What Intentional Reading Looks Like When You’re a Mood Reader

You probably have a stack of books on your TBR, digital or physical, that you bought because you were genuinely excited to read them in the moment. But you never got around to it. So you think, next month. Except next month never comes.

But there was a time, before bookish social media became a thing, when reading was this fun exploration and adventure. You would discover new authors and favorites and binge. Maybe read a whole series, deep dive an author’s backlist, or even find a new genre you love and get stuck in there for a while.

There was no algorithm pushing the next thing that needed to be bought and read. These days we all suffer from immense FOMO when it comes to reading. Whether we read the popular books or not, our feed dictates a lot of what we consume, books included.

So I’m here to argue that in order to regain some of the magic of reading, we should explore more with that old sense of wonder and discovery. Today I’m going to be sharing some of my tips for how you can incorporate more intentional reading into your habit without feeling like a rigid set of rules or TBR that shackle you.

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What is intentional reading anyway?

Is this an actual thing or term? I have no idea. What I mean by being more intentional with what I read (and what I consume) is all about how I want to feel. That means curating the books I read with an end result in mind. Reading is an experience, even when it’s escapist. There’s magic in getting lost in a story and sometimes we lose sight of that a bit. Now if you’re a mood reader like me, this may already feel like something you can’t do. But stick with me because I worked flexibility into my plan.

The algorithm isn’t meant for intentional reading

Your social feed is designed to keep you glued to your phone and buying. I’m super guilty of this myself. I blink and I’ve bought 5 sweaters, 3 earrings and 4 books. And with the books, I pretty much know they’re not on my plans to read right now. Usually. Even when I add them to my Kindle Unlimited queue.

I tend to not read the popular books anyway and that doesn’t save me from my feed changing my reading behavior. So I’ve been thinking about that a lot. My reading habits have changed over the years for sure, but some of those changes are directly related to social media and not all of them contribute to a better reading experience.

The conclusion I came to is that the fast pace of consumption that we are used to with books now just makes you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel competing for who can read all the things fast enough to keep up with the pace they’re coming out. And I’m not talking about the amount of books you read here. This can happen whether you read 10 books a year or 250.

Your feed is showing you what is trending now but it will never surface that book from 2009 that was an incredible hit and has so many fans. You’ve never even heard of it. And from what I keep seeing on social media lately, a lot of readers are tired of reading what seems like the same book over and over. Guess what? You fix that by being more intentional with what you pick up and diversifying a bit your book choices.

How can you become a more intentional reader?

The first thing to know is that this is completely personal. You are the curator of your reading experience. Think of yourself like a chef. You’ll get different results if you think of your reading menu like a Michelin star chef versus the cook at McDonalds. But you are the Michelin star chef for yourself. The TBR you are building is uniquely yours.

That means the rabbit holes you want to go down on may not be what everyone else is reading and that is ok. There is joy in going down those binges. In discovering things about yourself, about what you like and what you don’t like. In not jumping from one thing to the next. There is also a lot of comfort in doing that.

This coming from someone who used to binge read exclusively and now I jump from one to the next and rarely even go back to a series that I actually wanted to finish. But the comfort of seeing those series or author backlists through gives you so much calm. And the fact that you’re not chasing what the internet is speed reading also disconnects from that pressure.

That is something I discovered while starting some projects like the Ripped & Ravished book club and the Kushiel’s Legacy readalong. Reading books that are nowhere near the trends and enjoying them, discussing them and getting value from the reading experience without the pressure was the missing link in my TBR for a while. Which prompted me to want to add even more of that.

So here are some of my tips for being that personal curator for your TBR.

Create reading projects

This is the most important part in my opinion. When you find a series you love (I know you have some you’ve already started and abandoned) keep a list of them. We always say we want to get back to them and we never do. End that by making a priority list of series you want to finish. If a series is really long and intimidating, try one book per month. I’m doing that to get through the In Death series by J.D. Robb. Or, if you only need to catch up a few books, try picking a series for the season.

If you’re not a series person, make it the author. When you find an author you love, read the backlist. I know so many people read the popular book by a trending author and then they just wait for the next one to come out. Go back. Have you read all of Navessa Allen’s books published before Lights Out? No? Check them out. I love reading an author’s backlist because you can also see the growth in their craft.

Keep this in a spreadsheet, notebook or a Notion reading tracker.

Have multiple intentional reading goals

Here’s the thing about being a mood reader. Sometimes, the plan you set for yourself doesn’t work. You may have said I will binge read the whole Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh. But now your mood is about cozy small town contemporary romance. Don’t force yourself to read something just because you set a TBR.

But give yourself the flexibility of having multiple goals. When you create your list of projects, make sure you have some for any kind of mood. That way if the series or author you picked for the season is just not working for you, you can swap it for another one of your projects and don’t just let the algorithm steam roll you.

Let yourself hyper fixate on something

This may sound like a way to burnout on reading the same thing. And yes that can happen. But having done this years ago, this can also bring you joy. If you watch Heated Rivalry on TV and now you need to read all the sports rival m/m romances, do that for a week. You can always get back to regular scheduled programming, but maybe you’ll discover a new passion.

Screenshots are your best friends

And by screenshots I mean save recommendations in a way that you can surface them when needed. This is a little more time and effort up front but it’s the mood readers best friend. You don’t need to buy everything or add things to KU. But save them.

Screenshots can be saved in folders right on your phone (by tropes or genres or moods), upload those screenshots to a Notion tracker with a tagging system. Or don’t screenshot and just add that book on Storygraph or your book tracker of choice and tag it with the mood on there. The next time you’re in a hyper fixation mood, you’ll have lists to shop from.

Gamify it

Whether you’re a new or seasoned reader, you should be reading across publication dates. Don’t just read what is out currently or in the past 5 years. Go back. See where the genre you love came from. Try some of the old favorites. And you can even gamify that by doing a publication year challenge. Maybe every year you will read a book from a particular decade. Say you do 6 books for the year for this challenge, that means 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020.

Do buddy reads

There is something to be said about reading together. Reading is an individual experience, but when you have others to talk about books with it makes it even more fun. Find someone in person or online that you can read a few books a year with. Even if it’s not the popular book everyone is talking about, you’ll immediately have a more memorable experience about that book.

Ask your friends for recommendations and actually read them

I’m guilty of letting recommendations sit on my TBR forever and just picking what I’m in the mood for. But years ago, all we had was recommendations. And when you valued someone’s opinion, you immediately picked it up. Let’s do a little more of that.

Read about other experiences that aren’t your own

It’s so important to diversify our TBR and it can only be done by being intentional about it. Your algorithm is not usually pushing books with diverse characters or by diverse authors unless you’re seeking them out and engaging with that content. But the same can be said about what you read. The more you open your TBR to experience different cultures and perspectives, it’ll be a fuller and less boring experience. And you know that feeling of everything feels the same? That starts to go away!

Make yourself a curated TBR magazine

If you’re feeling super creative and crafty, you can make a curated TBR magazine. This can be a spread on your reading journal, a page on your Notion tracker, or an actual magazine layout in Canva. Add covers, add screenshots of character art, add quotes you saw, add the hook about the book that you saw the author talk about. You can add to it weekly and do a new one every season (or every month if you have lots to add).

Intentional reading doesn’t have to take over your whole TBR

You can still have your new releases and your seasonal reading. My proposal is that we strive to infuse 25% in whatever amount you read and make it something that is curated just for you. I am also not advocating for you reading slower, consuming less, or not mood read. It’s just about taking a little more control of our reading experience and how we want to feel and reduce the pressure that is ever present in the social media hamster wheel.

Do you also feel like your reading needs a reset and needs to feel more like you? If you’re looking for a little help with choosing books, check out the yearly reading challenge. And if you want to make your reading life a little more whimsical, try doing a reading retreat for one.

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