Confessions of Readers: The Habits We Pretend We Don’t Have

Let’s be honest—reading is magical, but book lovers have some habits we never really talk about. This is a judgment-free zone, so let’s talk about it 😜

First things first—buying or renting books faster than we actually read them. If I’m not wrong, we’ve all done this. I still have a pile of books that I’ve rented or bought and haven’t read yet… but somehow I keep adding more. It’s never enough, and at this point, I’ve accepted it as part of who I am.

Then there’s getting emotionally attached to fictional characters. Defending them, missing them, thinking about them randomly after finishing a novel, and sitting there wondering “what now?”—this is completely normal reader behaviour. Take It Ends With Us, for example. We loved it so much that it was turned into a movie. And that character—honestly, the dream. The kind of fictional person every reader secretly wishes existed in real life. As for the movie, don’t worry… that deserves a whole separate blog.

And let’s talk about the biggest lie we tell ourselves: “one more chapter.” That moment when the story gets interesting and you don’t want to go anywhere—even if your parents are calling or it’s 3 a.m. and you know you should sleep. This actually happened to me once at around 2 a.m. while reading The Housemaid. I was at that page—iykyk. I won’t spoil it for new readers, but the suspense was unreal. My mom walked into the room and told me to sleep, and even though I was tired and knew I should, I wanted to read moreeee 😬 In the end, I had to give up and go to sleep… sadly 😓

Of course, there’s also judging books by their covers. We all know we shouldn’t, but sometimes the cover really gets it right. Trust me, I’ve been there—and I don’t regret it.

And finally, reading multiple books at once. One for the mood, one for comfort, and one we’ll “finish soon.” We jump between genres because we saw a romantic novel on someone’s post, a friend suggested an interesting thriller, and at the same time we want something light just to clear our mind. It makes perfect sense—to us.

All these habits are proof that stories matter. And honestly? We wouldn’t change a thing.

This is an open space for everyone, so feel free to share your own reading confessions in the comments.

We listen and we don’t judge here at Rent a Chapter.

Finding your next obsession is easy—rent it, buy it, read it, repeat.