9 years... 9 years and not once have I felt burnout more, than the 2022-2023 school year. All of my energy has been siphoned into my job and I was left as just a shell of what I was 9 years ago as a wide eyed teacher with her first classroom. I needed to find something that would get that spark back! I tried a multitude of other hobbies (painting, cricket projects, etc.) to try and find something that would distract me from the stresses of my day-to-day work life. I needed an escape from reality that wasn't as toxic as binge watching TV and going down the rabbit hole of TikTok.
As a child I always LOVED reading and would finish books within a few hours, being left with a desire to read more and to discover new worlds. If I'm honest, as a Reading teacher the last thing I want to do these days is to read more when I get home. I'm not into the things I was into when I was in my earlier years and I couldn't tell you the last novel that I read, so I had no idea what to begin with.
I started by simply opening my Apple Books app and flipping down to the "free" section and finding a cheesy romance book that had way more sex than I was expecting in it! It was an easy read and I was entertained by finding all of the flaws in the plot line and inconsistencies in the authors voice, but it was free. My husband then convinced me to download "hoopla" so I could connect with my public library digitally and check out books that way. Through this I found that I was really loving Realistic Fiction, Contemporary Romance, and Fantasy Romance (which honestly I was surprised by). I wanted to find a genre I was passionate about again, like the joy I found reading Harry Potter for the 1st or 20th time... 😂
I began seeing many of my friends searching for the same thing and more and more Instagram stories were being filled with their current reading selections. I started writing down titles of what my friends were reading and then hitting up my reading apps to create a TBR. I then fell back in love with reading so much I would find myself perusing the local Barnes and Noble, grabbing books to add to my physical collection at home. I would buy 5 books or more at a time and be ready to buy more by the end of the week.
So all of this has lead me to the beginning of my journey, where I document my reading woah's and oh no's. Where I share helpful teacher tricks to try and help my students find a passion for reading again and the total flops that make me wonder what the hell I was thinking.
Join me on this adventure and share with me your favorite books of 2023! In the meantime... here are some of my favorites from 2022!
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