obsessed with showing what books I have read recently to my friends who also have the app, and I am not lying by saying I have spent upwards of an hour on it in one day.

My favorite author at the moment is Taylor Jenkins Reid. I am in love with her collection of books that surround celebrities through the decades, starting in the 70s. The first one I read was “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” which follows a movie star through her life and her (surprise!) seven husbands. The next one was “Daisy Jones and the Six,” aka my favorite book I have ever read. This one is in the format of an interview with members of a band during the 70s and 80s as they record and perform a dramatic album detailing internal romances and drama, à la Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.” The third, which I read just a few weeks ago, is “Malibu Rising.” This book details four siblings past and present as they prepare to throw the biggest and most chaotic party in Hollywood in 1983. Something about Reid’s writing fully transports me into her fictional universes, I could read her books for hours on end.

While I still love movies and sitcoms, reading allows me to delve into fictional universes in a way that watching things never can. The way you are directly told what a character is feeling and how the characters around them react is so rewarding. In addition, the superiority complex I have when Goodreads tells me I am 13 books ahead of schedule to read my goal of 50 in one year may be worse for me than better, but I could not care less! Be sure to join me and read all of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books so you can feel my intense emotional attachment to all of her characters.