What is a mood reader? A mood reader is a person who reads according to their mood. This means that their feelings and emotions often dictate what they’ll read. I’ve been a mood reader for as long as I can remember. I read whatever strikes the occasion or feeling. This can be randomly perusing the shelves of a bookstore and pick up a cover buy or in the midst of a season, I’ll go for a read that fits that particular setting.

Sounds like a win-win situation right? Except that means TBRs have become somewhat of an obstacle in my bookish life. I try and fail setting up TBRs for each month or quarter, no matter how hard I try. Sometimes I get even envious of other readers who can stick to their 5 reads that they’ve picked out for the month. I’ll get through one or two books in my pile and then find a shiny, new read on my bookshelves to complete instead of the books I curated for myself.

For the longest time, I used to fight against the grain of having TBRs and then accepted it was not for me. I feel like I’ve made some peace with this in my adult life now. I find the only TBR piles I can actually stick to are the review copies/ARCs (advanced reader copies) I receive for my book blog, Life of a Female Bibliophile. I think it’s because I’m on a schedule to complete these reads in a timely manner.

I also feel like I had an aversion to certain curated types of TBRs because of all the required reading I had to do for my school years, especially all the reading that came with being an English major in college. I had to do so much reading per week that I never had time to read books that weren’t assigned to me as homework, even though I liked a good chunk of the books I read.

Now,  I usually like to look for books based on a theme when I want to learn more about a topic or my interest is sparked by a monthly celebration/awareness of an issue). I diversify my books as much as possible, so I like to read about multiple topics at the same time (and I also read multiple books at one time). I like to read books in different formats or switch genres which also helps to keep things fresh.

Are you a mood reader or do you prefer TBRs? Let me know in the comments section below.