#3: Things You Really Don’t Need to Know (But I’m Telling You Anyway)
🖋️ By Faith

I get mistaken for a literary snob more often than I’d like to admit.
People assume my bookshelves are organized by era and existential despair.
That I drink tea with my pinky up and whisper “Kafkaesque” under my breath like a ward against genre fiction.

Spoiler: I’m not that girl.
Never have been.

I’ve read The Art of War.
I’ve also read Werewolf Billionaire Babysitter: Part 6 on Wattpad, in one sitting, while eating boxed mac and cheese at 2 a.m.
And I refuse to feel bad about either.

But here’s the confession:
I used to.

There was a time when I pretended I hadn’t dog-eared the smut.
When I half-lied in book clubs.
When I acted like I didn’t spend my weekends re-reading that one scene in that one enemies-to-lovers fanfic where the dagger to the throat turned into a kiss.
(You know the one.)

Because I thought being taken seriously as a reader meant reading seriously.
Capital-L Literature.
Books with dust jackets and trauma.
Characters named things like “Thaddeus” who never once make out in a supply closet.

So I faked it.
I highlighted quotes I didn’t understand.
I nodded sagely at book discussions while secretly wishing someone would bring up the slow burn between Draco and emotional growth.

But eventually, the performance got boring.
And lonely.
And honestly? Books started to feel like homework.

That’s when I realized: I wasn’t a snob. I was scared.
Scared that joy made me basic.
That pleasure made me dumb.
That if I didn’t suffer for my fiction, I wasn’t doing it right.

Now? I know better.

A good book makes me feel something.
A great one makes me laugh, cry, and text someone “you have to read this immediately or I will die.”
That’s the whole bar.

So no, I don’t care if it’s Pulitzer or Wattpad.
I don’t care if it’s trauma-lit or vampire smut.
If it grips me like quicksand made of feelings, I’m in.
And if it makes me forget to drink my tea? That’s literature.

So keep your genre wars.
Keep your literary purity tests.
I’ll be over here, reading a National Book Award finalist immediately after a fic where Edward Cullen joins a polycule and learns how to cook.

Ten points to therapy.
And ten more to every reader who stopped pretending and started reading what they actually love.

📚💀
Still unlearning shame,
Faith