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How to write book reviews on instagram.

As you might expect, book review posts are pretty much a staple of bookstagram. It's pretty common to see a pretty photo of a book accompanied by the bookstagrammer's review and/or rating in the caption. But writing reviews on Instagram is a little different to writing reviews on Goodreads or elsewhere.

1. Pair your review with a great photo

2. Be aware of the character limit

3. use short paragraphs, 4. be informal.

5. Throw in a few emojis

6. avoid spoilers if at all possible.

40+ FREE Bookstagram Templates That Are Aesthetic (2024)

This blog post contains affiliate links, no extra cost to you, thank you for your support!

Looking for bookish story templates? Here’s 40 bookstagram templates that I’ve thoughtfully designed just for you! They’re easy to save/download and upload to your story right away!

Bookstagram story templates are great for engagement (especially if you’re just starting to grow your bookstagram ). This is because you tag other bookstagram friends and they’ll repost your tag – giving you visibility to their audience.

Save these photos and tag me in them if you use them . When you do post them on your story, post a clean template right after it for others to screenshot and use it too!

I’ve included original photos shot and edited by myself in these templates as a personalized touch. I hope you like them!

Top 3 Books Of The Year Story Template

This is a yearly reading wrap up template that highlights your top 3 books.

Yearly Reading Wrap Up Template

Share your yearly reading wrap up on bookstagram by showcasing your top reads for the year.

Bookish Bingo Story Template

Check of this yearly reading wrap-up bookish bingo! A great way to reflect on your year in books.

Book Review Bookstagram Story Template

I created two different book review Instagram story templates. This minimalistic book review story template will help you come up with a quick and easy review.

You can also compile your instagram book review templates on your highlights for easy access!

Books That Made Me (Blank) Story Template

We all have books that have made us feel a certain way, or had open us up to a whole different genre.

If you liked this one, let me know – I can make more! There are just too many ideas and so little space in one template.

Bookstagram Monthly Wrap Up Template

Bookstagram monthly wrap up templates has to be everyone’s favourite instagram story template! It is so satisfying to see the boxes being completed as you progress on your reading!

However, it can be very discouraging when you only see a couple of boxes filled out of the 9 boxes. That is why I created two options – 6 books or 9 books depending on your reading progress.

Go at your own pace, read how many books you want and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Bookstagram Story Monthly Wrap Up (6 Books)

If you don’t read a lot of books per month, you can use this 6 book template.

January Monthly Wrap-Up Template

February Monthly Wrap-Up Template

March Monthly Wrap-Up Template

April Monthly Wrap-Up Template

May Monthly Wrap-Up Template

June Monthly Wrap-Up Template

July Monthly Wrap-Up Template

August Monthly Wrap-Up Template

September Monthly Wrap-Up Template

October Monthly Wrap-Up Template

November Monthly Wrap-Up Template

December Monthly Wrap-Up Template

Bookstagram Monthly Wrap Up: 9 Books

If you tend to read a lot of books, you can use this 9 book template.

Monthly Favourite Book Template

Add one favourite book you’ve read each month to this template.

When the year ends, you’ll have a nice reading tracker to reflect on your favourite reads of the year!

Currently Reading Bookstagram Template

Here’s a bookish template for the books you’re currently reading. Share your reading progress and thoughts on your story.

This or That Bookstagram Template

Are you a fan of the This or That template? Many bookstagrammers seem to love it. Tag your friends and join in on the fun!

TBR Bookstagram Template

If you like posting your TBRs for the month or specifically for kindle/kindle unlimited – these templates will help!

Fill in the blank line with the month you’re on.

How To Make Bookstagram Templates

Making bookstagram templates aren’t all that difficult, but they can be time-consuming.

Which is why i’ve saved you the trouble by creating some for you! But if they aren’t to your liking (or don’t match your aesthetic), you can always create your own!

Step 1: Sign up for Canva

You can use the free Canva version to create story templates, but the elements and photos will be limited to free ones only. Search for the instagram story template to start of with. There are many options to choose from!

Step 2: Generate a colour palette

Choose a colour palette that fits your aesthetic by visiting a colour palette generator.

Step 3: Use elements in Canva

Use elements and select a rectangle to create monthly reading templates. Once you have created one, just duplicate the page and switch out the names of the month.

How To Use Bookstagram Templates

Step 1: Download or save the bookstagram templates from this blog post

Step 2: Open these templates up in insta-story

Step 3: Edit the template with words or stickers (you can select book covers as stickers to put on your monthly reading wrap-ups.

Step 4: Post it and save it in a highlight on your profile.

Step 5: Leave a blank template on your story for others to use!

Wrap Up: Bookstagram Story Templates

I hope you find joy using these free bookstagram templates. Don’t forget to tag your friends for engagement and feel free to tag me too!

All bookstagram story templates will be on my profile. You can have easy access to them – just screenshot and they’re ready to be used!

Which one’s are your favourites? Let me know!

Hi there, i'm Sonia. The founder and author at Brewing Writer, a blog that features detailed book reviews, bookstagram tips, book blogging tips, thoughtfully curated book lists (which my readers love!) and cozy aesthetic photography that’ll make you crave a cup of coffee and a good book.

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Instagram Stories for authors: How to create and use them

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you click on them and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission (at no extra charge to you).

I’m intimidated by Instagram Stories.

Whenever I create one on my phone for my personal or Build Book Buzz Instagram account , I spend too much time playing around with options and figuring out which ones might work best.

When the Young People do it, they create something interesting and engaging in just a few minutes. Me? At least 15 minutes. At. Least.

So, with the goal of getting better at this, I went looking for how-to information. I found videos, guides, templates, tools, and author examples.

If they help me, they might help you, right? So here are links to the information I found that was most helpful to me. I hope some of it helps you, too.

Table of Contents

How-to articles

If you like to learn by reading step-by-step instructions, you’ll appreciate these articles.

Instagram Stories: What They Are and How to Make One Like a Pro

HubSpot is one of my go-to sites for marketing information, and the company didn’t disappoint with this step-by-step tutorial. It’s written for a business audience, but don’t let that stop you. Authorship is a business, so this is a good fit for you.

Within the article, Hubspot links to Instagram Story templates you can download after completing the opt-in form. I’ve included that information below, in the “tools” section of this article.

How to create an Instagram Story

Mashable’s instructions are geared to personal, rather than business, Instagram accounts, but the information still applies. If you have two Instagram accounts – personal and author – it’s best to practice with your personal account, anyway.

Instagram Stories 101: Our Guide to Stickers, Effects, Key Settings and More

Don’t let the “Making an Insta Story is a lot like Snapchat” subhead in this CNET article scare you off (because, really, are you a big Snapchat user?). There are some good details in this one.

How-to videos

I usually prefer to learn how to do something by reading an article or a book, but in this case, I get more from video. It helps me to see cause and effect in quasi-real time.

How to Make Instagram Stories – Tips & Tricks

This Techboomers video is broken into two parts. One is for novices, the other is for more experienced Story creators. At the start of the video, the instructor tells you where on the timeline you’ll find advanced instructions for adding more bells and whistles to your Stories.

I like that this one shows the process without a distracting human on screen.

How to Easily Create Attractive Instagram Stories

Speaking of distracting humans, that’s what you’ll find on this video from Social Media Examiner, another excellent source of marketing information.

While I found the presenter’s effervescence a bit overwhelming, she does a great job of walking us through this in a way that’s clear and understandable. And I love the time-saving and mistake-preventing tips in her instruction.

Be sure to watch this one if videos help you.

I love any tool that takes me through a process that’s new or intimidating to me. I found a couple that I think you’ll like as much as I do.

VistaCreate

VistaCreate offers a “point-and-click” design tool. The best news (for me, anyway), is that you can use it on a computer, not just a phone. That’s music to my boomer ears.

Create a free account, then get started. The site walks you through the process step-by-step, starting with selecting a template from its collection. This is the first tool I’m going to use for Build Book Buzz .

Canva’s Instagram Story Creator

If you already use Canva, you know that it starts with a template. In addition to linking to templates, this Canva link gives you an overview of all the options you can use to create Stories there .

I like using Canva, so after I’ve created a few with VistaCreate, I’m going to try Canva, too.

Instagram for Business Kit

I’ve downloaded several free templates for different types of content from Hubspot before, so I wasn’t surprised to see the company offers them for Instagram Stories, too.

It has partnered with Talkwalker (I use its version of Google Alerts) to create an “Instagram for Business Kit” mentioned above. When you download that, the system takes you to another page where you can also download eight Instagram Stories templates and 14 post templates.

Author examples and ideas

How authors use instagram stories to connect with readers.

BookBub lists 16 Story content ideas with examples of each. Ideas include sharing sneak peeks of an upcoming book and asking for reader opinions.

I also recommend subscribing to the BookBub Partners Blog (partners = authors). You’ll receive an email every time there’s a new article.

Instagram Stories for Writers

In addition to sharing visual examples, writer Susan Shiney links to the Instagram accounts of several author Instagram accounts that she admires.

100 Instagram Story Ideas for Authors

Self-publishing services provider Shayla Raquel lists 100 ideas broken down into nine categories. Bookmark this link and you’ll never be at a loss for ideas.

My commitment

In order to get better at creating Instagram Stories, I need to create more of them.

So, I’m committing today to creating at least one Story a week for my Build Book Buzz account . I’ll create some from my phone and I’ll use some of the tools listed here, too.

Want to join me?  

If you want to join me, drop a link to your author account in the comments so I can follow you. Tell us what you’ll commit to.

Like what you’re reading? Get it delivered to your inbox every week by subscribing to the free Build Book Buzz newsletter. You’ll also get my free “Top 5 Free Book Promotion Resources” cheat sheet immediately!

Sandra Beckwith is an author, book marketing coach, freelance writer, and national award-winning former publicist whose Build Book Buzz book marketing blog is ranked 7th among thousands globally and has been honored as a top website for authors and writers seven times.

Thanks for sharing all these valuable resources! Lots of new tools to try. I have heard that there is an appetite for content on divorce and domestic violence on Instagram but, like you, I dislike doing these things from my phone. I also commit to creating Instagram stories! You may follow me at DivorceDilemma.

We can hold each other accountable, Sonia! I just followed you.

I’m following you as well. Storytime!

I love a good story!

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The Ultimate Guide to Bookstagram for Beginners

By: Author Laura

Posted on Published: 15th September 2023  - Last updated: 25th February 2024

Categories Book Blogging , Books

Thinking about starting a bookstagram? Here’s all you need to know about how to start a bookstagram from someone who’s been doing it for over a decade!

Have you been wondering what bookstagram is or want to know how to start a bookstagram account?

This comprehensive guide to bookstagram will take you through everything from what bookstagram is to how to create a bookstagram account, how to get bookstagram followers and more!

Over the years I’ve grown my Instagram from 0 to 70,000+ followers and these are some of my bookstagram tips to begin your journey to do the same. By the end of this guide, you will know how to bookstagram like a pro .

If you’re not already following me on Instagram, you can check out my account at @ whatshotblog where I post about books and travel.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Laura | What’s Hot? 🇨🇳🇬🇧 (@whatshotblog)

Now, let’s get started:

What is bookstagram?

Bookstagram, or book Instagram, is a niche corner of the internet for book lovers. Using the hashtag #bookstagram, you’ll find millions and millions of book-related photos posted by people from all over the world.

It’s an online community of bookworms who love to share pictures or videos of what they’re reading, their favourite books, their bookshelves, the libraries and bookshops they’re exploring and more.

All manner of bookish people are on bookstagram including authors, bookworms, booksellers, bookshops, libraries, book prizes and more. So you see there’s no simple answer for what is a bookstagram account!

If you’re an author then I’d suggest heading to my post on bookstagram for indie authors too.

How to Start a Bookstagram

Now let’s get into the nitty gritty of how to start a book instagram account! These simple steps below make creating a bookstagram super quick and easy.

Choose a bookstagram handle

First things first, you need to set up an Instagram account. If you want to properly immerse yourself in bookstagram then I suggest creating a new account dedicated to books, rather than converting an existing, personal account.

In doing so, you’ll have to choose yourself a bookstagram handle. But what to choose?! The possibilities are truly endless.

Think about why you’re starting a bookstagram account for some name inspiration. If you’ve got an existing book blog then obviously using the same name across your social media channels is advisable. If not, then it’s time to get your thinking cap on.

Many popular bookstagram accounts include words such as books, novel, tome, literature, bookworm, bookshelf, library, read, bookish, literary. Alternatively, you might be inspired by a favourite quote, character or place.

Or if you’re going to run a niche account and only focus on a certain kind of literature then you might want to be more specific and include keywords like young adult, thrillers, romance, bookshops, fiction, historical etc.

Have a little brainstorm about what kind of content you’re going to post and the vibe you’re aiming for. A combination of words related to those two themes, or even your name, might help you come with something good!

Make sure to do a quick search on Instagram to check it’s not already taken too.

Write a great bio for bookstagram

Now that you’ve chosen your bookstagram handle, it’s time to fill out your profile and write yourself a little bio to give a little insight into your account.

My bookstagram bio contains four lines in which I explain: what type of blogger I am, my blog’s tag line with my content’s aim, one line about me and a reminder to check out my blog for more content.

This is your chance to help people visiting your profile get to know you a bit better. The problem is, you’ve only got 150 words to do it. It’s tricky writing something concise here and people take different approaches.

You might include what genres you like to read, the name of their current read or the number of books they’ve read so far that year.

Or you might choose to focus more on your personal traits and share a few things that you love. And throw a few emojis in so people know you’re human.

Mix it up and find what works for you. You can always have a look at the bios of some of your favourite accounts for further bookstagram bio ideas.

I also tend to give mine a little “refresh” every few months or so, don’t feel you have to stick with a particular bio.

Although you have the option to add an email button to your Instagram page, I find that people rarely see this and end up DMing me information and asking for my email.

As a result, lots of people put their blog email addresses in their bios so it’s really clear where people can get in touch.

A lot of PR and marketing assistants will look for bookstagrammers to work with via the desktop version of their Instagram, where the email button doesn’t appear, so I personally advise putting the email directly in the bio.

If you’ve got a blog, make sure to link to it from your Instagram page too. You can now add multiple links to your Instagram bio, which is great as you can link to your blog, your other social media channels, a mailing list, your Goodreads account or other interesting articles.

Some people still prefer to use platforms such as linktr.ee . This is a single link which opens up into a page with a list of more links.

READ MORE: How I got Started on Bookstagram: 0 to 70,000+ followers

Convert your account to a creator account

If you want to grow your bookstagram, I’d highly recommend making the (free) switch from a personal account to a creator account.

This will give you an insight into your Instagram stats including information about where your followers are located and what time they’re usually online.

You’ll be able to see the gender divide of your audience, the age brackets they fall in and your follower growth amongst other things.

This is invaluable information that will help you figure out what time to post, which posts are doing well and more.

If you’re hoping to later monetise your account, this is an important step as brands may well ask for screenshots of this information down the line too.

To do this, simply go to your account settings and select “Account”. At the bottom of the page, there are some links in blue, which should give you the option to switch to either a creator or a business account.

Unless if you’re planning on selling products or opening an online store, I’d go with the creator account.

NB. You may find instead a single option for a “professional” account, which will give you the same insights.

Posting to Bookstagram

Now let’s turn to how to bookstagram.

Bookstagram post ideas

Now your account is all set up, it’s time to get posting! The style and type of content on bookstagram is hugely varied so it’s good to get an idea of what content you might like to create before you first press that publish button.

Some bookstagrammers are all about the caption and post long-form reviews. If you’re here because you want to know how to create a book blog on Instagram or how to be a book blogger on Instagram then you’ll likely post in this style.

Instagram has become a sort of micro-blogging platform and captions can be up to 2,200 characters so there’s plenty of space for mini reviews.

Other bookstagrammers are all about the aesthetics and post beautiful book-related photos and videos. Some only post flatlays, others only post about bookshops. Some never post shots with them in them, others post pictures and videos of themselves reading.

As you can see, “bookstagram” is a very generic term for a huge range of book-related content. I’d say my feed is a mixture of all of the above options so don’t feel the need to pigeonhole yourself. Get posting and you’ll soon find your groove.

It took me years to find mine so don’t worry too much about this and just enjoy posting about books and making new bookstagram friends.

You should also experiment with all the different post types that Instagram has to offer. At the moment, there are 6 different types of content you can create on Instagram: posts, carousels, reels, stories, lives, and guides.

Trying them all out will force you to exercise a little creativity and you’ll figure out what your style is!

Check out this post about my bookstagram evolution to see my very first bookstagram post and how it developed from there. For more inspiration check out these beautiful and creative bookstagram accounts:

RELATED: 20 Beautiful Bookstagram Accounts to Follow Now

Bookstagram props

If you’ve already had a chance to browse through bookstagram and the content on there, you may notice that people love to post book flatlays and book stacks with other props in them.

By bookstagram props, I mean items that aren’t books that go in your photos.

You’ll see that some of the biggest bookstagrammers are constantly buying new props for their accounts and are veritable prop hoarders. But it’s absolutely not necessary to buy props specifically for your bookstagram account.

There are plenty of items around the house that will work very well too.

READ MORE: 24 Bookstagram Props to Use in Your Book Flatlays

An easy one, which you’ll already have in your home, is a mug. Books and tea go hand in hand, right? That’s what I’ve been told anyway… I’m not a fan! An insult to both my cultures.

Other things you might have around the house that could be bookstagram props include clothes, slippers, bookmarks, cushions, dry flowers, glasses, bags, newspapers, the list goes on!

If you’ve been tempted by other bookstagrammers, some other popular bookstagram props you could invest in include funko pops (tiny figurines of popular book and film characters), candles, posters, book sleeves, bookish tote bags and more.

READ MORE: Accessories That Every Bookworm Needs

Editing bookstagram photos

If you want your bookstagram feed to have a “theme” or consistent look, then you should think about what kind of edit you want to apply to your images.

Some people apply very minimalist editing whilst others will go for strong filters.

When I started on bookstagram I focussed on bright, white images and then moved to darker desaturated tones. Now, my feed is the opposite and is quite bright with warm, orangy tones.

Picking a consistent theme can help build a brand and image style that your followers instantly come to recognise when it pops up on your feed.

Instagram has its own editing tools inside the app, but in terms of good-quality filters, theirs are rather limited. If you want a great, free app to start off with, I’d recommend VSCO.

They’ve got loads of great filters you can apply and adjust as you please. If you want to upgrade to some of the nicer filters, this will cost you a subscription fee of around £29.99 per year (which works out as less than £2.50 a month!).

I personally use Lightroom to edit my photos and this is part of Adobe’s editing suite. It’s more expensive at £9.99 per month but you can do so much more with your images on this computer programme (the mobile app version is free!).

This is one for the slightly more experienced photographers or those looking to really perfect their images with editing.

You can create or buy your own filters for Lightroom, known as presets, which mean you can apply the same tones to every photo.

I now use my own presets, which are available to purchase from my shop here . If you love the look of the photos and videos on my blog and Instagram then please do purchase my preset pack to give your photos a warm glow with just one click!

These bookstagram presets are used on all my online images and come in three varieties – light, dark and warm. Don’t worry if you’ve never used Lightroom before as there’s a preset installation guide included!

What’s great is that Lightroom recently introduced an update so you can use these presets on videos too!

Edit your photos like me with my presets, available here!

There are free presets that you can download from the internet but, in my experience, none of them are quite as good as those sold by photographers and content creators.

If you’re not ready to make your own presets or invest in some then I think you’d be better off with an editing app on your phone. That’s my experience anyway!

Browse cheap presets on Etsy from small businesses here!

Planning your bookstagram feed

Now you’ve got some images, you’ve edited them and you’re raring to go! But what order do you post them in?

To some people, this will seem like a silly question. But to the perfectionists out there who want to curate a beautiful, consistent feed, this is another important step.

Using planning apps can help you to get a sense of what your Instagram feed will look like ahead of time.

This is useful for seeing whether your most recent set of photos all work well together, as well as for pre-scheduling some photos and captions.

I would recommend starting with the app Planoly , which is free, so it’s a great option for those who don’t want to spend any money on bookstagram.

I currently use Preview App , which is great for scheduling content on both your phone and desktop or if you’re managing multiple accounts.

Using these apps, you can upload all your edited bookstagram photos and then rearrange them as you please. You simply use your finger to drag the images and they’ll move into a new order.

It’s amazing to see what a difference this can make. You can also write your captions for each photo ahead of time and save a bank of hashtags to use .

You can now schedule Instagram posts from within the app, but this is generally a little glitchy so I’d recommend manually posting content in the moment or from your drafts folder.

If you are using an app like Planoly or Preview App, you can set up notifications so they remind you when to post and you can just copy and paste a pre-written caption from the app to Instagram. Easy.

Tip : Be careful to make sure you never log out of or delete your Instagram account if you have lots of draft posts ready to go as these will all disappear!

How do I get followers on bookstagram?

Whilst I don’t think bookstagram should be all about the followers, let’s be honest, everyone wants their account to grow and for their work to be appreciated! Here are tips for getting more engagement and followers on bookstagram.

Post content that is educational, entertaining or inspirational

There are three key types of content on Instagram that you can create to encourage people to follow you.

These are educational content, entertaining content or inspirational content.

In a bookstagram context, this could mean content that is informative (e.g. book reviews, book lists, information on new releases), funny or relatable (e.g. poking fun at bookstagrammer traits like book hoarding) or motivational or inspirational content (e.g. beautiful libraries to visit in the future, beautiful home libraries etc.).

Post a variety of content in different formats

As mentioned above, there are 6 different types of content you can create on Instagram, and posting a variety of them all seems to please the algorithm.

Whilst I wouldn’t advocate becoming a slave to the algorithm, it is inevitably an important aspect of Instagram!

At the moment, Instagram is heavily pushing out video content and so you’ll definitely want to experiment with the reels function, which is a TikTok style of video.

Reels even have their own section of the app which is accessed from the bar at the bottom of the app, proving their importance!

The best way to use reels is to search for trending audio (it will have a little tick next to it) and put your own spin on that sound. Your videos need to be able to hook people in the first few seconds so short, snappy videos tend to do very well.

My top tip to anyone who asks me about how to grow followers on Instagram is to engage with the community you’re in.

You need to like and comment on other people’s photos regularly and start to form connections with similar accounts. If you don’t engage with the community, why should they engage with you?

Doing this is how I’ve made so many good friends via bookstagram, something I never dreamed would happen when I set up my account.

If you take the time to read people’s captions and make meaningful comments, you’ll find that you can start to form connections with people.

Don’t just go down your bookstagram feed and comment “nice pic”. This is not a good form of engagement.

I suppose now would be a good time to talk about engagement pods. An engagement pod or comment pod is a chat group (usually within Instagram but it could be on another platform), where people post their latest photos and ask for other people in the group to comment and like it.

They’re set up to “beat the algorithm” as Instagram has a habit of hiding people’s posts from our feeds if we don’t interact with them much.

I know that so many bookstagrammers participate in these, but I really don’t recommend them. I’ll admit that I was in one of these when I first got started with bookstagram and found it incredibly stressful.

If the group is large, it’s a big commitment to make I think it takes the fun out of posting and making friends organically.

It doesn’t drive genuine engagement and it means you are obligated to comment on content that perhaps doesn’t resonate with you.

These groups also breach the guidelines of most influencer marketing platforms now as they are seen as a form of fake engagement.

If you’re friends with the people in these groups and comment on their feeds regularly, their posts should show up in your feed naturally. It’s much better to grow organically than to try and use tactics like this, in my opinion.

Hashtags are essential to being discovered by more accounts on Instagram. So important in fact that I’ve written an entire article dedicated to book hashtags and how to use them!

If you want some inspiration and examples for which book hashtags to use, then check out this in-depth article:

READ MORE: All You Need to Know About Book Hashtags

Essentially, Instagram will allow you to add up to 30 hashtags to every post and to maximise reach you should be including relevant hashatags on each of your posts.

There are quite a lot of opinions on the “best” number of hashtags to use.

Whilst some still say that you should be going for the maximum of 30, I myself have been on a call with an Instagram representative who said that 7 or so hashtags is ideal.

Personally, I still go for around 30 hashtags, but make sure they are all super relevant to the content you are posting – don’t bother using hashtags that aren’t relevant or needed.

Play around with this and see what works best for you.

There are so many bookstagram hashtags out there and unfortunately using those like #bookstagram #books will not be sufficient.

These hashtags have millions and millions of users and new posts are appearing every second. This means your post will be drowned in a sea of other new photos being uploaded at the same time.

Instead, you should carefully curate some book hashtags that are relevant to your photo and account. If you pick smaller and very relevant hashtags you should be discovered by other like-minded people.

There’s much more detail in my dedicated article on book hashtags so make sure to read that next.

Consistency

Consistency is really important on social media to train the algorithms to know what to expect from you, what time to expect it etc.

When you are just starting out, it can be useful to post content that stems from a similar theme so the algorithm knows what kind of content you post and can push it out to people that it knows like similar content.

You don’t need to confine yourself to too strict a niche, but it can be easier to grow if you post a similar style or type of video on a regular basis. Once your account is a bit larger, it can be easier to branch out into more varied content.

Instagram values those who post engaging content on a regular and consistent basis. Think of Instagram like a hungry bear that needs to be fed at regular intervals, preferably very regular intervals.

Of course, most people are not able to sit on Instagram all day engaging with other accounts and posting their own content. But it is still important to be consistent.

If you can only post three times a week, then try to post on the same three days, at the same time each week. This trains the algorithm to know what to expect from you and will be better than posting one post a day for three days and then disappearing for two weeks.

Whether it’s one post a week or one post a day, consistency is key.

Can I get free books?

Really this question warrants a post of its own, but the short answer is yes .

If you have an engaged following on bookstagram, it’s likely that publishers will be willing to send you review copies of their titles.

The great thing is that you don’t need a huge number of followers to receive review copies and I’ve seen plenty of accounts with under 1000 followers receive gifted books from publishers.

I think that as long as you can show that you can add value with beautiful pictures, informative captions, an engaged audience or, ideally, a mixture of all these and more, then publishers will be open to hearing from you. They may even slide into your DMs themselves.

You might not be able to get a copy of the latest Harry Potter book if you’re still a small account but, publishers are keen to get their new releases out on bookstagram.

READ MORE: Why Influencers Shouldn’t Use the Term “Gifted”

Side note, I don’t really like using the term “free” as I don’t think anything truly comes for free.

In exchange, the publisher will expect you to post about the book on your feed and give the book publicity so it’s a reciprocal, working relationship. Which brings me to…

Can you earn money from bookstagram?

Now we’re in sticky territory. People have a lot of opinions about whether or not bookstagrammers should be paid. Arguments often get quite heated.

My personal opinion is that they absolutely should. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty here as I wrote an entire article here about why I think bookstagrammers should be paid .

I also asked some of the top book influencers what they think about the influencer marketing industry in the book realm and they also agreed that bookstagrammers should be paid. Read their thoughts in full here: book bloggers share what they think of the influencer marketing industry .

Publishers have been slow to adapt but some progress has been made since I published the two articles I just linked.

It is definitely possible to make money from bookstagram, but it often means being willing to promote non-book-related products.

I don’t know any full-time bookstagrammer who only makes money from bookstagram or book blogging and all have diverse income streams.

Funnily enough, publishers seem to be more willing to pay posts on the other platform and there are a lot of quite successful BookTokers.

But, generally, it is a lot harder to earn money if you are in the book niche as compared to, say, fashion or parenting.

How can I earn money from bookstagram?

The two main ways to earn money from Instagram are sponsored posts and affiliate links.

Sponsored posts usually work in one of two ways: either brands come to you or you sign up to an influencer marketing platform. Pitching to brands is also a possibility if you can find out who to get in touch with.

Two popular influencer marketing platforms that I know offer bookish opportunities include Takumi and Tribe . I’ve used both extensively in the past and they’re good platforms to experiment with when starting out with sponsored posts.

As my account has grown, I’ve found it less suited to these apps, whose rates are very (very!) low, but I’d recommend having a look to see if they are hosting opportunities that are right for you.

Of course, just because your account is about books does not mean that should only seek book-related sponsored opportunities.

Depending on your style of photos and how niche your account is, you may find it easy to promote other products like snacks or stationery for example.

There will definitely be more opportunities for these kinds of products than there will be for books or strictly book-related products.

RELATED: How to Disclose Sponsored Posts on Instagram

Instagram allows accounts of all sizes to post links in their stories so anyone can start earning with affiliate links.

You could also add affiliate links to the link in your bio as mentioned above.

I have a whole post dedicated to affiliate links for book bloggers where you can learn more about which platforms to use and what retailers are available.

READ MORE: The Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing for Book Bloggers

That’s it for now! If you’ve been asking yourself “should I start a bookstagram?” then you absolutely should. Out of all the communities on Instagram, bookstagram is one of the friendliest.

Compare bookstagram to the world of fashion or travel influencers or even book twitter, bookstagram has one of the nicest internet communities out there.

Social media can often be a toxic place, but bookstagram has always been a positive space for me.

I hope this guide about how to make a bookstagram has been helpful and will give you the confidence to set up your own bookstagram.

Don’t let worries about how to start bookstagram stop you from actually getting going.

If you’d like any more detail on the above or more tips for starting a book Instagram, please let me know in the comments below or by dropping me a DM on Instagram !

If you’re interested in becoming a book blogger too, then make sure to check out my guide for how to start a book blog too.

If you found this post helpful, please  support me with a small contribution on Ko-Fi . This information was provided free of charge but is invaluable to bloggers and influencers and I’d really appreciate your support!

Pin now, read again later!

If you liked this post, check out these: How I Read Over 75+ Books Per Year How to Start a Book Blog 36 Book Blog Post Ideas My Bookstagram Evolution Book Hashtag Guide Behind the scenes on Instagram

Editor of What’s Hot?

Saturday 30th of September 2023

Could you post a mix of educational, entertaining, and inspirational content? Or would that be too much?

Sunday 18th of July 2021

Is it important that the picture you post on bookstagram should belong to you only??

Wednesday 21st of July 2021

Copyright of an image will always belong to the person who took the original photo. There are lots of repost accounts on Instagram but it is best practice to send a message to the photo owner to double-check they are ok for you to repost their image. When you repost it, you should always tag and credit the image owner clearly.

Wednesday 14th of July 2021

I love this. This has given me some great ideas on becoming apart of this community xx

Sunday 17th of January 2021

I also having some problem with converting it into creators account

If you have the option of converting to a professional account then I would do that. Then you can access insights etc.

Yeisha Beasley

Wednesday 21st of October 2020

My Instagram account says switch to a Professional Account but it doesn't have a Creator Account. Is the Professional Account the same as a Creator Account

In that case, you should convert to the professional account to access insights :) I believe Professional encompasses both Business and Creator though am unsure if you will have the option to later choose Creator specifically.

I believe professional accounts can be either creator accounts or business accounts. Once you click through to turn it into a professional account, I think you’d have the option to specifically make it a creator account. Instagram has more info on their own website that’s worth reading: https://www.facebook.com/help/instagram/2358103564437429.

How to Write a Great Book Review: 6 Templates and Ideas

This post may contains affiliate links. If you click and buy we may make a commission, at no additional charge to you. Please see our disclosure policy for more details.

Whether you’ve loved or hated your recent reads, writing book reviews can be a fun and satisfying process. It’s a great way to unpack messages and information from a story, and it also helps you remember key elements of a book for much longer than you usually would. Plus, book reviews open up some interesting and exciting debates between readers with different opinions, and they also help others decide which books to read next .

Table of Contents

Where Can You Post Book Reviews?

Back in the old days, book reviews were reserved for leading publications and journals, but now, anyone can create their own book reviews, and they’re popping up almost everywhere.

Social Media

Bookworms have taken over social media, with hashtags like # bookstagram drawing in millions of readers from around the internet to share thoughts, ideas, inspiration, and of course, reviews.

Book blogs are also blowing up right now, and plenty of avid readers are making a solid income by writing and sharing their book reviews this way. You can either create your own from scratch or write guest posts and reviews for already established blogs.

Goodreads is the undisputed online home of books. It’s a great place to find inspiration for your next reads, browse other people’s book reviews, and of course, add your own reviews, too.

If you post a review of a popular book on Goodreads, it’s bound to be seen by a huge audience. Plus, it’s a great way to advertise your blog if you have one, as the Goodreads guidelines allow you to insert a link within the body of your review.

The world’s largest bookstore gets an incredible amount of traffic, so it’s one of the best places to get your reviews seen by the masses. But bear in mind that there are more rules and regulations for Amazon book reviews than on some of the other platforms listed here. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the guidelines first, or your submission could be rejected.

Booktube is a Youtube community dedicated to reviewing, discussing, and recommending books. If you’re comfortable in front of a camera, vlogging your book reviews on Booktube is an excellent alternative to the more traditional written book reviews above. It’s also a great way to get noticed by viewers around the world.

Some Booktube reviewers make their entire income from their channel, so if you’re passionate about reviewing and want to turn it into a living, this is a great avenue to explore.

Get Paid for Your Book Reviews

Some of the platforms I’ve listed above, like Booktube, Instagram, and blogging , allow you to get paid for your book reviews if you generate enough traffic, but getting to that level takes a lot of dedication, time, and patience.

Thankfully, there are plenty of websites that pay reviewers on a freelance basis. Here are three of the most popular:

Remember, each site has strict submission guidelines and requirements that you’ll need to check carefully before writing and submitting a review.

Kirkus Reviews

The Kirkus Reviews magazine, founded in 1933, is one of America’s oldest, most respected book reviewing companies.

They accept reviews around 350 words in length, and once you’re assigned the gig, you have a two-week submission deadline.

Kirkus is always on the lookout for new book reviewers, but you’ll need to prove you have experience and talent before they’ll accept your submissions. The best way to do this is to create a professional-looking portfolio that showcases your previous reviews, both paid and unpaid.

Booklist is a subgroup of the American Library Association. They feature all kinds of book reviews, both fiction and non-fiction, and publish them online and in print.

They pay their reviewers on a freelance, book-by-book basis. Their rates aren’t going to make you rich (around $12- $15 per review), but it’s a great way to gain some professional experience and build your book review portfolio without having to work for free.

Booklist has various publication outlets, such as their quarterly in-print magazine, a reader’s blog, and top book lists. Plus, they also accept pitches for book-related news and author interviews.

Online Book Club

This free-to-access community of bibliophiles has been going for over ten years, with a million active members and counting.

To join their professional freelance team, you’ll first have to submit an unpaid review to help them to determine if you’re worth hiring. If your review makes the cut, then your next submission is paid at a rate varying between $5 and $60, depending on the book’s length, the quality of the review, etc.

One of the major stipulations of Online Book Club is that your reviews are in-depth and honest. If you don’t like the book, never put a positive spin on it for the sake of it. ( The same goes for any book review platform you post on. )

It’s also worth noting that with Online Book Club, you’ll never pay for the books you review. So even if they reject your submission, you’ll still get a free book out of it.

How to Write a Book Review?

Book reviews can range from a simple tweet to a full-length essay or long-form blog post and anything in between.

As I mentioned above, some book review sites and platforms have strict guidelines and parameters to follow. But if you’re writing a book review for social media, your own blog, or any other purpose that lets you take the reins, then the following ideas will give you some help and inspiration to get started.

But before we dive in, let’s take a look at four key elements that a comprehensive book review should contain.

1. Information about the author and the name of the book

You might want to include any accolades that the author has received in the past and mention some of their previous notable works.

Also, consider the publication date; is the book a brand-new release, a few years old, or a classic from another century?

2. A summary of the plot

Writing about the plot takes skill and consideration; if your description is too thorough, you risk ruining the book for your audience with spoilers. But on the other hand, if you’re too vague on the details, your review can lack depth.

Consider your audience carefully, and if you feel like your book review contains even the slightest hint of spoilers, always add a warning at the beginning so people can decide for themselves whether to read on.

3. Your evaluation

This is the part where you get to describe what you feel about the book as a whole and give your opinion on the different elements within it. But, again, don’t be tempted to fall into the trap of positively evaluating books you didn’t actually like; no one wants to read a false review, so if you didn’t like it, explain why.

4. Your reader recommendation

Who might the book appeal to? Is it suitable for all audiences? In your opinion, is it a universal must-read, or should people avoid it?

Keep in mind that the purpose of most book reviews is to help the reader decide whether or not they would like to read it themselves. What works for you might not work for others, so consider this when writing your recommendations.

6 Book Review Templates and Ideas

1. the traditional approach.

Most traditional fiction reviews, like the ones found in newspapers and other popular publications, are based on the following format…

Introduction

The introduction is a paragraph or two which includes:

• Key information that the reader needs to know. For example, the book’s title, the author’s name, the publication date, and any relevant background information about the author and their work.
• A brief one-sentence summary of the plot. This sets the general scene of what the book is about.
• Your overall opinion of the book. Again, keep it brief. (you can delve deeper into what you liked and disliked later in the review).

This is the main body of your book review, where you break down and analyze the work. Some of the key elements you might want to examine are listed below. Approach each element one at a time to help your analysis flow.

• The characters
• The setting
• The structure of the story
• The quality of the writing

What did you notice about each one, what did you enjoy, and what did you dislike? Why?

The conclusion is usually the shortest part of a traditional book review, which usually contains:

• A summary of your thoughts about the book as a whole
• Your reader recommendation

Remember that unless you’re writing a book review for a pre-existing publication, there are no rules that you need to follow. This traditional format can be adapted to suit your own style, the book you are reviewing, and your audience.

Also Read : BEST FICTION BOOK REVIEWS

2. Social Media Book Reviews

Book reviews posted on social media tend to have a more relaxed tone than a traditional book review. Again, there are no set rules, but here are a few guidelines and suggestions for posting reviews on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

• Include an eye-catching image

This is essential on Instagram, but whatever social media platform you’re posting on, including a great photo will draw people in to read your review.

In the Instagram world, photos of books taken directly from above are called ‘flat lays.’ You can keep it simple and just snap the front cover, or you can get creative and shoot your book flat lay against an interesting backdrop or include items related to the story.

• Break up your review into short, bite-sized paragraphs

This rule applies to most web content, but it’s even more important on social media, where everyone competes for your reader’s attention.

Big blocks of text are much harder to follow and a sure-fire way to lose your reader’s attention before they even get started. Instead, stick to short paragraphs of one, two, or three sentences, and include spaces between each one.

• Know your character limit

At just 280 characters, Twitter is by far the stingiest of the major social media platforms when it comes to the length of posts. That’s why most people choose platforms like Instagram or Facebook for book reviews. That being said, you can still use Twitter as a way of linking to them once they go live.

Instagram is considerably more generous with its 2,200-character limit, but if you have a lot to say about the book you’re reviewing, it can still be limiting.

If you want to post a more comprehensive review on social media, Facebook is your best bet; they have an upper limit of 63,206 characters.

Whichever platform you post on, remember to factor any hashtags into your character limit too.

• Keep it succinct

Book reviews on social media perform better when sentences are concise. This helps to combat the character limit issue I mentioned above and gets your point across quickly, without the fluff.

Readers on platforms like Instagram and Facebook flit from post to post, so if you don’t say what you mean in as few words as possible, you’ll risk losing your audience altogether.

• Don’t be afraid of emojis.

Love them or hate them, emojis convey mood and emotion where words can sometimes fail us. They also add an extra visual element to a post, help to break up blocks of text and keep the tone informal.

Of course, there’s no rule that you have to include emojis in your social media book reviews, but if you’re already comfortable using them elsewhere, consider incorporating them here too.

• Add a star rating

Star ratings instantly tell your audience whether you loved the book or not before they read a single word of your post. It’s also another visual element to help draw your audience in to find out more.

• Avoid spoilers

I’ve already touched on spoilers above, but it’s essential to avoid them on social media book reviews. That’s because unsuspecting users are scrolling from post to post on these platforms with no way of knowing what’s coming next. As a result, it’s very easy to read something you can’t unread.

• Consider tagging the author and publisher.

But ONLY do this if you enjoyed the book and your review is favorable. It’s not good online etiquette to tag in the creators if you’re posting a scathing critique; it’s mean-spirited, and it could lead to a social media squabble, which the internet has enough of already.

3. Goodreads and Amazon Book Reviews

Both Goodreads and Amazon allow anyone to upload a review of any book, so they’re great places to get started if you’re new to the reviewing world. Plus, you can post more in-depth and lengthy reviews than you can on social media platforms.

There are endless ways to write reviews for sites like these, but if you’re looking for a bit of inspiration, here’s a good template that will help you to flesh out your ideas.

• Star Rating

Sites like Goodreads and Amazon usually ask for a 1-5 star rating before writing your review. 3 is your baseline which translates to “pretty good.” It can be tempting to rush straight in for a 5 star if you loved a book, but where possible, try to reserve this rating for books that really blow you away.

• A Brief Synopsis

Reviews on these sites appear directly under the book listing, so generally, there’s no need to mention the author, title, or publishing details. Instead, you can dive straight into a quick overview of the plot, using the official publisher’s summary to help you if needed.

Avoid revealing any significant details or spoilers, but include enough to outline the story and give context to the rest of your review.

Talking about how the book made you feel is a good place to start. Did you learn something you didn’t know before? Was it a page-turner or a hard slog? Were there any twists you did or didn’t see coming? Mentioning the existence of a plot twist is usually deemed ok, as long as you don’t reveal what it is.

Next, examine the book’s various elements, including the characters, setting, and plot, using examples. You might even want to include some direct quotes from the book, as long as they don’t give too much away.

Just like the traditional book review format, conclude it with a summary. Are you glad you read it? Who might enjoy this book, and who should avoid it?

4. Listicle Book Reviews

Listicles are articles and blog posts structured like a numbered list. An example from the book review world is “10 reasons why you need to read X by X”.

These types of reviews are particularly well suited to blog posts, as they’re an excellent way to encourage people to click on your link compared with a less attention-grabbing traditional format.

That being said, listicle book reviews tend only to work if your feedback is positive. Using this format to review a book you hated risks alienating your audience and coming across as harsh and judgemental. Less favorable reviews are better presented in a more traditional format that explores a book’s different aspects one by one.

5. An Essay Style Analysis

An essay-style review isn’t technically a review, as it delves much deeper into the work and examines it from multiple angles.

If you’re not limited to a word count and want to dissect an author’s work, then an in-depth essay-style analysis can be a great addition to your blog. Plus, they’re generally written for people who have already read the book, so there’s no need to worry about spoilers.

But when you’re writing more than 500 words about a book, it can be easy to ramble or go off on a tangent. Here’s an example format to keep you on track:

• Include the author’s name, the title of the book, and the date of publication.
• Is the book a standalone novel or part of a series?
• What made you choose this book in the first place? Have you read any of the author’s previous work?
• Describe the cover. Does it draw you in? Is it an appropriate representation of the book as a whole?

Set the Scene

• Include an overview of the plot.
• Did you have any expectations or preconceived ideas about the book before you read it?

Your Review

Discuss the following elements one at a time. Use quotes or direct examples when talking about each one.

• Describe the geographical location, the period in time, and the environment.
• Is the setting based on reality or imagination?
• How does the setting help to add mood and tone to the story?
• Give an overview of the main characters and their backgrounds.
• Discuss the significant plot points in the story in chronological order.
• What are the conflicts, the climaxes, and the resolutions?
• How does the author use literary devices to bring meaning and life to book?
• For example, discuss any elements of foreshadowing, metaphors, symbolism, irony, or imagery.
• What are the overall themes and big ideas in the story? For example, love, death, friendship , war, and coming of age.
• What, if any, are the morals within the story?
• Are there any underlying or less prominent themes that the author is trying to portray?

Your Opinion

• Which elements were successful, and which weren’t?
• Were the characters believable? Did you want them to succeed?
• In the case of plot twists, did you see them coming?
• Are there any memorable scenes or quotes that particularly stood out to you? If so, why?
• How did the book make you feel? Did it evoke any strong emotions?
• Did the book meet your preconceived expectations?
• Were you satisfied by the ending, or did you find it frustrating?
• Summarise the plot and theme in a couple of sentences.
• Give your overall opinion. Was the book a success, a failure, or something in between?
• Include a reader recommendation, for example, “this book is a must-read for anyone with a love of dystopian science fiction.”
• Include a star rating if you wish.

6. Create Your Own Book Review Template

If you plan on becoming a regular book reviewer, it’s a good idea to create your own unique template that you can use for every book you review, whether you’re posting on a blog, website, or social media account.

You can mix and match the various elements of the review styles above to suit your preferences and the types of books you’ll be reviewing.

Creating a template unique to you helps build your authority as an independent reviewer and makes writing future reviews a lot easier.

Writing book reviews is a great way to get even more out of your reading journey. Whether you loved or hated a title, reviewing it will help you remember and process the story, and you’ll also be helping others to decide whether or not it’s worth their time, too.

And who knows, you might fall in love with writing book reviews and decide to pursue it as an additional source of income or even a new career!

Whatever your book reviewing plans and goals are, I hope the templates, tips, and ideas above will help you get started.

Do you have any advice for writing a great book review? Let me know in the comments below!

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How to write book reviews for bookstagram

This blog is part of a four-part series of bookstagram tips, split up from  my original post on this topic  for easier readability.   This final post focuses on writing book reviews.

Book reviews are a big part of the book community. They help tell other readers what to expect from books, help you keep track of books you read and help you learn what you like and don’t like over time.

I think  reviews are extremely subjective  and personal. I’m sharing what works well for me to format my reviews, but that won’t necessarily be what works for you. For example, I don’t like synopsis in reviews because I’d rather just read the book blurb from the publisher. Other people love to read them and write quick synopsis at the top of their reviews. So ultimately, my advice is do what works for you!

Use this guide as a starting point, and don’t be afraid to experiment to find what you like! It may take some time to find your fit for your bookstagram reviews.

I used to use  a star rating system  but I am no longer using it in my bookstagram posts, and instead only use it on Goodreads. They help me personally track how I felt about a book which is why I like them on my Goodreads. But I’ve found that so many people hone in on just your star rating on posts, and skip over the context of the review, which used to frustrate me because star ratings are not used consistently and so people would misinterpret my thoughts on books despite them being plainly stated.

How I format my book reviews

I use basically the same review on Goodreads and my blog. Sometimes I will shorten up the content for Instagram space reasons but I keep the same structure.

• Overview . My quick take on what I felt about the book/ a summary of what’s to come.
• What I liked/ loved . Even if it’s a book that wasn’t for me, I try to find qualities to highlight that I enjoyed. Sometimes this section is really long and other times it’s really short.
• What didn’t work for me . Sometimes I don’t have this section if I have a rave review. But usually I highlight anything that I struggled with here.
• Who I’d recommend it to . Even if a book wasn’t meant for me, I try to share who may enjoy it. I sometimes compare it to books it reminded me of as well here.
• Content warnings , if needed – so people have a heads up going in. I put this at the end because some people find them spoiler-y but I do think they’re important to have.

I used to just openly share all my opinions in reviews, and most people who know me know I have a lot of thoughts on any topic. I’m trying to be more thoughtful especially in my negative reviews though, to make sure my reviews add value to other readers. Especially books that are sharing perspectives different from my own.

I think it’s important to be balanced and recognize that those books weren’t written with me in mind. I may not connect as strongly immediately, but that doesn’t make them bad. The caveat is if a book has problematic content (is racist, uses stereotypes, etc.) I absolutely will call that out.

An example review

Here’s an example of a review I shared of the book These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Allie S. (@alliemikennareads)

In case that’s not easy to read, here’s the text format labeled by category:

Overview: I really enjoyed this witchy YA mystery book! It was a perfect October read. It’s not technically classified as a mystery but had many qualities I love about the mystery genre.

What I loved : It’s an interesting take on the teen witch story. Hannah is an elemental witch and controls the elements of fire, earth, air, and water. She’s navigating a breakup with her ex-girlfriend, trying to move on with her still in her life, and the evil underfoot that threatens her coven’s secrecy and lives.

While I guessed the biggest mystery, it took awhile and I felt like the clues to throw you off were very well done. The characters all had a decent amount of personality and believable dialogue and decision making for YA age groups.

What didn’t work for me: I didn’t love that you are kind of dumped in the story world and not given some of the details to help you settle until the story is fairly underway. I also felt the pacing was a little too slow in the first half and a little too quick in the second half.

Who I’d recommend it to: But I was hooked and had a hard time putting this down. I really look forward to the sequel and I would definitely recommend this to fans of witchy YA books and YA mysteries.

Mini-reviews

Sometimes, I may want to post a shorter review on Instagram. I call these “mini-reviews” and use a variety of different formats, but generally it’s a condensed version of the above.

Here’s an example of a mini-review post:

And here’s the text:

Mini review of these poems: They are fun to set the mood for spooky season but overall they aren’t my favorite volume of poems since they’re heavy on the old British poets which aren’t my favorite. Still a fun little volume for your shelf or to set the mood for Halloween!

Do you have a review format that you love that’s different? Share your structure in the comments to help give people more ideas!

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14 Book Instagrams to Follow if You Love Reading as Much as We Do

FYI, they're called "bookstagrams."

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If you... appreciate an expert opinion:

The New York Times is one of the most trusted authorities on the best and most popular of the literary world. With this account, you get exclusive daily reviews and recommendations from the esteemed publication's skilled book editors—along with revealing quotes from some of your favorite authors. (Think Alice Walker and Malala Yousfazi.)

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Known as the largest independent bookshop in New York City, this woman-owned company always manages to feature recommendations that are both culturally aware and relevant. Take their Marie Kondo-inspired reads pictured here—or this collection of novels written by indigenous female authors.

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From New York City and D.C., to Chile and London, this account features readers from all around the world as they share the books they're reading on their commute.

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If you ... love supporting authors of color:

A community dedicated to recognizing the work of women of color, Well Read Black Girl regularly posts book recommendations across various genres and inspiring quotes—all penned by Black female writers.

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If you... appreciate a good Instagram photo as much as you do a good book:

This account has stellar book recommendations, and the relaxing, aesthetically pleasing pictures of organized bookshelves, coffee cups, and charming shops will be a breath of fresh air for your feed.

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If you... have a weakness for fantasy and sci-fi: Not only does "the girl with no name" post flawlessly moody pics of her book collection, but from Game of Thrones to Harry Potter, her whimsical novel suggestions are a dream.

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If you... are looking to find a friend in the bookstagram community:

With a combination of warm, inviting photos and captions with questions like, "What are some of your favorite bookstores?" and "What’s your favorite weather to read in?" Madeleine's comment section is a great place to interact with your fellow bibliophiles.

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If you... would do anything Reese Witherspoon tells you to:

Since 2017, the actress has been sharing her love of literature with fans with monthly top story picks for "Reese's Book Club." Her latest choice? Susan Orlean's The Library Book. She's also highlighted The Last Mrs. Parrish , This Is How It Always Is , and Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows .

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If you... want to brighten up your feed:

The independent San Francisco book publisher, Chronicle Books, consistently posts lively and colorful photos that always manage to brighten your day—and they're not always of books: sometimes they'll come with a side of toast and puppies.

@HotDudesReading

If you... like your books with a little eye candy :

It's clear to see where the priorities lie for Hot Dudes Reading's more than one million followers. Forget pretty pictures and reviews and just take a moment to enjoy the simple allure of an attractive guy glued to a book. And the cheeky captions don't hurt, either.

If you... need inspiration for your own book snaps: This profile's suggestions come with "a side of stuff" to go along with the featured novel's cover and theme, taking each story beyond its pages. (Plus, the geometrically organized layouts are a Type-A reader's dream.)

@elizabeth_sagan

If you... like to get creative with your book collection: Sagan's feed is filled with out-of-this-world imagery, all created with the help of a few hardbacks. From a unicorn to a Christmas tree and a rainbow, her photos transport you to another world—just like any good story could.

@penguinrandomhouse

If you... want to keep up with the publishing world: A part of one of the biggest publishing houses in the world, Penguin Random House has near-daily updates of the latest books added to their impressive lineup. Think Becoming , everything Danielle Steel, and Jodi Picoult's A Spark of Light.

@mybookfeatureaccount

If you ... c an't decide which bookstagram account you like best:

Co-run by Sagan, this account is a hub for all bookstagrammers, with photos from various profiles in the community, reposted for all to see. So if you're not exactly sure who to follow, this is the perfect place to find your favorite bookish pics.

McKenzie Jean-Philippe is the editorial assistant at OprahMag.com covering pop culture, TV, movies, celebrity, and lifestyle. She loves a great Oprah viral moment and all things Netflix—but come summertime, Big Brother has her heart. On a day off you'll find her curled up with a new juicy romance novel.

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Best Book Accounts on Instagram to Follow for When You Want to Reduce the Digital Noise

Arvyn Cerézo

Arvyn Cerézo is an arts and culture writer/reporter with bylines in Book Riot , Publishers Weekly , South China Morning Post , PhilSTAR Life , the Asian Review of Books , and other publications. You can find them on arvyncerezo.com and @ArvynCerezo on Twitter.

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Social media and books usually don’t mesh well. Sometimes, we find ourselves falling down the social media rabbit hole instead of doing what we love more, which is reading books . But what if it proves to be difficult taking time away from social media, especially the irresistible lure of Bookstagram? After all, it has become part of our daily lives, and to some, everyday work.

We can reduce the digital noise by populating our feeds with awesome bookish content. Below are the best book accounts on Instagram to follow for feed curation , self-care, inspiration, ideas, recommendations, and beyond! The list consists of the best Bookstagrammers, authors, literary agencies, cover designers, poets, websites, book clubs, organizations, and the like.

James Trevino (@james_trevino)

Trevino is a Bookstagrammer from Romania, and he has one of the best Bookstagram accounts on the platform. He posts artful arrangements of books whose themes are sometimes based on books themselves. Usually, they are laid out exquisitely on the floor.

Trevino has attracted media attention from the likes of Business Insider , Bored Panda, and the blog of the gay social network Hornet.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by James Trevino (@james_trevino)

Elizabeth Sagan (@elizabeth_sagan)

If you’re looking for a female counterpart to Trevino, there’s his friend Elizabeth Sagan. Sagan also posts curated displays of books, and her feed is very similar to Trevino’s in terms of aesthetics. Most of her photos have fantasy themes.

Sagan’s and Trevino’s massive followings have spurred the creation of the handle @mybookfeatures , which features bookish content from variety of bookworms.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elizabeth Sagan (@elizabeth_sagan)

Jacquelin Firkins (@jfkillsdarlings)

Firkins is a young adult author ( How Not to Fall in Love ) and a costume designer. However, she is not just another designer as she creates dresses based on book covers. In fact, she made this beautiful dress inspired by the cover of Pride and Premeditation by YA author and Book Riot contributing editor Tirzah Price.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jacqueline Firkins (@jfkillsdarlings)

The Last Bookstore (@lastbooktorela)

The Last Bookstore is an independent bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. According to Timeout , it’s the “world’s most-Instagrammed bookstore.” Peeking at their Instagram account, I conclude that the report wasn’t incorrect. Their feed features their beautiful, Instagram-worthy bookshelves. It must be nice working there every day…

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Last Bookstore (@lastbookstorela)

Rupi Kaur (@rupikaur_)

Kaur is a bestselling poet who thrives on Instagram, and her poetry collections Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers are consistent bestsellers. Kaur’s Instagram feed mostly contains her poems, which are accompanied by illustrations, and other posts about her personal life.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by rupi kaur (@rupikaur_)

Kimberly Glyder (@kglyder)

Looking for design inspirations? Glyder is a designer and illustrator, and her Instagram feed is full of gorgeous book covers like these:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kimberly Glyder (@kglyder)

Joan Wong (@jningwong)

Wong is a visual designer for books. Her Instagram feed features stunning book covers and artworks for literary magazines. She is the cover designer of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Joan Wong (@jningwong)

Reese’s Book Club (@reesesbookclub)

Looking for Instagram book clubs to follow? Reese’s Book Club is on the platform as well. Their feed is full of bookish stuff such as giveaways, interviews, playlists inspired by books, etc. If you’re a member of said book club, you should definitely follow them.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Reese’s Book Club (@reesesbookclub)

Book of the Month (@bookofthemonth)

Book of the Month is a book subscription site. On their Instagram profile, they say that you’ll “discover the best new books every month.” Their feed doesn’t disappoint — it features recommendations, bookish memes, and more.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡 (@bookofthemonth)

Goodreads (@goodreads)

I usually stay away from the Goodreads website because, um, you know …but for some reason, I love their Instagram feed. It’s so vibrant and colorful. If you’re a Bookstagrammer, they feature contributions with the hashtag #GoodreadsSpotlight and with #GoodreadsWithAView for books and scenic spots.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Goodreads (@goodreads)

Pretty Book Places (@prettybookplaces)

Speaking of scenic spots, this Instagram account features “aesthetic collection of #PrettyBookPlaces.” They usually post photos of bookshelves and bookstores from different places around the world. If you love books and travel, follow them for this kind of content.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Books | Places | Interior (@prettybookplaces)

Kirkus Reviews (@kirkus_reviews)

This book review site is also killing it on Instagram. Kirkus Reviews posts usually include a snippet of a book review, which is also published on their website, and an Instagram-worthy shot. Excellent writing and aesthetically pleasing photos make a good combination indeed.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kirkus Reviews (@kirkus_reviews)

American Booksellers Association (@americanbooksellers)

The Instagram feed of this not-for-profit trade organization highlights beautiful bookshelves of independent bookstores across the U.S. In each photo, they also include a little bit of history of those bookstores. It’s one of the best book accounts on Instagram — a good resource to discover your next bookstore stop.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by American Booksellers Assoc. (@americanbooksellers)

Library Journal (@library_journal)

Library Journal is a book site for librarians. Their Instagram profile is vibrant. They post occasional bookish news and updates that are relevant to librarians. If you’re looking for more book accounts on Instagram that cater to them, here’s a few .

If you’re not a librarian yourself, however, you can still follow them for their author events.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Library Journal (@library_journal)

Liz Alva (@kampvuurverhalen)

Bookstagram is considered an art on the platform, but this independent creator is taking a different approach with Audiobookstagram. Alva’s Instagram feed features dramatic photos of smartphones playing audiobooks on them. Not only that, she also accompanies them with short audiobook reviews.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Liz Alva | Audiobookstagram (@kampvuurverhalen)

Jenny Han (@jennyhan)

YA author Han is known for the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy, which was adapted into films. If you’re a fan of the series, follow Han’s Instagram account for the behind-the-scenes photos from the series and updates from the author’s life.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jenny Han (@jennyhan)

Epic Reads (@epicreads)

Epic Reads is a book site dedicated to promoting YA books. Owned by HarperCollins, they are one of the best YA-focused book accounts on Instagram. Follow them for updates on new YA releases, recommendations, memes, and more.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Epic Reads (@epicreads)

Ice Cream Books (@ice_cream_books)

This Instagram account is taking book pairings to another level by putting together books and ice creams! Their Instagram feed features different types of ice cream on top of or beside books, with some ice creams even dripping on the book covers. If you’re not a fan of “ruining” books in this way, however, please move on to the next one in this list.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ice Cream Books (@ice_cream_books)

The Good Literary Agency (@thegoodagencyuk)

If you’re a bookworm and an aspiring novelist, this literary agency in the UK regularly posts writing and pitching tips from their agents on Instagram. Their “Lessons I’ve Learned While Writing” series, in which their authors share their writing experiences, are also helpful.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Good Literary Agency (@thegoodagencyuk)

Book Riot (@bookriot)

And let’s not forget Book Riot, one of the most diverse and inclusive book sites on the Internet. Book Riot on Instagram posts contributions from its community, giveaways, memes, quotes, and more.

It’s simply one of the best Instagram accounts for readers.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Book Riot (@bookriot)

Do you want more book accounts on Instagram to follow? I know that listing only 20 is not enough, so here’s more:

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Blog – Posted on Thursday, Nov 11

The only book review templates you'll ever need.

Whether you’re trying to become a book reviewer , writing a book report for school, or analyzing a book, it’s nice to follow a book review template to make sure that your thoughts are clearly presented. 

A quality template provides guidance to keep your mind sharp and your thoughts organized so that you can write the best book review possible. On Reedsy Discovery , we read and share a lot of book reviews, which helps us develop quite a clear idea what makes up a good one. With that in mind, we’ve put together some trustworthy book review templates that you can download, along with a quick run-through of all the parts that make up an outstanding review — all in this post! 

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

Book review templates for every type of review

With the rapid growth of the book community on Instagram, Youtube, and even TikTok, the world of book commentary has evolved far beyond your classic review. There are now many ways you can structure a book review. Some popular formats include:

• Book reports — often done for school assignments; 
• Commentary articles — think in-depth reviews in magazines and newspapers; 
• Book blog reviews — short personal essays about the book; and
• Instagram reviews — one or two-paragraph reviews captioned under a nice photo. 

But while the text in all these review styles can be organized in different ways, there are certain boxes that all good book reviews tick. So, instead of giving you various templates to use for different occasions, we’ve condensed it down to just two book review templates (one for fiction and one for nonfiction) that can guide your thoughts and help you nail just about any review. 

⭐ Download our free fiction book review template  

⭐ Download our free nonfiction book review template  

All you need to do is answer the questions in the template regarding the book you’re reading and you’ve got the content of your review covered. Once that’s done, you can easily put this content into its appropriate format. 

Now, if you’re curious about what constitutes a good book review template, we’ll explain it in the following section! 

Elements of a book review template

Say you want to build your own book review template, or you want to customize our templates — here are the elements you’ll want to consider. 

We’ve divided our breakdown of the elements into two categories: the essentials and the fun additions that’ll add some color to your book reviews.

What are the three main parts of a book review?

We covered this in detail (with the help of some stellar examples) in our post on how to write a book review , but basically, these are the three crucial elements you should know: 

The summary covers the premise of the book and its main theme, so readers are able to understand what you’re referring to in the rest of your review. This means that, if a person hasn’t read the book, they can go through the summary to get a quick idea of what it’s about. (As such, there should be no spoilers!) 

The analysis is where, if it’s a fiction book, you talk more about the book, its plot, theme, and characters. If it’s nonfiction, you have to consider whether the book effectively achieves what it set out to do. 

The recommendation is where your personal opinion comes in the strongest, and you give a verdict as to who you think might enjoy this book. 

You can choose to be brief or detailed, depending on the kind of review you’re writing, but you should always aim to cover these three points. If you’re needing some inspiration, check out these 17 book review examples as seen in magazines, blogs, and review communities like Reedsy Discovery for a little variation. 

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Which additional details can you include?

Once you’ve nailed down the basics, you can jazz things up a little and add some personal flavor to your book review by considering some of these elements:

• A star-rating (the default is five stars but you can create your own scales); 
• A bullet-point pros and cons list; 
• Your favorite quotation from the book; 
• Commentary on the format you read (i.e., ebook, print, or audiobook);
• Fun facts about the book or author; 
• Other titles you think are similar.

This is where you can really be creative and tailor your review to suit your purpose and audience. A formal review written for a magazine, for instance, will likely benefit from contextual information about the author and the book, along with some comment on how that might have affected the reading (or even writing) process.

Meanwhile, if you’re reviewing a book on social media, you might find bullet points more effective at capturing the fleeting attention of Internet users. You can also make videos, take creative pictures, or even add your own illustrations for more personal touches. The floor is yours at this point, so go ahead and take the spotlight! 

That said, we hope that our templates can provide you with a strong foundation for even your most adventurous reviews. And if you’re interested in writing editorial reviews for up-and-coming indie titles, register as a reviewer on Reedsy Discovery !

Continue reading

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The best Instagram accounts for book lovers

Love looking at pictures of books as much as you love reading? Then make sure to follow these Instagram accounts.

For book lovers, there’s no more beautiful sight than a perfectly arranged bookshelf, a cosy reading nook or a stack of books arranged by theme or colour.

And so, Instagram is the perfect social media network for readers. Not only is it a place where you can find aesthetically pleasing pictures of books, it’s also somewhere that give you recommendations for your next read, based on just about any criteria you want.

Here are our favourite Instagram accounts for fans of reading. 

1.  @elizabeth_sagan

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elizabeth Sagan (@elizabeth_sagan)

Bookstagrammer Elizabeth Sagan creates stunning “paintings” using books. She’s often in the images herself, whether she’s flying on a broomstick through an archway, giving herself wings made of books with black jackets, or talking about Greek mythology with Medusa-like book hair.

2.  @hooplaback.girl

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Anuradha Bhaumick (she/her) (@hooplaback.girl)

Anuradha Bhaumick runs what is probably the cutest Bookstagram account ever, posting pictures of her cross stitch scenes, which are mostly of people reading and sharing their passion for books. Her cross stitches are full of detail you’ll want to zoom in to see, and the bright colours will add a much-needed dose of brightness to your Instagram feed.

3.  @coraliebickfordsmith

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Coralie Bickford-Smith (@coraliebickfordsmith)

If you love the classics, then take a look at designer Coralie Bickford Smith ’s account. Bickford Smith, who as well as being the author of books including The Song of the Tree , is the designer for the Penguin Clothbound Classics , shares pictures of the books she’s worked on as well as giving an insight into some of the creative techniques she’s using.

4.  @thesianpages

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Sîan Pages 🌈🌻📚 (@thesianpages)

Bookworm Sîan’s account is only a year old, but we’re already big fans. Sîan is a big champion of authors of colour, and of Black writers in particular, and this Bookstagram account is full of joy.

5.  @wordchild

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Books 📸 Triin (@wordchild)

If you’re after inspiration for creating your own book nook , look no further than wordchild, whose account shows off their absolutely stunning reading spaces. Wooden floors, stacks of books, comfy reading chairs, and a mix of old and new bookcases – excuse us while we go swoon.

6.  @lovelyowlsbooks

View this post on Instagram A post shared by #BookBlogger / 25 / UK (@lovelyowlsbooks)

Book blogger Zulfa’s account is the definition of “aesthetically pleasing”. The set-ups for all her photographs involve lots of props, all perfectly placed and tying in with the books featured. There’s a definite tilt towards fantasy, science fiction and young adult novels, so if those are your jam, then click that follow button.

7.  @lastnightsreading

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kate Gavino (@bykategavino)

Are you the type of person who loves an inspirational literary quote? Then Kate Gavino has you covered with illustrations of quotes, and their authors. The account began as quotes from readings authors held in New York and Paris, but has since expanded to include a variety of authors, with Gavino using writers’ birthdays to celebrate their work.

8.  @booksontheunderground

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Books On The Underground (@booksontheunderground)

We might not be commuting at the moment, but Books on the Underground can help us remember the good old days of squeezing onto packed trains, trying to regulate our body temperature when going from the chilly outside air to a station, and, of course, finding or leaving books on the Underground. The account is sharing its current reads at the moment, but scroll back through to see previous titles left on the Tube network, and start getting excited about one day discovering a book left on a train again.

9.  @ice_cream_books

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ice Cream Books (@ice_cream_books)

Do love books? Do you love ice cream? Then say hello to Ice Cream Books, which does what it says and pairs books and ice creams in photographs that look like pieces of art. Images include a copy of Jeff Koons: A Retrospective with a bouquet of Jolly Rancher popsicles, and  Bricks and Mortar: Offline Shopping in Online America by Frank Cost pictured among a wall of  vanilla and chocolate wafer ice cream sandwiches.

10.  @bookbento

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Book Bento Box (@bookbento)

Book Bento describes itself as “book recommendations with a side of stuff”. It may sound a little strange, but once you see the photographs on this account you’ll understand. Each book featured is pictured with items that are relevant to the characters or mentioned in the text. Think Erin Morgenstern ’s The Starless Sea with a bottle of champagne and a watch.

11.  @oprahsbookclub

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Oprah’s Book Club (@oprahsbookclub)

The official account for Oprah’s Book Club doesn’t just feature the group’s chosen reads. It’s also a place where Black authors are celebrated, and where the club posts prompts and inspiration for future reads. And, of course, occasionally you’ll get recommendations straight from Queen Oprah herself.

12.  @perfectbound

View this post on Instagram A post shared by perfectbound_ (@perfectbound_)

If you geek out not just about books, but about book design, then make sure to follow Perfect Bound. Run by publishing industry magazine The Bookseller , the account features some of the best-looking books you’ll ever see. And because it’s based on design, you’re also bound to get some recommendations for titles you won’t see elsewhere on your feed.

13.  @belletrist

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Belletrist (@belletrist)

Founded by actor Emma Roberts and podcast host Karah Preiss, Belletrist is one of the coolest book clubs around. Its account shares its chosen books, as well as memes and photographs the book club loves. Plus, there are lots of aspirational images of Roberts with books we hope to one day recreate.

14.  @reesesbookclub

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Reese’s Book Club (@reesesbookclub)

The account for actor Reese Witherspoon’s book club takes you beyond the book and shows you the inspirations and research behind each chosen title. There is also information on events the book club is running, and book picks from authors.

15.  @thehappyreader

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Happy Reader (@thehappyreader)

The Happy Reader magazine, by Penguin Random House and Fantastic Man, shares spreads from its latest issues, as well as book recommendations, on its account.

16.  @booksaremybag

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Books Are My Bag (@booksaremybag)

Books Are My Bag is the campaign to celebrate bookshops, and is behind events including Bookshop Day and Independent Bookshop Week. On its account you’ll not only find inspiration for books to read, but also for bookshops to visit (once they reopen, of course).

17.  @idealbookshelf

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ideal Bookshelf (@idealbookshelf)

Indulge your book love with Ideal Bookshelf, the Instagram account of a brand which produces all sorts of brilliant book merchandise, from pins to t-shirts and prints.

18.  @cals_book_account

View this post on Instagram A post shared by cal :-) 📚📚 (@cals_book_account)

Much as we love a glossy photo or 10, the main reason we follow Bookstagram accounts is for the real book recommendations from real people. And one of our favourites is Cal’s Book Account. Run by a teenager with a serious book habit , we love that Cal reads widely and isn’t afraid to show a passion for reading.

19.  @penguinukbooks

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Penguin Books (@penguinukbooks)

We know we’re biased, but for that very reason we’d be remiss not to include our own Instagram account on this list! As well as sharing stunning photographs of new and old books we’re loving, you can also find links to some of our best articles, sure to give you plenty of reading inspiration.

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25 Bookstagrammers You Should Be Following This Month

Find your new favorite book recommenders!

BuzzFeed Staff Writer

1. Johanna from @johsjournal

About Me: My name is Johanna, an avid reader who was born in the Philippines, raised in the United States , and am currently based in Las Vegas , Nevada. Reading was a huge part of my childhood at home and at school where I studied English Literature for undergrad, but work (I’m in the Legal and Tech industries) had completely dominated my life until last year when I started reading again and started a bookstagram. These days, I prefer my dog Enzo and books over people, and I’m not sorry.

What Followers Can Expect: Followers can expect honest reviews and features of mostly fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism books. I prioritize and highlight books written by BIPOC and authors of other marginalized groups across several genres, including SFF, historical fiction, nonfiction, and literary fiction. I also encourage my followers to read Asian literature. Some of my reading journal spreads from my blackout notebook tend to make an appearance on my Instagram every now and then!

A Recent Book I Loved: So many good books out there! I love everything about Jade City by Fonda Lee. An Asian-inspired urban fantasy with gangster and kung fu film vibes, Jade City tells the story of two rival warrior clans who carry the bloodline of a race with the ability to harness the power of a natural substance unique to Kekon, jade. Focus is on No Peak Clan siblings, the Kauls, who are forced to protect their own as the greed of rival power-hungry Ayt family of the Mountain clan threaten the country’s economic stability. I loved the dynamics between the siblings and other thematic elements woven into this story: loyalty, honor, mythology, and magic (Lee seamlessly entwines the country’s history and the lore behind jade, and I loved the interludes about the Deities). For me, all of it was believable, the fight scenes entertaining, and, for me, the cultural nuances relatable. I can see why the book is going to be developed into a TV series. I’m so excited!

2. Danny from @thebookorder

About Me: My name is Danny! I'm a queer guy from Canada, sharing my love for all things book-related on Instagram.

What Followers Can Expect: People can expect book reviews, unboxings, and tons of photos of pretty books!

A Recent Book I Loved: A recent book I loved was A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth! It's an urban fantasy following four queer characters in the city of Toronto as they try to figure out who is performing ritualistic murders that threaten to expose the Fae realm to the human world.

3. Serena from @bookaquarius

About Me: My name is Rena. I turned 25 this year, and I grew up in California. I’m excited to say I will be graduating from law school in 2021. I love sharing my love of books with the world, taking photos, and attempting to make the perfect frozen margaritas!

What Followers Can Expect: My account is all about reading just for the joy of it and sharing my love of fantasy and speculative fiction. On my account I like to promote the work of underrepresented authors and try help people understand that authors of color are not a deviation from norm. Authors of color are pushing boundaries across genres in really exciting ways and I like to highlight that on my page.

A Recent Book I Loved: I recently read Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark and thought it was brilliant. Ring Shout is a very short book that weaves together a compelling plot, themes of trauma and racism, Black history and folklore, and awesome character work into a beautiful, cohesive story definitely worth a read. I loved it. I cried twice because I’m sensitive (lol) and this book really dug into something deep that I know many Black people will be able to relate to. I think there’s something here for everyone, but I also strongly believe this book will hit different for Black readers, especially those who know intimately the pain and violence wrought by American/Western colonialism and racism.

4. Madi from @madismysteries

About Me: My name is Madi and I live in British Columbia, Canada. I’m currently in my first year of law school and hoping to become a criminal lawyer and pursue a life filled with social justice! I love sarcasm, running, and building things.

What Followers Can Expect: I post a lot of mystery/thriller reviews on my account but have been branching out into other genres as well this year. I’m passionate about activism and I do a biweekly segment called Mondays with Madi where I post about things I’m interested in (wrongful convictions, true crime, mental health, etc.)

A Recent Book I Loved: The first book I read by Backman was Anxious People and it earned the award for “the fiction book I most wish I wrote” so I was super pleased to love A Man Called Ove as well! Reading this book felt like melting chocolate in a pot on the stove and then sinking into it like a hot tub. It wins the award for having me cry the soonest a book has ever made me cry. It was adorable and sad and funny and cute and real. Backman is just such a gifted author — he does such a good job of creating characters with his words in a way that makes you feel like you grew up with them.

5. Asha from @tothineshelfbetrue

About Me: I'm originally from Long Island (complete with the accent and snobbery about bagels) and currently live in DC. I am always down to discuss the Bachelor franchise, and I love Taylor Swift . I was a huge bookworm as a kid — I'd take out seven books at a time and finish them way ahead of their due dates, but I stopped in college. After I finished school and began working full time, I started picking up books again and fell back in love with reading.

What Followers Can Expect: Lots of recommendations and reviews but also "bookalikes" (aka "if you like this, try this") and "starter packs" so that people who might not be immersed in book internet have a good jumping point. My reviews span plenty of genres from nonfiction to fantasy but my favorite genre is romance. Reading diversely is also important to me. I thought that as a South Asian woman and the daughter of immigrants growing up in a multicultural community, I would naturally pick up titles that reflect that but I found that wasn't the case so I'm trying to be purposeful about the voices I'm seeking out and amplifying. Plus, you can expect plenty of (in my opinion) hilarious outtakes because it definitely takes more than one try to get the right shot.

A Recent Book I Loved: My favorite book of 2021 so far has been The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. It absolutely lived up to the hype and just made my heart feel so warm and full. It was a poignant story and really sent the message to look past stereotypes and not just believe what you've been told so that you can see who people really are and what they can be. It really captured how important it is to look for the best in people and to understand that doing something correctly isn’t necessarily the same as doing the right thing. Every character was an absolute cinnamon roll and I want only the best for them.

6. Alejandro from @alejandro.reads

About Me: My name is Alejandro, and I use he, him, his, and el pronouns. I am a 9th grade English Language Arts and English as a Second Language teacher in Houston. As a product of Mexican immigrants, I have witnessed the power of community first hand, so I am passionate about community organizing and advocacy with a specific focus on rethinking school discipline and creating brave spaces for undocumented youth in schools.

What Followers Can Expect: I started @alejandro.reads to find healing and pieces of myself in written words, so most of the books I rave about are books that sparked a strong, personal connection with me or explore topics I am passionate about. I prioritize reading books that center Black, Indigenous, and People of color (BI&POC). Additionally, I read texts that discuss abolition, transformative justice, and liberation, so followers can expect a lot of books that dissect America and examine alternative frameworks for how we respond to everyone who is harmed by our capitalistic, carceral state. Lastly, I host the #DecolonizeDecemberPhotoChallenge every December, which is a challenge that seeks to highlight BIPOC stories and narratives.

A Recent Book I Loved: Most of the books I've read this year have been so amazing. If I had to pick one, I would have to say Infinite Country by Patricia Engel. Infinite Country follows a mixed-status family living in Colombia and New Jersey that has been separated by borders and anti-immigrant policies. This book is special to me because I saw my family in this story, and I know all too well how taxing it is to navigate this country with great precaution because someone you love is deportable. This book holds a special place in my heart because of its incredible depiction of how grounding familial love is — how it can heal and protect in the face of xenophobia and white supremacy.

7. Linzi from @abookishendeavor

About Me: Hi, I'm Linzi! I'm a graphic designer, illustrator, mental health advocate, and aspiring confetti connoisseur. I’m from the Midwest but currently reside in Brooklyn, NY with my husband and two cat children. Reading is a major pillar of my identity, and I simply couldn't live without it.

What Followers Can Expect: I read A LOT (301 books in 2020), and love to explore across different genres; my favorites being fantasy, historical fiction, and speculative short stories. When I love a book, I SCREAM (or cry) about it from the streets of Brooklyn, so followers can expect a lot of very enthusiastic (read: blubbering) reviews and book photos around the city. I also take every opportunity to feature independent bookstores and have a goal to visit every indie bookstore in NYC. Lastly, as a huge proponent of sharing one’s story and destigmatizing mental health, I often get up close and personal about my mental health journey, identity as a Chinese American adoptee, and grief over the loss of my dad at age 20.

A Recent Book I Loved: Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa was so wholesome, lovely, yet heart-wrenching in ways I wasn’t expecting. A 30-year old Japanese man, Sentaro, is barely scraping by in life, indebted and bound to a confectionery shop specializing in dorayaki, a pancake dessert filled with sweet bean paste. His soul-numbing existence is disrupted when an elderly lady, Tokue, steps into his life with the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. So begins their friendship and work together. There is so much more depth to this book than just fluffy pancakes, though. Tokue has secrets from her past as well that have led to a life of suffering, spoiled dreams, and isolation. This book has a slow, flowing nature that is almost meditative, with definite philosophical and spiritual undertones.

8. Helen from @readwithneleh

About Me: Hi, I'm Helen! I'm a Korean-American Angeleno living in San Francisco. Besides being a bookworm, I am a foodie, hiker, dog mom, and a lover of all the shoes.

What Followers Can Expect: Followers can expect reviews focused on books by BIPOC authors that range in genre, but mostly from literary fiction, fantasy, memoirs, and translated fiction. My reviews are often personal because I love sharing how a book moved me and connecting with people based on shared experience. I also post photos of my outfits and/or sneakers that match book covers! You'll also find a lot of food content in my stories.

A Recent Book I Loved: This one is so hard because there have been so many great books! I read Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters earlier this year and I still think about it. As a cis, straight woman, it really opened my eyes about my views on motherhood. I highly recommend it. It's about three women, trans and cis, whose lives become intertwined around an unexpected pregnancy. Reese is a trans woman who desperately wants to be a mother. And Ames, Reese's ex, is a destransitioned trans woman who got her boss, Katrina, pregnant. Longing to make sense of the pregnancy and at a chance of a family, Ames propositions that the three of them raise the baby together.

9. Vicki from @vickisbookshelf

About Me: Hi! My name is Vicki and I’m a 24 year-old Florida native now living in Massachusetts. I’m a mental health therapist by day and a bookworm by night. I often choose books over people but if I do leave the house, catch me with a few books in my bag.

What Followers Can Expect: Followers can expect book recommendations from a wide range of genres — although my favorites are YA, romance, and fantasy! I also love featuring books with Jewish representation as an #OwnVoices advocate. Along with reviews, you can expect to see talk about mental health, a lot of coffee, house plants, and the occasional guest appearance of my pup, Lou!

A Recent Book I Loved: I just recently finished Legendborn by Tracy Deonn and wow, wow, wow! Bree is the brilliant, badass protagonist this world needed. If you haven’t picked this one up yet, what are you waiting for? Holy heck was this book so good. I actually teared up when I read the last page because I was so sad I finished — which is very on brand for me (lmao).

10. Casey from @caseythereader

About Me: Hi! My name is Casey and I'm a 30-something queer woman living in the DC area with my spouse and two cats . By day I'm a digital marketer, but I've had my nose in a book since I was a little kid and I love shouting about books with my fellow bookworms.

What Followers Can Expect: I try to read as broadly and diversely as possible, so hopefully a little bit of everything. My true loves are sci-fi/fantasy or young adult novels featuring queer characters. The past few years have brought us some truly wonderful books featuring people and characters I've never seen on the pages of books before and I want to share them with everyone. You'll also see a lot of my cats Teddy and Marcel, plus plenty of coffee and cocktails.

A Recent Book I Loved: I just devoured Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers in one sitting. Grace wakes up after a night out in Las Vegas to discover she married Yuki, a girl she can't remember. When Grace hits a wall in her professional life, she heads to New York to meet and get to know Yuki. Honey Girl is a beautiful exploration of blood family, queer found family, and learning when to ask for help.

11. Amber from @cvillebooksandwine

About Me: I'm Amber! I am a 29(ish)-year-old lover of all things books and wine! I just love curling up with a good book and a delicious glass of red after a long day. When I'm not reading, I am running a business with my husband of almost nine years and spending time with our beautiful daughter, Brynn.

What Followers Can Expect: My followers can expect to see bright, colorful photos, fun reels, and book recommendations! I especially love to read mysteries and thrillers as well as contemporary romance, so if that's your jam, I have a long list of recs for you! I love meeting new people and through the last year of uncertainty in the world, bookstagram has been my happy place. I love the connections, friendships, and all around love that has blossomed from joining this community. I am so thankful for the joy it has brought me!

A Recent Book I Loved: I recently finished Ties That Tether by Jane Ighano. I had picked it up after seeing a phenomenal review by @hillysreads and I was blown away. I highly recommend this book! I FLEW through this one and enjoyed every minute of it. Love, heartbreak, choices and excellent chemistry — this is easily one of my favorites of 2021!

12. Danielle from @dogmombookworm

About Me: My name is Danielle and I live in Philly with my fiancé and pup. I was adopted from South Korea as a baby and raised Jewish in DC, but I have been living in Philly for the past 10 years.

What Followers Can Expect: I am most drawn to books that have been written by women and BIPOC. Followers can expect honest reviews on a wide variety of genres coupled with photos around the beautiful streets of Philly (only good things happen here!). I buy almost all of my books from an indie, Black, woman-owned bookstore (s/o Harriett's Bookshop !) but let's be honest: books can be expensive, so I have a mix of library books too.

A Recent Book I Loved: Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz! The book leaves you with a metallic taste of blood, warmth, shame, sadness, and life. It's a collection of short stories surrounding people in various stages of sadness, grief and anger, who try to fill themselves, distract themselves, and outright embrace pain to feel alive. Like The Secret Lives of Church Ladies , the characters in this book are trying to carve out space for themselves to live. Filled with shame and want, the perfect terseness of Moniz's writing style gives us enough to stay on the edge of our seat, yet leave us wanting more, aching for more.

13. CoCo from @coco_chasing_adventures

About Me: My name is Courtney, but my book friends call me CoCo — bringer of the cozy vibes! I’m a working (engineer) mother of a 6-year-old who keeps me young, and I’ve been married to my college sweetheart for nearly thirteen years. I’m a writer and I like to say I’m working on an adult fantasy novel, but I’m much too nervous to share!

What Followers Can Expect: I’m a Black feminist, lover of all things simple, cozy and adventurous. I share books, lifestyle tips, recipes and inclusive brands that align to my principles and way of life. Every morning, I share an inspirational quote, art or person to help you set your intention. Ultimately, the objective is to empower and commune with book lovers.

A Recent Book I Loved: My most anticipated read this year was Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans. I have followed her career and watched videos of her performing poetry on YouTube. I’ve always been enamored with her soothing tone while delivering strong critiques of society. This particular collection is a summoning for Black girls to come home to that place where we eat our Mama’s food and get our hair done. This book is a love letter to Black girls, and I am indeed in love.

14. Olivia from @cant.liv.without.books

About Me: I'm a second grade teacher in the DC area and I love what I do. When I'm not (still) virtual teaching or reading, I'm training for my next marathon, bullet journaling, watching The Bachelor , or applying for rescue dogs. I lived in Vietnam for a year and regularly dream about the next time I'll be able to sip cà phê sữa đa on a crowded, bustling street post-pandemic.

What Followers Can Expect: Followers can expect detailed reviews (with content warnings) both on my instagram page and my blog . My favorite genres are historical fiction and memoir, but I read a wide variety of books from thriller to YA romance to historical biography. My bookstagram is a welcoming and inclusive space for everyone.

A Recent Book I Loved: While I love reading best sellers, I also love to find indie or less-reviewed books and lift them up for others to read. One book I lift up — and have been told this is THE book people associate my account with — is The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai. It is a multigenerational tale of the Tran family, from the 1920s Communist Land Reform through the Vietnam War. Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai writes with such incredibly lyricism and emotion, and the story uplifts the voices of Vietnamese people, a side of the story Americans do not see in history class. Also, she is hands-down my favorite author friend on bookstagram.

15. Katie from @kikiareyoureading

About Me: My name is Katie and I'm a biracial 33-year-old midwest transplant living in the metro DC area. While reading is one of my absolute favorite past times, I also enjoy describing every book I read in great detail to my husband, obsessing about my perfect cat, watching Disney vloggers talk about theme park food for hours, and sitting outside with a glass of wine.

What Followers Can Expect: I usually describe the books I read as either sad or sexy, and that couldn't be more true. One day you'll see a review for an incredibly heavy, messy and dramatic book and then the next day you'll see me reviewing the most ridiculously great happily-ever-after romance. I also typically read a pretty diverse array of books, whether that be author or experience and I hope anyone can come to my account and see a book that highlights their experience!

A Recent Book I Loved: Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. She's probably my favorite author and this book was so quintessential Tayari Jones, with messy characters that you don't really love but understand where they're coming from. Perfection! Silver Sparrow tells the messy story of two family's in 1980s Atlanta, both connected by one man. One family is a secret and kept in the shadows while the other gets to be publicly connected to him, oblivious to his other life. There are so many themes going on in this book, between what love looks like for all of us and how it can differ as well as the roles that are traditionally given to a family vs. what family can mean outside of those traditional roles. And each of these themes scattering throughout the book played into Jones masterful writing, weaving these themes into an American family, and breaking the molds we all see as "normal."

16. Gabi from @booklanguage

About Me: Even though I wish my career was spent reading books, it's largely spent creating things. I'm a writer and photographer; founder of Well Kept , where I support women in small business who are ready to play big; founder of Literary League , an international book club in 40+ cities around the world; and co-founder of idlewide , where I spend my time creating content and connecting with fellow self-employed women.

What Followers Can Expect: I delve into my lived experiences and how the books I'm reading enrich them. My favorite conversations feature heart-to-hearts about books that make me feel something. Generally, you can expect to see me raving about literary fiction, rom-coms, thrillers, anything set in a small town, and everything that Literary League is reading.

A Recent Book I Loved: Even though I primarily read fiction, I loved reading the poetry collection What Kind of Woman . Kate Baer's writing is true magic. This was the last book I read in 2020. It was the perfect way to seal off the craziest of years and bring hope into this one. I'm new to poems and, wow, I see what I've been missing. Kate Baer's words will stay with me for years to come.

17. Gabby from @bookish_afrolatina

About Me: My name is Gabby and I'm a librarian, archivist, and historian in Massachusetts. I'm dedicated to researching and sharing the stories of those who have been pushed aside throughout history. My main focus is to do this in a way that is relatable and engaging.

What Followers Can Expect: Followers can expect to see posts about books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), disabled folks, LGBTQ+ folks, and more. As much as I admire the bookstagram accounts with gorgeous aesthetics and style, I don't have that on my page. My favorite genres are historical fiction, diverse romances, historical nonfiction, and sometimes young adult novels. As a classic millennial, you will likely find images that include my cats and plants, too. I post everything from relaxing page turning videos to book reviews and librarian jokes.

A Recent Book I Loved: A recent book I enjoyed was How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole. I love most of Cole's books because her characters are funny, relatable, lovable, and smart. Check out my review on my website bookishafrolatina.com .

18. Jordyn from @biblio.jordyn

About Me: My name is Jordyn Walker and I’m a School Social Worker at a special education school in Northeast DC. I love books, brunch, cheese, and wine — and chatting about all of them all of the time. I am a huge extrovert and am always looking to make connections anywhere I go. I have made so many genuine connections here on bookstagram and I’ve loved every second of it!

What Followers Can Expect: From my account you can expect a wide variety of genre recommendations and book features, honest reviews, advocacy for BIPOC and #ownvoices books, and books that have badass women. In a lot of my reviews, my social worker side shines through. I love preventative care and mental health. I also do a lot of polls, engaging with my followers, and Q&As with wine by my side and my family pups sometimes make an appearance in my posts.

A Recent Book I Loved: I recently read The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan that releases on April 6th! There were so many things to love about the book, but the Jewish representation not rooted in trauma was one of my favorite parts, as well as breaking down social expectations of women and having sex positive conversations!

19. Keisha from @bookingforfun

About Me: I’m a southern girl and lover of chill vibes, photography, and books. Reading for me is a form of self-care, so I try to make time for it as often as possible.

What Followers Can Expect: My bookstagram is a reflection of my mood every time I sit down with a good book. Give me a good book, a cozy blanket, and a little jazz music and I’m all set!

A Recent Book I Loved: One book that I’ve read recently that has stuck with me is Early Departures. Early Departures by Justin A. Reynolds was an emotional roller coaster (to say the least!) I know that this book is listed as YA/teen fiction, but my goodness this book left me gutted, just a blubbering mess. The story takes the reader on a very emotional journey into how Jamal is faced with unimaginable decisions and grief while still trying to navigate life as a teenager.

20. Anika from @chaptersofmay

About Me: My name is Anika, and I live in a small town in northern England. You’ll usually find me with a camera in one hand, a book in the other, and a cup of tea brewing on the side. When I’m not posting on my blog , I’m a marketing and fundraising administrator for a local charity.

What Followers Can Expect: You can expect plenty of honest book reviews, recommendations, and monthly reading roundups. There’s also 90% chance you’ll spot a cup of tea in my photos. I try to diversify my reading, and my favorite genres are contemporary, romance, and literary fiction. Plus, I’m a huge lover of all things cosy, and aim to live a slow and simple life, so expect plenty of flat lays and warm lifestyle shots on my page too.

A Recent Book I Loved: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson. It’s a beautifully tender and evocative debut exploring love, racism and masculinity in contemporary South East London. Caleb Azumah Nelson’s writing is full of soul. There’s a vulnerability to the way he has shaped the characters, despite the book being written is second person. It’s art-like, perfectly crafted, and more relevant than ever. Don’t wonder whether to pick this one up, just go for it.

21. Jimalion from @itsabookishworld_

About Me: My name is Jimalion (like a million but Ja-Million. My mom was drinking some major creative juice when she came up with that name.) Most people on the internet call me JP or Milly for short (if my future kids ever say I am not cool, I will refer to my time here on the internet). Born and raised in North Carolina, and I am a southern girl through and through. I like my chicken hot and my tea iced and sweet. I'm the true definition of a Libra, and most people on bookstagram will probably say that I am the world's biggest crier. I work in the field of Emergency Management, and fruit snacks are the best snacks — that's not up for debate.

What Followers Can Expect: What followers can expect from my account is emotion. I frequently cry or passionately discuss my reactions to what I am currently watching and reading. I do live creations in the kitchen which mostly fail but there have been some good recipes and I haven't burned the house down yet. I created books and bonnets which is me in my most natural way, discussing recent reads that have left lasting impressions on me.

A Recent Book I Loved: Hands down it has to be A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir. This series has surprised me in the best way possible, and it had me flipping out from the beginning. I have actually been putting off reading the final book because I am sure that Sabaa is going to rip my heart out, stomp on it, and evil laugh as I drown in my tears.

22. Tatiana from @tatis.bookshelf

About Me: My name is Tatiana, I'm 26-years-old, and I'm from Delaware. I'm a textbook introvert who loves reading books, talking about books, and cuddling with my cat.

What Followers Can Expect: Followers can expect honest book reviews and plenty of recommendations. I read a wide variety of books, but followers will see that I like to amplify stories written by authors from many different backgrounds. I hope to encourage others to diversify their reading.

A Recent Book I Loved: One book that I enjoyed recently was Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall! I learned so much from this book and it's one that I reference often when discussing feminism and feminist issues. It's one that I would consider required reading for anyone that calls themselves a feminist. What Kendall manages to do in this book is introduce the reader to a wider scope of feminist issues. There are so many topics covered in this book that prior to reading I already knew were issues but had never particularly considered to be feminist issues. Kendall guides you as she exposes how varying societal problems (such as hunger, gun violence, housing inequality and more) should be viewed through a feminist framework.

23. Jamie from @whatjamieread

About Me: I'm a twenty-something book lover from St. Louis, MO who lives for a good vanilla latte and an even better glass of wine. I started @whatjamieread as a place to talk about all things books including the books I’ve read, the books I want to read, and the books other people love too. The nicest thing you can say to me is "I'm going to read this book because of you!"

What Followers Can Expect: I prioritize reading and showcasing books written by diverse authors. I believe there is a gap in publishing representation for BIPOC and LGBTQ stories, so I like to be someone readers can rely on to help them diversify their shelves. If you follow me you can expect a lot of discussions around representation and how important it is for us to see ourselves reflected in the books we read.

A Recent Book I Loved: I just finished reading Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado. When I heard about this book, I knew I had to read it based off the cover alone. I mean, look at it. She’s gorgeous in every way. Too often I feel there is a stereotype that being overweight automatically equals being ugly and unstylish but that’s certainly not the case for me personally. Seeing a fat AND pretty girl on a cover of a YA novel is something I don’t think I’ve experienced much until now. Charlie is your average 16-year-old. She has pretty average teenage insecurities that are compounded by her mother’s obsession with her weight and her skinny best friend who she thinks represents perfection. Luckily my mom always supported me as I am, but I remember being an insecure teenager and feeling like I could never stack up to my skinny friends, especially in the eyes of boys. The dynamic between Charlie and Amelia felt so incredibly familiar to me that at certain parts I was wondering if Maldonado had stolen my high school diary. I don't read a TON of YA but this book was truly so fabulous, and I want everyone to read it as soon as possible!

24. Esosa from @dreamingofbookpages

About Me: My name is Esosa and I’m a Nigerian-Canadian based in Toronto. I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember — as a kid I devoured fictional mysteries (the Nancy Drew series and Famous Five series) and as a teen I was all about that young adult romance. When I’m not reading, I’m either binge watching the newest Netflix show, watching early 2000s rom-coms or classic Disney movies.

What Followers Can Expect: I read and feature a wide genre of books on my account: memoirs, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, romance, fantasy, and more. I pretty much read everything except horror (sorry Stephen King fans!) I post cute, brightly lit bookish photos accompanied by thoughtful reviews and I’d occasionally throw in a smiling selfie every now and then :)

A Recent Book I Loved: At the start of the year I read Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour and I can’t stop raving about it. It’s a fictional story about a young Black man trying to make it in the world of sales. Along the way he deals with a lot of workplace micro-aggressions and targeted racism; he makes some questionable decisions and kind of loses himself in the process. I was completely captivated by this story and was so dumbfounded by the end that I didn’t know how to feel. I love books that can evoke that kind of emotion, you know?

25. Jen from @mrsboomreads

About Me: My name is Jen and I'm a lifelong reader, Little Free Library steward, mom of three young children, and retired clinical social worker. As a book juggler, I have three in progress at all times: physical, ebook, and audio. I started this account as a place to chat with other readers and it has grown into not only my favorite hobby, but a source of amazing friendships and connections with authors!

What Followers Can Expect: My page features a wide range of books I love, along with a myriad of coffee mugs, houseplants, and overshares of my beloved bookshelves. In my stories, I continue to highlight books and also mix in lifestyle elements and some of my favorite places and adventures in and around NY's Hudson Valley.

A Recent Book I Loved: Float Plan by Trish Doller and Meet Me in Paradise by Libby Hubscher. They both are complex romances, combined with loss, humor, and beautiful tropical locations. I love when books surprise me and tug at my emotions, and these stories did just that!

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By Nellie Bowles

• April 14, 2020

NO FILTER The Inside Story of Instagram By Sarah Frier

I was not excited to review a book about Instagram. Sure, I’m glued to the app; right now those pictures of dogs and babies and my friends’ home-cooking are my main source of quiet pleasure in these miserable times. But it didn’t feel like the moment for a list of reasons — as so many books in this genre are — of why this app was bad for me, and for the world.

Then I started reading.

Written by the San Francisco-based Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier, “No Filter” has a deceptively simple goal: “to bring you the definitive inside story of Instagram,” a photo-sharing app one billion of us use every single month.

But in fact — and happily — this is a book about Silicon Valley. It is a record of a single app moving through the place. And in making that record, in hewing closely to Instagram and its founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, while giving new texture to the Valley’s major players, like Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, Frier tells the story of how that place works.

Like many tech founders, Systrom hailed from a frat at Stanford, but he always saw himself as more artistic than the other ambitious engineers. Instead of dropping out of school to accept Zuckerberg’s offer, in 2005, to join his start-up called TheFacebook.com, Systrom studied abroad in Florence. He’d always liked nice things (espresso done just right, fine clothes, old bourbon), but his photography professor made him give up his fancy camera for a simpler device, one that only shot blurry images in square frames. The experience taught him to embrace imperfection; that “just because something is more technically complex doesn’t mean it’s better.”

Interning at the podcasting company Odeo, a 22-year-old Systrom sat next to a 29-year-old engineer, Jack Dorsey. Improbably, this N.Y.U. dropout “with an anarchist tattoo and a nose ring” befriended him. Odeo eventually gave rise to Twitter, an idea he’d dismissed (“ They’re crazy , Systrom thought. Nobody is going to use this thing ”) just as he had Facebook. Frier at first blames Systrom’s conservative temperament for his pretty bad judgment, but eventually concludes nobody else knew any better than he did. “Silicon Valley looked like it was run by geniuses,” she writes, but “from the inside, it was clear that everyone was vulnerable, just like he was, just figuring it out as they went along.”

After a stint writing marketing copy at Google (which he found so deeply boring he used the office espresso machines to make latte art), in 2009 he built Burbn, an app for people to find their friends and go out. After V.C. investors pushed Systrom to find a co-founder, he and Krieger — a former Stanford classmate and a more skilled engineer — soon turned their focus solely to photo sharing, a feature Burbn lacked. Most cellphone cameras were pretty crummy, so they would provide filters to make the pictures prettier. In 2010, that app became Instagram.

The book manages to be cleareyed and objective about the founders and their many flaws, without sensationalizing or oversimplifying — a hard balance to strike in tech coverage right now. Their backdrops are hilarious: Basically all of the corporate drama in the book happens around fire pits, at themed bars or twee espresso spots, in hot tubs and at Lake Tahoe. But mostly fire pits.

If there is a villain in this tale, it is Zuckerberg. After Systrom sells Instagram to Facebook in 2012 for an (at the time) astonishing $1 billion, Zuckerberg comes off as controlling and cruel, maniacally focused on growth at the expense of all else. Systrom stayed on as Instagram’s chief executive, but Frier outlines the ways in which their new owners began to undermine the founders, highlighting the clash in corporate cultures. Instagram has no reshare button by design (“all your posts were yours. That was what the founders wanted”); Zuckerberg wanted constant viral growth. But with this growth came the new worry that Instagram’s success would “cannibalize” Facebook’s, so Zuckerberg began to downplay Systrom’s brand alongside Facebook’s news feed. More upsetting, when Systrom tried to build protections against abusive comments, the ex-Facebook engineers on his team, reluctant to weed out opportunities for higher engagement, proposed controls that would be prohibitively hard to find and use. “ Thanks but no thanks” was Systrom’s response. These portions of the book read as a kind of sequel to the movie “The Social Network,” an update on the sort of man that young protagonist grew up to be.

Frier had a lot of access to the insider Valley gossip, like who got invited to Zuckerberg’s parties (and that he served Systrom the boney mystery meat of an animal he had personally killed). She also had access to the Instagram founder himself, from whose perspective this book often seems to be told. The axes to grind are his axes.

Every once in a while, in the heat of a dramatic moment, there are reminders of just how silly the stakes are. In an “emergency meeting,” Systrom announced that Instagram would be launching a new feature called “stories,” basically copying Snapchat. “He explained that every user would get to add videos, which would disappear within 24 hours, to their personal reel,” Frier writes. An executive later recalled: “It was like being in the room when John F. Kennedy announces you’re going to the moon.”

This book is not about going to the moon, but we’re not going there anyway, or anywhere else; we’re on our couches, or in our beds, scrolling through Instagram. Now that that company — and the pleasure it brings us — are so deeply entrenched in the ever-growing behemoth that is Facebook, we need a book like this to explain what it is I’m tapping on all day. I spend hours staring at the screen, and now I have a better sense of who’s staring back.

Nellie Bowles is a technology reporter at The Times.

NO FILTER The Inside Story of Instagram By Sarah Frier 327 pp. Simon & Schuster. $28.

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Book Reviews

'the familiar' is a romance, coming-of-age tale, and a story about fighting for more.

Gabino Iglesias

Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar is an entertaining slice of speculative fiction wrapped in historical fiction and delivered with heavy doses of magic and wit.

At once a love story, a coming-of-age tale full of secrets and tension, and a narrative about wanting more and doing anything to get it, The Familiar is a solid entry into Bardugo's already impressive oeuvre.

Luzia Cotado is a scullion with callused hands who sleeps on a grimy floor and constantly dreams of a better life where she has more money, complete freedom, and love. Luiza works for a couple who are struggling to maintain their social status, so she doesn't make much and owns almost nothing. To help her get through her days and take care of menial tasks, Luzia uses a bit of magic, which she keeps secret from everyone.

On Netflix, Leigh Bardugo's 'Shadow And Bone' Celebrates A Diverse Grishaverse

Luzia learned how to perform little miracles from her aunt, a strange woman and the lover of a very powerful man. When Luzia's mistress discovers her servant can perform "milagritos," she sees it as the perfect opportunity to improve her social status and forces Luzia to work her magic for their dinner guests. But what begins as entertainment soon turns into something much more serious when Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king, enters the scene and sees Luzia's magic as an opportunity for himself.

The king is desperate to improve his military prowess, and Pérez thinks Luzia's powers might be the thing that puts him, once again, in the king's good graces. There will be a competition, and if Luzia wins, everyone around her might gain something. But winning won't be easy, and Luzia fears her newfound fame will get her and her Jewish blood in the Inquisition's crosshairs. Surrounded by people with secret agendas, learning to use her magic, caught in a new romance with a mysterious undead man, and an unknown pawn in a plethora of self-serving machinations, Luzia will soon need more than a bit of magic to survive.

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The Familiar drags readers into a world of servitude, magic, power struggles, and intrigue. There isn't a single character in this story that doesn't have a secret agenda or something to win—or lose!—that's directly tied to Luzia. The desires of some clash with those of others, and those battles slowly make the narrative more complex while simultaneously increasing the tension and the sense of doom. Despite the many elements at play and the bafflingly large cast of characters she juggles here, Bardugo delivers every twist and turn with clarity, plenty of humor, and charming wittiness, the latter of which fills the novel with superb, snappy dialogue that shows Luzia lacks everything except a quick intelligence and a sharp tongue. Also, while many of the plot elements here like the magic battle, someone being trapped by a curse, and an impossible love are far from new, Bardugo mixes them well together and manages to make them feel fresh.

Known mostly for her Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, and the King of Scars duology—all of which are part of her Grishaverse universe—Bardugo delivers an entertaining standalone here with a strong female protagonist that's very easy to root for. Through Luzia, we get a critique of religion, a look into the lives of those who have no option but to serve to survive, and a romance that's as full of passion and sensuality as well as lies and treachery. Lastly, the magic system Bardugo created, which is Jewish magic based on phrases sung or spoken in mixed languages, is interesting and allows the author to talk about otherness without straying from the core of her narrative.

While Bardugo accomplishes a lot in this novel, the crowning jewel of The Familiar is Luzia, a memorable character whose most personal aspirations possess an outstanding universality. We watch her suffer, emerge from her cocoon, fall in love, and then receive her ultimatum: "Your life, your aunt's life, your lover's future all hang in the balance. So do your best or I will be forced to do my worst." Through every single one of those steps, we want her to triumph and to learn to hone her powers, and that connection keeps the pages turning.

At times the endless descriptions of clothing and the increasing number of characters and subplots—some with a satisfying arc and some that just fizzle out—seem a bit excessive and threaten the pacing of the story. But Bardugo is always in control and her masterful use of tension — and that, along with her talent for great dialogue, more than overpower the novel's small shortcomings.

The Familiar is full of "milagritos" and pain, of betrayal and resentment, of fear and desire. However, the novel's most powerful element is hope; Luzia is all about it, and her feelings are so powerful they're contagious. That connections makes this a book that's hard to put down.

Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @Gabino_Iglesias .

Chris Bohjalian’s ‘The Princess of Las Vegas’ finds drama on the Strip

A princess diana impersonator’s cabaret show is at the center of this mix of thriller and black comedy.

The curse of writing about Las Vegas is that it’s hard to avoid clichés about luck or chance or the roll of the dice. And the fact is, that’s the provenance of tourists anyway; locals don’t care much about such things. They know they live in a city built by mobsters to rip off rubes. If residents want to gamble — and most don’t — they hit up the casinos off the Strip, where at least you don’t have to pay to park. Those joints are the kinds of places you used to read about in noir novels, back when the edge of town was the open desert and those casinos were your last stop before the proverbial dark ride. These days, the edge of town means greenbelts and master-planned communities, places that even sound pleasant: Summerlin, Centennial Hills, Green Valley. It’s hard to fear you’re going to get whacked in view of a Pottery Barn.

But there’s still a lingering touch of something insidious about the place, and Chris Bohjalian has a track record of making places come to full life in his novels. So when his latest, “ The Princess of Las Vegas ,” starts with the co-owner of a fictional casino (the British-themed Buckingham Palace) catching one in the temple out in what used to be the middle of nowhere — Red Rock Canyon — but which is now just an Instagram post away, it’s a bang-up way to get things going. That it’s staged to look like a suicide is even more compelling. Surely this won’t be a Las Vegas novel where everything hinges on antiquated notions about mystical odds, not with this kind of blackness.

But the next chapter begins with a single word: “Luck.”

The word is our introduction to Crissy Dowling, a 35-year-old Princess Diana impersonator who performs a twice-nightly cabaret show based on Diana’s life at Buckingham Palace. The show is replete with songs by Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and Bonnie Tyler, but the overall effect is more like when “Hal Holbrook did Mark Twain.” The show is called “Diana, Candle in the Darkness,” which is both amusing and sad; if this is luck, good or bad, the whole notion needs to be reevaluated.

Crissy lives in a suite at Buckingham Palace, has her own cabana and has been sleeping with a powerful senator, but she’s also bulimic and pops pills like Skittles, and now her bosses at the Palace keep dying. First it was Richie Morley in the fake suicide and then, days later, his brother Artie, by a questionable hanging. Problem is, the last person Artie talked to was Crissy. And he didn’t seem like he was preparing to fold, or hang. Far from it. He was worried about a hostile business takeover. “They sent me a message when they killed Richie,” he tells her, “but I’m not surrendering.”

If that’s not enough, Crissy’s estranged doppelgänger sister, Betsy, has just moved to Las Vegas, along with Betsy’s newly adopted 13-year-old hacker daughter, Marisa. They’re joining Betsy’s new boyfriend, Frankie, an executive at an obviously dubious crypto outfit called Futurium, which is positioned to buy Buckingham Palace. Convenient.

If this sounds borderline zany, it is. But Bohjalian has long been able to elevate these kinds of tales by writing about inward madness as well as outward. He draws characters with whom we immediately empathize, like Cassandra Bowden in “The Flight Attendant,” whose addictions and every-woman approach to an international conspiracy make us trust her even when we shouldn’t. He also tends to employ a deep entrenchment in setting — Tanzania in “The Lioness,” for instance, or Colonial Boston in “Hour of the Witch” — to beget fast-moving action. The heat burns, the wind chafes, the witches get rounded up, verisimilitude becomes narrative, and you buy the world.

Here, however, Bohjalian lacks his trademark acuity. His Las Vegas is both geographically and tangibly hard to recognize, the aesthetic of the Strip more like it was 30 years ago, when meals were cheap and mediocre, not exorbitant and Michelin-starred; when sold-out showrooms were filled with Liberace and Sinatra impersonators, not U2 and Adele; when organized-crime syndicates could still plausibly buy into casinos and, more saliently, when the city wasn’t one of the most surveilled in the world. That Bohjalian plays loose with all of these facts doesn’t ruin the story, but it does give one the sense that he parachuted into the backdrop. “Princess” could have taken place in Branson, Mo., and the story would have been the same. The core concern here is not place but tone: Crissy is living in a black comedy, and everyone else is in a thriller. That mismatch eventually saps drama and mystery.

Late in the novel, for instance, when Crissy is faced with a mounting death toll, including the cryptic loss of a lover, a friend offers her a gun and her response is:

“You ever read Chekhov?” I asked. “What about him?” “This is a paraphrase, but Chekhov said if you reveal a gun in the first act, it best go off by the third.”

It’s a playful reference, and surrounded by the violence other characters are experiencing and Crissy’s own deepening despair, it feels like a misstep. The novel also features some anachronistic ancillary plot points, including the blackmail of a politician over extramarital proclivities: That may have worked in “The Godfather,” but that was before a presidential candidate allegedly paid off a porn star and still swept the Bible Belt.

We see this story through alternating points of view — including Betsy’s and, in brief interludes, Marisa’s — but Crissy’s sections could be their own book. She’s a fascinating character, a woman subsumed by childhood trauma who has taken on the life of her famous look-alike, right down to mannerisms and speech patterns, smiling flirtatiously from beneath her bangs, Diana alive again. Bohjalian’s writing about the weirdness and pain of Crissy’s life is powerful, even at times audacious. If only the rest of the novel had been as daring.

Tod Goldberg is the author of 14 books of fiction, including, most recently, “Gangsters Don’t Die.” He is a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside.

The Princess of Las Vegas

By Chris Bohjalian

Doubleday. 381 pp. $29

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Christopher Null

Review: Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra

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It’s been a long time since I’ve used a laptop with a screen larger than 13 or 14 inches for any length of time. It's so refreshing to have the room to spread my apps out … even if the machine no longer fits in my backpack. Maybe being able to fit your bag under the seat in front of you is overrated.

Compared to the cavalcade of 13- and 14-inch laptops that cross my desk, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra , with its 16-inch touchscreen (2,880 x 1,800 pixels), is a behemoth. Weighing in at 3.9 pounds (but only 19 mm thick), it has a heft that’s backed up by its top-shelf specs, which include 32 GB of RAM, a 1-terabyte SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. The centerpiece is the new Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, the current top-of-the-line processor in Intel’s Core Ultra CPU lineup.

As benchmarks go, the Galaxy Book4 ran rings around all the other Core Ultra laptops I’ve tested in the last few weeks since the new chips launched, though none of those had an Ultra 9 or a discrete graphics processor. On some CPU-based tests, the system doubled up on the performance of the Lenovo X1 Carbon , and on graphics-based tests, I was regularly able to get three to five times the frame rates I saw on machines that used the Core Ultra integrated graphics processor. The Book4 is certainly credible for use as a gaming rig if desired. Plus with 12 hours and 43 minutes of battery life, as tested via my full-screen YouTube rundown test, you need not fret about being away from an outlet all day.

The larger chassis gives Samsung room to squeeze a numeric keypad into the picture, though I longed for full-size arrow keys when working with the device. The responsive keyboard is paired with one of the largest touchpads I’ve ever seen on a laptop. At 6 x 4 inches, it’s considerably bigger than a standard passport—arguably too big, as there’s barely room on the left side of the touchpad for your palms to rest. I generally disliked working with this touchpad, as I found it both missed clicks and inadvertently registered unintended taps much too often.

The port selection is solid, offering two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, a full-size HDMI jack, one USB-A port, and a microSD slot. You’ll need one of those USB-C ports to use with a charger, and note that you’ll probably need Samsung’s included charger—a honking huge brick that weighs more than half a pound—at least some of the time. While you can use a generic USB-C charger to (more slowly) power the unit, the laptop would only run a firmware update during my testing when connected to the included adapter.

In sustained use, the Galaxy Book4’s beefy specs cause it to run a bit warm, and the fan tends to kick in fairly steadily when it’s under load. Fortunately, the fan always runs slowly and quietly; it’s audible, but just barely. A larger complaint is how incredibly slow this laptop is to boot. I have habitually measured startup time on laptops I’ve reviewed for more than a decade. Some are faster than others, but rarely does a laptop take more than 25 seconds to be ready to work. At 46 seconds of booting, the Book4 is by far the slowest-booting laptop I’ve clocked since 2012.

Aside from the few complaints noted above, everything else here is solid, including the ultrabright screen and the booming Dolby Atmos speakers. At a cool $3,000, you may need to visit your lender to afford the thing—but if you require top performance, it’s currently the machine to beat.

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Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poetry

By Amanda Petrusich

In the past several months, Taylor Swift has become culturally ubiquitous in a way that feels nearly terrifying. Superstardom tends to turn normal people into cartoons, projections, gods, monsters. Swift has been inching toward some sort of tipping point for a while. The most recent catalyst was, in part, love: in the midst of her record-breaking Eras Tour , Swift, who is thirty-four, began dating Travis Kelce , a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Whenever Swift appeared at one of Kelce’s games, the broadcasters whipped their extra-high-definition cameras toward her, sending legions of amateur lip readers scrambling for their phones. I’m paid to give legibility to such things, and even I couldn’t help but think that we were crossing some sort of Rubicon with regard to our collective sanity. Swift was everywhere, beheld by everyone. She is one of the most streamed artists of all time on Spotify; Billboard reported that at one point, she accounted for seven per cent of all vinyl sales in the U.S. Swift is a capable and hugely savvy businesswoman (a billionaire, in fact), yet I began to worry about her in a nearly maternal way: How could anyone survive that sort of scrutiny and retain her humanity? Detaching from reality can be lethal for a pop star, particularly one known for her Everygirl candor. I thought of the oft-memed bit from “Arrested Development,” in which Lucille Bluth, the oblivious matriarch, asks, “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael—what could it cost? Ten dollars?”

This month, Swift released “The Tortured Poets Department,” her eleventh studio album. She has now reached a level of virtuosity within her genre that feels nearly immutable—she’s too practiced, too masterly, to swing and really miss. But “The Tortured Poets Department” suffers from being too long (two hours after it was released, Swift announced a second disk, bringing the total number of tracks to thirty-one) and too familiar. Swift co-wrote most of the record with Jack Antonoff and with Aaron Dessner. (The two producers have oppositional melodic sensibilities: Antonoff sharpens Swift; Dessner softens her.) The new songs suggest that after a decade, her partnership with Antonoff has perhaps run its course. The tracks written with Dessner are gentler, more tender, and more surprising. The raw and stirring “Robin” seems to address a child—either a very young Swift (the album contains several references to her hijacked youth, including “The Manuscript,” a sombre song about a relationship with an older man), or maybe a future son or daughter.

“The Tortured Poets Department” was released following the end of Swift’s six-year relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn, and the album is mostly about the utter unreliability of love—how bonkers it is that we build our entire lives around a feeling that can simply dissipate. “You said I’m the love of your life / About a million times,” Swift sings on “Loml,” a wrenching piano ballad. “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles.” Shortly after Swift and Alwyn split, she reportedly had a fling with Matty Healy , the front man for the British rock band the 1975. (“I took the miracle move-on drug / The effects were temporary,” she sings on “Fortnight.”) Healy is a provocateur, prone to making loutish jokes; onstage, he smokes, eats raw steak, and makes out with strangers. The rumored relationship sent Swifties into spasms of outrage, and revealed the unusual extent to which Swift is beholden to her fans. She has encouraged and nurtured a parasocial affection (at times she nearly demanded it: inviting fans to her home, baking them cookies), and she now has to contend with their sense of ownership over her life. On “But Daddy I Love Him,” she scornfully chastises the “judgmental creeps” who relentlessly hounded her about her love life: “I’d rather burn my whole life down / Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning.” (She saves the nastiest barb for the final verse: “All the wine moms are still holding out.”) Regardless, things with Healy ended fast, and, a few months later, she did the most wholesome thing possible: she started dating a football player whose team would go on to win the Super Bowl.

Quite a few of the album’s lyrics seem to evoke Healy: “You’re not Dylan Thomas / I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots,” Swift sings on the title track, a shimmering song about broken people clinging to each other. I like that line—it suggests self-awareness—but it’s followed by one of the weirdest verses of Swift’s career: “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever.” Other lyrics lack Swift’s signature precision: “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on,” she sings. Even the greatest poets whiff a phrase now and then, but a lot of the language on the record is either incoherent (“I was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic”) or just generally bewildering (“Florida is one hell of a drug”). My favorite lyrics are the simplest, and are delivered with a kind of exhausted calm. On “Down Bad,” a woozy song about feeling like shit, Swift admits defeat: “Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym / Everything comes out teen-age petulance / Fuck it if I can’t have him.” Feel you, dude.

Each of Swift’s records has a distinct visual component—this is more or less the premise of the Eras Tour . “The Tortured Poets Department” is preoccupied with writerly accoutrements, but the vibe is ultimately more high-end stationery store than musty rare-books room. Initially, the title seemed as if it might be a smirking reference to Joe Alwyn (he once joked about being part of a WhatsApp group called the Tortured Man Club). But I find that the phrase works well as a summation of Swift’s entire self-conception. She has always made a big deal about her pain being generative. “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on the page,” she wrote on Instagram. She has talked about this album as if the songs were mere monuments to her suffering: “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”

An unusual number of Swift’s songs portray love as combative, perhaps because she is so prone to working from a place of wounded longing. On “Better Than Revenge,” a song she wrote at eighteen, Swift sings about art as a useful weapon, a way to punish anyone who does her dirty: “She thinks I’m psycho / ’Cause I like to rhyme her name with things.” It’s a funny lyric, but, by Swift’s current age, most people understand that love isn’t about winning. (Art isn’t, either.) Yet in Swift’s universe, love is often a battlefield. On “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” she catalogues the ways in which fame can pervert and destroy a person: “I was tame, I was gentle, till the circus life made me mean,” she sings. She is paranoid, wild-eyed: “Tell me everything is not about me / But what if it is ?” (After the year Swift has had, she’s not wrong to ask.) The song itself is so tightly produced that it doesn’t sound dangerous. But midway through, her voice briefly goes feral. I found the moment thrilling, which is maybe part of the problem.

In the weeks before “The Tortured Poets Department” was released, it seemed as though a backlash was inevitable. Swift’s lyrics are often focussed on her perseverance against all odds, but, these days, she is too omnipresent and powerful to make a very convincing underdog. Still, interest in Swift has yet to diminish or fully sour. She announced the album at the Grammys, in February, as she was accepting the award for Best Pop Vocal Album, for her previous record, “Midnights.” I found her speech so profoundly mercenary it was sort of funny. “I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand new album comes out April 19th,” Swift said. “I’m gonna go and post the cover.”

As I’ve grown older, I’ve mostly stopped thinking about art and commerce as being fundamentally at odds. But there are times when the rapaciousness of our current pop stars seems grasping and ugly. I’m not saying that pop music needs to be ideologically pure—it wouldn’t be much fun if it were—but maybe it’s time to cool it a little with the commercials? A couple of days before the album’s release, Swift unveiled a library-esque display at the Grove, a shopping mall in Los Angeles. It included several pages of typewritten lyrics on faux-aged paper, arranged as though they had recently been tugged from the platen of a Smith Corona. (The word “talisman” was misspelled on one, to the delight of the haters.) The Spotify logo was featured prominently at the bottom of each page. Once again, I laughed. What is the point of all that money if it doesn’t buy you freedom from corporate branding? For a million reasons—her adoption of the “poet” persona; her already unprecedented streaming numbers—such an egregious display of sponsorship was worse than just incongruous. It was, as they say, cringe.

Among the other clues Swift doled out were five exclusive playlists for Apple Music (sorry, Spotify!), comprising her own songs and organized according to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. At first, I thought the playlists were just another bit of overwrought marketing, but the more I listened to “The Tortured Poets Department,” the more germane the concept felt. Anyone who has grieved knows that these categories are not a ladder you climb toward peace: it is possible, instead, to feel all of them at once, briefly or forever. Each stage is evident on “The Tortured Poets Department.” Sometimes they oppose one another: Swift is cocky and self-loathing, tough and vulnerable, totally fine and completely destroyed. She is free, but trapped. Dominant, powerless. She wants this, but she doesn’t. Those sorts of contradictions can be dizzying, but, in the end, they’re also the last things keeping her human. ♦

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