The Reader Problems Tag

The Hopeful Pen tagged me with this on her blog, With Joy for the Work.  Months ago.  Oops!  Well, I have had fun filling it out, and that's the main thing, right?

You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next? 

I either pick what I'm in the mood for, or I have to read a book for one of the two book clubs I'm in.  I'm definitely a mood reader, so there's really never any good way to predict what I'll read next.

You’re halfway through a book and you’re just not loving it. Do you quit or are you committed? 

I give most books 50 pages or 5 chapters to click for me, whichever takes longer.  If it's not working for me by that point, I feel free to give up.  So if I get halfway through a book and don't love it, I definitely wouldn't feel bad about DNFing it.

The end of the year is coming and you’re so close, but so far away on your Goodreads reading challenge. Do you try to catch up and how? 

I don't really care much about my Goodreads challenge numbers.  I set it for 55 books every year, which is a little more than one book a week.  I generally don't have a problem hitting that.  Sometimes I far surpass it.  Sometimes I don't.

(My 2026 reading so far.  All photos in this post are from my Instagram.)

The covers of a series you love do. not. match. How do you cope? 

I frown, growl, complain loudly, and roll my eyes at the publishers.  Why do they do this to us???

Every one and their mother loves a book you really don’t like. Who do you bond with over shared feelings? 

My best friend, probably.  She and I both rarely read super popular books because we both rarely enjoy them.

You’re reading a book and you are about to start crying in public. How do you deal? 

It happens.  I cried in the break room at work over Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Work friends were kind about it -- I think someone even brought the box of tissues over for me.  If strangers see me crying over a book and find it weird, who cares?

A sequel of a book you loved just came out, but you’ve forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Will you re-read the book? Skip the sequel? Try to find a synopsis on Goodreads? Cry in frustration?! 

I quite often will just re-read the book.  If I loved it, that means I want to re-read it at some point anyway, so why not right then?

You do not want anyone. ANYONE. borrowing your books. How do you politely tell people nope when they ask? 

I'm not super possessive about most of my books, but I do expect loans to come back to me in the same basic condition I loaned them out in.  And it would be nice to get them back within 3 or 4 months.  I've been known to buy a new copy to loan a friend if I know they either take a year to return books OR have a bad habit of destroying books by cracking their spines until the titles are unreadable and the books won't close properly ever again.  But I have also been known to use loaning a book to a friend like that as a reason to buy a prettier or cooler edition for myself, too ;-)

(My Blue Castle collection, so I can loan some and keep some.)

You’ve picked up and put down 5 books in the last month. How do you get over your reading slump? 

Well, I often have three to five books going at an time, so that wouldn't be super weird.  But when I am in a reading slump, I usually read a Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout, and then I'm all good again.

There are so many new books coming out that you’re dying to read! How many do you actually buy? 

Only the ones I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get from the library (indie books, mainly) OR that are from my two or three auto-buy authors.  I don't have the budget or the space to buy every book I want to read.  (When my husband reads this, he may be shocked by this answer...)

After you’ve bought the new books you can’t wait to get to, how long do they sit on your shelf before you get to them?

A day?  A year?  A decade?  I'm a mood reader, so there's no way of knowing, really.  I have a couple books on my shelves that were given to me before my son was born.  He just started college.  

(For instance, I have read 1 of these 5 books that I bought last summer.)

I am not tagging anyone with this because I'm tired today, but if you would like to fill this tag out, here is a fresh list of the questions:

You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next? 

You’re halfway through a book and you’re just not loving it. Do you quit or are you committed? 

The end of the year is coming and you’re so close, but so far away on your Goodreads reading challenge. Do you try to catch up and how? 

The covers of a series you love do. not. match. How do you cope? 

Every one and their mother loves a book you really don’t like. Who do you bond with over shared feelings? 

You’re reading a book and you are about to start crying in public. How do you deal? 

A sequel of a book you loved just came out, but you’ve forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Will you re-read the book? Skip the sequel? Try to find a synopsis on Goodreads? Cry in frustration?! 

You do not want anyone. ANYONE. borrowing your books. How do you politely tell people nope when they ask? 

You’ve picked up and put down 5 books in the last month. How do you get over your reading slump? 

There are so many new books coming out that you’re dying to read! How many do you actually buy? 

After you’ve bought the new books you can’t wait to get to, how long do they sit on your shelf before you get to them?