#RomBkLove: Rebellious readers – BT069

Guests: Rudi and Gabby | Host: Kat Mayo | Audio producer: Rudi Bremer | Recorded: 23/05/2019 Sydney

#RomBkLove, the brainchild of the amazing Ana Coqui, is a month-long celebration of romance books, authors and readers. Book Thingo is excited to host today’s topic: Rebellious readers.

Source: Ana Coqui

In this episode, we thought it would be a good time to take a pause from title recommendations, and instead focus on our habits as readers. Rudi, Gabby and I talk about our personal reading rules, how they affect our enjoyment of books, and whether we’ve broken our rules for particular authors or books.

If you don’t have time to listen to the podcast, but would still like to participate in today’s #rombklove topic, here are the rules and habits we talk about:

• Gabby: Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like Passion by Lisa Valdez.
• Kat: Don’t read a series until it’s finished.
• Rudi: It’s perfectly acceptable to skip books in a series, or even retcon it out of a series.
• Gabby: I will not read a series with the same couple in multiple books.
• Gabby: I won’t read epilogues.
• Gabby: I can’t skip books, and I can’t read them out of order.
• Gabby: I don’t hold physical books sacred. I will dogear the corners, which is the natural order of bookmarking. (Gabby went through a phase of ripping off or erasing clinch covers and spines.)
• Rudi: Use digital bookmarks for returning to specific scenes in books, for good and bad.
• Rudi: It’s okay to spot-read — ie just reading the scenes that resonated with me, and that I feel like rereading.
• Kat: I will open keepers on a random page and just start from there.
• Kat and Rudi: We will read the end of a book first (also known as killing fairies).
• Kat: When I open a book, I expect it to be magnificent.
• Rudi: I have to read 3-4 books from a new-to-me author before writing them off.
• Gabby: Never read a novella.
• Kat: No matter what the physical description of the hero is, I’ll imagine the same person.
• Rudi: For every straight white het author that I read (and book that reflects that), I read a book and an author that sit outside of those parameters.

You can join in the conversation by using the hashtag #rombklove on social media. Let us know what reading rules and habits you’ve developed for yourself. Who would you break your rules for? We’ll be hanging out mostly on Twitter, and we hope to continue the discussion there. You can also find out more about #RomBkLove here.

Finally, thank you to Fangirlxmillion for leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. We love hearing from our audience, and we truly appreciate it!

Guests

Gabby — Wearer of socks and gloves, epilogue hater: @penneclearwater

Rudi Bremer — Amazing audio producer and recommender of books: @rudi_bee

Books

• BD | BT | Amz |