Pressure

A little advanced warning - this may get deep! I'll start off slow though. Yesterday afternoon was so lovely. Holly @ The Arts Shelf and I, coupled with our very accommodating and mostly understanding Boyfriends met up in Leigh for lots of gorgeous food and then a bit of impromptu bargain book shopping! We were quite well behaved I think - absolutely nothing to do with our more reserved partners - and didn't go too mad with the buying.

My first two buys were Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon and Night Owls by Jenn Bennett. These were in Tescos 2 for £7 deal. Everything, Everything has been on my wish list since I'd first heard of it and Holly highly recommended Night Owls. Darren Shan's The Thin Executioner and Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl were fab charity shop finds, bring all 4 books to under £10! Though obviously i'm quite pleased - especially as i've already devoured Everything, Everything and LOVED it - i've got that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As the title suggests, I'm feeling a LOT of pressure. As a Not-Quite-But-Almost-Grown-Up 27 year old with an above mentioned boyfriend, a full time job and our gorgeous new house, I just don't have the same time allowances that I had 2 years ago. It's not even a bad thing in a lot of ways. We spend a lot of weekends out and about, visiting with friends and family, watching tv and playing video games... But there's no solitary time for me, which means there's not an awful lot of reading time.

Though I have drastically reduced the amount of books I buy, i've still not really started reading them. People see that i've read above and beyond my 50 Book Challenge on goodreads and praise me. I mean, even i'm pretty impressed by it but there's a bigger issue, and it's how *I* feel about my reading time. Just take a look at the below picture for a minute.

Since taking this picture a few weeks i've probably added at least another 5 or 6 books. These are all unread. ALL OF THEM. Some of those books were bought more than 5 years ago and I still haven't read them. Books have always been my passion, ever since I was an infant and wasn't even able to read for myself. As I get older though, i'm more anxious and panicky about, well, everything.  I feel guilty for owning so many books that I haven't read even though I get pleasure from having them and knowing that at any moment, i'll always have something to read of any genre. The weird thing though? I feel so much pressure to read ALL THE BOOKS that actually, i'm kind of intimidated to read anything at all. The idea of having to choose a book is ridiculously overwhelming. So much so that i'd rather just pick up my Kindle and read the first thing that shows up. NOT COOL, CAZZ.

Sorry for the intensity of the word dump up there but before I even get round to catching up with reviews, I needed to clear my chest a bit! Does anyone else feel like this? I know we all experience book guilt but how bad is it for you? I would absolutely love some suggestions! I'm actually back in the swing of things right now with regards to reading so i'm hoping that means I can tackle some of that insane pile this side of the year.

Goodreads Challenge: 56/50
Christmas Challenge: ZERO!