My Website “Why”

In this inaugural post for the bookish chatter side of the website, I’d like to share a little of my journey to getting here. By here, I mean this website.

In 2022, I was experiencing major transitions in my life. My youngest kid turned 1 in January and his sister had just turned 3. In the prior year my husband and I, both pastors, had closed our church plant of 5 years, a dream that fizzled out during pandemic years and a painful departure. Subsequently, we sold our home, moved to a new city, started attending a new church, and got installed as their new lead pastors. We were uprooted.

During these transitions, one of my main sources of joy was playdates/mom-dates with one of my closest friends where we’d chat about everything and nothing at all while our kids orbited us. During those times, I started sharing about the books I was reading; giving her recommendations became one of my favorite things.

So in December, I made it official and decided to take the show on the road, starting a bookish account on Instagram where I began reviewing books. In the process I made dozens of new online friends and learned to use my voice. I owe it to bookstagram for helping me rediscover how to have an opinion and share it rather than deferring to others and blending in.

I’ve had the account (@eclectically_bookish) for 2.5 years now, and I’ve thought about quitting dozens of times. Why? Because I’ve battled being self-critical, competitive, and performance-oriented my whole life. Because I don’t know how to simply “not care” about the metrics, especially when Meta is shouting them from my dashboard every day.

In March I shared in my Instagram stories how frustrated I was. I’d seen a few influencer programs that required 1,000+ followers to apply. These programs are usually to receive advance reader copies of upcoming publications. After 2 years, I was still almost 400 followers behind. I groaned about my consistency and thoroughness and the perceived value and quality of my account. I lamented the high effort and low engagement. After pep-talks from my fellow bookstagrammers, I decided to create more shareable and general content in addition to my reviews. I’ve seen growth from that change and I’m grateful.

But I’m honestly still disillusioned. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of hustling, comparing, competing, and acting like it’s my job instead of a fun place to blab about my favorite books. I wish I could say I’m not watching others’ numbers and engagement and ARC approvals. I wish I could say I’m seeing beautiful quote edits and admiring them without also feeling like garbage and thinking that mine seem “a dime a dozen” comparatively.

What started as a lot of fun has become a space that feeds the voices of the self-critic, the performer, the comparison-obsessed, the people-pleaser, and the perfectionist resounding in my mind.

Today is my 37th birthday, and I’m sensing that this year (and always) I need to slow down and stop hustling.

I need intentionality, stillness, presence, and permanence in a world of haphazardness, commotion, distance, and replaceability.

And I’m so weary of how impermanent Instagram is. I work so hard on graphic designs and thorough reviews, but after a week, my posts are subject to the void, rarely to be found again.

After a couple near-sleepless nights, several pros and cons lists, and some deep consideration, I decided to make a change. I started quietly working on this website as a push-back against the temporary, fickle, and inscrutable algorithm to create a space with full reviews, quote edits, playlists, and an alphabetized index for it all. It’s a more permanent, searchable resource for all my reads of 2025 and beyond.

I’m also working on what I’m calling “The Archive” that will hold the same material for everything I’ve read since mid-2022. That’s over 200 books, so it will take me a while. And because it’s so labor intensive, I’ll likely make that resource available for a modest one-time fee.

What’s happening to my bookstagram? I’m still there, but I’m going to scale way back on my content. I have friends who post only a few times a month and mostly “lurk” the rest of the time, admiring and engaging with others’ posts and chatting in direct messages. I’m hoping with these changes to my bookish life, I (as someone who does most everything whole-assedly) will be able to take a step back, do less, and enjoy the slower pace of a website while simultaneously finding fun again in the cozy corner of the internet that is bookstagram.

Thanks for joining me on this new adventure. I’m so glad you’re here.

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