Let me tell you about a wonderful place on the internet. It’s a magical land, filled with endless readathons, funny reviews, and heart wrenching stories. It’s a place where you’ll see novels, trilogies, audiobooks, and poetry collections. Are you intrigued yet? Let me take you on a journey and introduce you to this wonderful world called BookTube.

BookTube is a place where huge book nerds, like myself, post videos about, you guessed it, books! Now you may be thinking BookTube is its own website, that it has its own space, but actually it’s just on YouTube. That’s right it’s been in your backyard this whole time! You can search the term BookTube and find hundreds of videos of BookTubers doing their thing.

People host readathons, where they read for 24 hours straight. Some have dueling battles where they have the book go up against its movie adaptation to find out which one is better. (The book is always better, I’m just saying). They have bookshelf tours, take you on book shopping sprees, do monthly wrap-ups, or talk about their TBR (to be read) list for the upcoming month. The possibilities are endless! This is the community I have been searching for since I was little.

I’ve always loved to read. I can’t remember ever NOT having a book in my hand. But there was a time in college, where I just lost my need to read. You know how it is, either there is no time or you’re too exhausted to read for pleasure when you’re studying hard for that degree. When I moved to Los Angeles in 2019, I had a pretty difficult time. I wasn’t making friends, I just graduated with my Masters and had no job prospects, and I was feeling a little lost. That’s when I turned back to reading. Reading helped me find my footing again. But it still felt like something was missing. 

My husband (boyfriend at the time), who owns his own film production company, randomly said one night over spaghetti, “Why don’t you make videos where you talk about the books you’re reading?” I stopped, my fork was halfway to my mouth, noodles dangling and I thought, why didn’t I think of that?

This was a breakthrough! I had never heard of anyone doing this sort of thing before and I was extremely excited to have an outlet where I could talk about books! Throughout my reading life, I never had too many friends who devoured books as much as I did. So having a place to vent about the characters that I love (and also hate) was exactly what I was looking for. That’s when I discovered BookTube. 

Side note: I’m half certain my husband mentioned this so I didn’t have to keep telling him the entire plot to every book I was reading just so he could understand the devastation I was going through week after week.

Yes, I will admit, I was a little disappointed I wasn’t the first person to think of this. But that quickly dissipated when I realized the huge community that was out there just waiting for me. I wanted to jump right in. I started following the “big” BookTubers like Regan from Peruse Projects and Christine from polandbananasBOOKS. Then I found the lesser-known BookTubers, some of which have become my absolute favorites to watch. I watched people who geeked out over new releases, stayed up all night just to finish that one book they couldn’t put down, and I felt at home. 

I wanted to join in on the fun so I created my own BookTube page. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to reach a certain level, I’m doing it because it’s what I love. For the first time, I feel like I can yell at the camera about plot twists or not be judged by my fellow BookTubers when I cry about a character’s death. BookTube has become this magical place; my magical place where I can escape to be myself.

So! If you’re a huge bookworm, like myself, and so many others out there, then peruse through all the different BookTubers. You don’t have to make videos yourself to be a part of this community. We’re waiting with open arms. Come tell us all about the stories you’re obsessed with.

To get you started I’ve made a list of my top favorite BookTubers. Now there’s many more out there but these hold a special place in my heart. (But these are in no particular order because I’m way too indecisive). This list holds a range of people who have hundreds of thousands of followers to people who have less than 10,000 subscribers. But that doesn’t matter. They made this list because of the passion they show about books and how entertaining they can be. A few of them have even interviewed some very famous people (i.e. Michelle Obama!). 

1. Regan – PeruseProject
2. Whitney – WhittyNovels
3. Zoe – readbyzoe
4. Katie – Katesbookdate
5. Christine – polandbananasBOOKS
6. Jesse – jessethereader
7. Ariel Bissett- arielbissett
8. Robby – Robby Reads
9. Caz – Little Book Owl

I’ve also linked my own channel down below if you would like to take a look at the content I make over there. I would greatly appreciate any likes, comments, or shares, and if you feel so inclined, go ahead and subscribe so you’re notified anytime I post a video! I hope you enjoy the wonderful world of BookTube!