There was a time when I could devour a book in two days. Now I buy one, put it on my nightstand, and apparently expect it to read itself.
I admit, I wasn’t always like this.
Which is exactly what I imagine I would say if there were an AA-style meeting for people with out-of-control TBR lists.
“Hi, I’m Jasmine, and I keep buying books I don’t read.”
Hi, Jasmine.
Because there was a time when I actually devoured books. Give me a good novel and I could finish it in two days, sometimes less. I was obsessed. I joined more book clubs than I can count. At one point, I was even part of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club community. Then came BookTok, and naturally I ended up there too, talking about what we were reading, what we hated, and what everyone absolutely needed to read next.
I didn’t have a TBR problem because books didn’t stay on the TBR long enough to become a problem.
I bought them. I read them. I bought more.
It was a beautifully functioning ecosystem.
Then I got older, and apparently adulthood came for my reading schedule.
Suddenly there was work, errands, laundry, dinner, emails, appointments, responsibilities, and another person walking around the house asking, “Have you seen my keys?”
No, I haven’t seen your keys.
I’m trying to read.
Except now, even when I have the time, my attention span would occasionally rather spend 45 minutes scrolling through meaningless shit on my phone than open the book I’ve been telling everyone I’m “so excited to start.”
And that is how I became the person I once never understood:
Someone with a massive fucking TBR.
The TBR Starts Out Innocently
Every reader thinks they have control in the beginning.
You have three books you want to read. Maybe five. They’re sitting neatly on your nightstand, and you genuinely believe you’ll finish them by the end of the month.
Cute.
Then someone recommends another. Your book club picks one. You see something on BookTok. A celebrity book club announces its latest selection. You wander into a bookstore “just to look.”
Suddenly five books have become 20.
And that’s only the physical TBR. There are books saved on Goodreads, screenshots buried in your camera roll, TikToks you saved eight months ago, and books sitting in an online cart because apparently “save for later” counts as financial restraint.
Every one comes with the same promise:
I’m definitely going to read this.
When?
Don’t ask stupid questions.
“I'm Reading It Next!” Is a Lie
Readers use the word next with absolutely no respect for its definition.
“Oh my God, I have that! I’m reading it next.”
No, you’re not.
I’m not either.
There are books I’ve been “reading next” for so long they should be collecting Social Security.
I’ll pick one up, read the back again, get genuinely excited about it, and then put it right back on the shelf.
Why?
I don’t fucking know.
Then some completely different book appears online and suddenly I need to read that one immediately.
The book patiently waiting since 2023?
Back of the line, bitch.
Booktok Made Everything Worse
BookTok turned book recommendations into emergencies.
Someone doesn’t simply tell you a book is good. They hold it up to the camera with tears in their eyes and tell you it “destroyed them.”
Well, now I’m interested.
Someone else stayed awake until 4 a.m. finishing it.
Add to cart.
Another person says, “Don’t look anything up. Just trust me.”
Apparently, I do.
And honestly, that was part of what made BookTok so much fun. Reading became social. You could finish a book alone and immediately find hundreds of people who also desperately needed to discuss what the hell they had just read.
The problem was that for every book I finished, the internet gave me ten more.
The math was never going to work.
I Used to But Two Fucking Copies
If you want to understand how deep my book obsession once went, there was a period when I would buy two versions of the same book.
One was for reading.
The other remained untouched.
Brand new. Perfect.
Yes, I purchased a backup copy of a book so I wouldn’t have to commit the horrific crime of actually opening the nice one.
What was wrong with me?
The reading copy could have a cracked spine, fingerprints, bent pages, and all the other damage that comes with fulfilling its literal purpose.
The other sat beautifully on the shelf like it was awaiting appraisal at Sotheby’s.
Do not touch her.
She is pristine.
And if a special edition came out with a prettier cover? God help my bank account.
Looking back, this might be the strongest evidence that reading books and collecting books are two completely different hobbies.
The Books We Pretend We're Still Going to Read
Every TBR has permanent residents.
The classic you’ve been meaning to read forever. The giant fantasy novel you bought during a phase. The nonfiction book you purchased because you wanted to be the kind of person who reads nonfiction. The novel everyone loved that you’ve started three times and never made it past page 80.
But you won’t get rid of them.
Because that would mean admitting:
I’m probably never fucking reading this.
So it stays.
Every once in a while, you look at it and think, I really need to read that.
You don’t.
And somehow neither of you mentions it again.
Maybe I Just Read Differently Now
I sometimes miss the version of myself who could disappear into a book for an entire weekend.
I still love books. I just don’t have the same relationship with time anymore.
Getting older doesn’t necessarily mean you stop loving the things you once loved. Sometimes life just gets louder around them.
There are more responsibilities, more distractions, and more nights when you finally get into bed and realize your brain doesn’t have another 50 pages left in it.
But every once in a while, I still find that book.
The one I pick up at 9 p.m. and suddenly it’s 1:30 in the morning. The one that makes everything else disappear and reminds me exactly why I became obsessed with reading in the first place.
For a couple of days, I’m that reader again.
I'm Never Finishing This Fucking List
I’ve finally accepted that my TBR isn’t going anywhere.
I can make reading goals. I can swear I’m going to stop buying books. I can organize my shelf into a beautifully curated stack of everything I’m going to read “next.”
It doesn’t matter.
Another book will appear.
I’ll want it.
And there is a very good chance it will sit untouched for six months.
Maybe the TBR was never meant to be finished anyway. It’s less of a checklist and more of a collection of possibilities—books waiting for the right weekend, the right mood, or the right version of you to finally pick them up.
Some I’ll devour in two days. Some I’ll abandon. Some will sit on my shelf for years.
And apparently, some once required their own fucking backup copy.
So I’ve stopped pretending I’m going to finish my TBR.
I have shit to do.
But I’m still buying the book.