What It’s All About?
The Bootleg Book Club Podcast has been an idea that Felicia and I have considered for a few years now. Although six years apart we have always been able to connect on being book nerds. I introduced her to Wattpad when I realized just how much her book budget had grown. Fast-forward a few years and as she was busy in college and I in law school we realized we just weren’t reading for fun as much as we used to. This project is a way for us to get back into reading regularly now that we have both graduated and to foster a book reading community that can have candid conversations.
Initially, The Bootleg Book Club was born from the reading circle of my sisters and aunt. We all loved reading and were able to share that with each other by passing books back and forth between us. It was a perfect way to stay connected and it helped reconnect us when I returned from teaching English in Spain. As we read books one after the other, it was a joy as we could reminisce and laugh at certain scenes or characters together – even coming up with inside jokes and recommending books to each other based on our favorite characters. Namely, we joked how we were all too cheap to buy our own copy and were bootlegging off of each other as we passed the book from person to person. The summer we intentionally all read Crazy Rich Asians, it was a special treat when the book was made into a movie and we all got to see it together at an early screening, solidifying what it meant to be part of our bootleg club – love of books and love of each other. With this podcast, we hope to share that love with other book lovers.
My Reading Journey
I cannot tell you the exact moment I fell in love with reading, I just know that I always loved language and words. I loved making up stories and had many imaginary friends growing up whose stories I enjoyed writing about.
I can tell you that my parents fostered that love for language (probably because they needed help with English since they are Haitian immigrants) and that at nine years old I was placed in the advanced reading group at my school. One weekend while at the local library, a woman was looking to get rid of her book collection of The Baby-Sitters Club and she asked my dad if I liked to read (DUH!). She gave us her entire collection for free – it was an entire bin’s worth. I would read The Baby-Sitters Club all day and night long. I just couldn’t put the books down. This obsession with reading continued – I was admittedly part of the Twilight fan craze, even finishing Breaking Dawn within a 24 hour period.
In a professional capacity, my love of language became more obvious when I became an English Language Assistant and a Reading Tutor after college. Then, I went to law school, and reading for pleasure started to feel like it would never happen again for me. A book that used to take me 2-3 days to finish now could take as long as 2-3 months. With The Bootleg Book Club Podcast, I can already see myself being pulled out of that rut – I’m so excited to discuss our first pick I’m flying through it.
More About Me
I am at the tail end of my 20s and a single cat mom. An introvert through and through who will always pick watching a movie at home on the couch over going to any event with more than 3 people in attendance. You can lure me out with the promise of a good glass of wine (whiskey or rum). I’ve recently picked up scrapbooking and can’t get enough of purple washi tape. I’m an inactive attorney trying to figure out the data privacy world. And, I’m a former world traveler who hasn’t been on a plane since 2020, praying Omicron doesn’t cancel any more of my travel plans.
Until then, happy reading and follow us on all of our Social Media Platforms and Save the Date for the Launch of our first Podcast. We are reading Lizzie Damilola Blackburn’s debut novel Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? This book is a timely and perfect fit for Valentine’s day coming so grab your copy to read along with us or wait for our review.
The Bootleg Book Club 