Buddy Reads: The What, Why And How Of It

Evening you guys and welcome to today’s post! 😀 I figured we would talk about a topic (is it really a topic? or more of just a Thing?) that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about recently – especially since I’ve been making more plans to do buddy reads (Jackie and I will be reading The Conqueror’s Saga this summer and Lia and I are going to read A Torch Against The Night soon).

But before we get into the Why and How of things, why don’t we just quickly (and I mean, quickly) talk about what a buddy read even is, in case you don’t know.

A buddy read is when you and a friend (or a group of friends, like say your #Doves team members???) decide to read a book together (say, Amanda Foody’s upcoming Ace Of Shades) and talk all about it. That’s it.

If you just read that previous paragraph wondering why on earth I am talking about Ace Of Shades in this context, well… let me tell you! A bunch of my blogger friends were lucky to get approved for Ace ARCs and we figured we’d read it together and fangirl about it – I mean, we’d all been looking forward to this for MONTHS now.

Unfortunately, due to things out of our control, those of us who got approved for ARCs via the UK publisher still haven’t gotten our copies yet (but we’ll be getting finished copies by the end of the month, apparently *cue Sweta freaking the F out*) so this buddy read kind of didn’t happen which sucks but there are going to be other books we can read together, I’m sure.

But, mainly that’s where my inspiration for this post came from, and the fact that Lia and I were going to do a buddy read together at the time and I wrote down some ideas for a possible post and this was a side effect of that brainstorming session.

Now, let’s get to the Why of things here before I ramble on for much longer, shall we?!

Getting To Share A Hobby You Love

I feel like reading can often be a solitary hobby that we have which can get a bit boring and sad at times, so getting to do a buddy read with a friend can make reading more fun again! Even if you can’t physically read together because of distance and whatnot, with the technology we available to us at our fingertips, this isn’t really a problem.

Fangirling!!!

Sure, you can yell all about how much you love a book on your Twitter or Goodreads but it’s still a bit of yelling into a void and hoping someone reacts to it, right? I mean, no one needs to acknowledge your fangirling. But with buddy reading a book, I think fangirling or ranting to someone makes the reading experience much more fun! Or even just being able to be like ‘Hey! I am confused AF, can you please explain some stuff to me?’ is going to make a difference in your reading experience.

Motivation

I’m sure most of us have had books on our TBRs that we’ve been meaning to get to for the longest time now and we’ve just not had the motivation to actually pick up said books. Well, a friend might want to read (or reread) one of the books on your TBR too so why not do it together? I’ve definitely found that it motivates me to pick up a book if I know that I’ll be reading it with someone else!

Accountability

How often do we find ourselves saying that we will read a certain book ‘soon’? I know that’s a sentence that comes out of my mouth way too many times – especially compared to my follow through! But if you’re reading a book with someone else, you want to make sure you actually read the book. It might take you a while still, but you are going to finish reading it! I mean, unless you absolutely hate the book than you might stop reading but you’ll have given it a try at least.

Why The F Not???

Genuinely, why not buddy read a book? I mean, if you and your friend both want to read the same book (or your friends wants to read a book for the first time and you want to reread the same book, or the other way around, obviously) why not do it together? As I said, reading can be quite a solitary hobby so getting to do it with someone else is a fun way to mix things up!

Now that we’ve talked about WHY you guys should give buddy reading a chance, why don’t we talk about HOW to go about it?

Setting A Time Frame

This might be one of the most difficult parts of a buddy read – especially if you’re doing it in a group setting! I feel like it can be difficult enough to find a time frame that works for two people let alone more than that! Everyone has things going on in their lives that need attention and taking care of, so finding enough time to read a book together can be difficult. But this is also where my next point comes into play:

Communication!!!

You’ll be talking to your buddy read companion from the second you guys decide that you want to do a buddy read together to the very end of the book (and beyond, obviously) and it’s really, really important that you do talk to each other!

You need to decide how much you’re going to read each day (I find deciding on a number chapter and/or pages is really helpful) and when/how you want to talk about what you read daily – this is going to be especially important in case one of you has read the book while the other one hasn’t! Maybe you’re unable to stick to your agreed upon reading for a day or two, make sure you let the other person know!

Spoilers!

Discuss how you’re going to talk about any possible spoilers! If one of you has read the book already and knows what happens you might want to set a different set of rules compared to if you’re both going into the book not knowing anything! Just make sure you talk about how you want to handle any possible spoilers! Don’t ruin the reading experience for either of you by spoiling things!

Pick A Book

Last but by any no means least (especially because this might be the most difficult aspect about a buddy read) you obviously need to decide on what book you guys want to read! And if you both have a rather long TBR this might become more and more difficult! But if you’re lucky, someone might straight up offer to do a buddy read for a book you mention as something you want to read eventually – that’s how Lia and I ended up reading Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close!

Or you could check out each other’s TBRs on Goodreads and make a short list of books you’d be interested in reading and see if any book ends up on both of you guys’ lists! Or, maybe you already plan to reread a book to prepare yourself for the newest release to come out while someone wants to read the same book for the first time – that would make for a great buddy read too! And might be how I’ve picked my upcoming buddy reads as they are all books I want to reread while Lia and Jackie are reading them for the first time.

How about you guys? Are you fans of buddy reads or do you tend to stay away from them? Why or why not?

Do you have any further tips for a good buddy reading experience? Or more reasons why people should do them? Let me know in the comments below!

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