Imposter Syndrome & Discount Books

 A sense of reader/reviewer imposter syndrome due to only reading ebooks led me to a discount bookshop.

(Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".) - Wikipedia

(from top to bottom w/links to Goodreads pages) Contact by Carl Sagan, Ruins (The X-Files #4) by Kevin J. Anderson, The Cruel Stars (The Cruel Stars #1) by John Birmingham, & It Devours! (Welcome to Night Vale #2) by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor)

I've been feeling bad recently as I try to make my way into the book blogging world. I see posts with beautiful pictures of books that readers have collected, check my bank account, and return to my Kindle Unlimited and free ebooks I've received. I'm envious of the bloggers with their stacks of books (I am, of course, happy for them) and artsy social media photos. I know that I don't need paperbacks or hardcovers to be a book blogger, but that sneaky imposter syndrome crept up on me once again.

So I decided to venture out to my favorite book shop, Half Price Books, which I haven't been to in years, since before I moved back to Illinois. The nostalgia of the store helped relieve some of the stress, and I was able to find a couple of books that have been on my "to read" list for a while, plus a few books I was learning about for the first time (who knew the X-Files had a book series?). With four books for about $20, I left feeling satisfied and excited to read my new books.

One of those books was Contact, which I admit that I bought because of my favorite drag queen biological woman (and provider of 20% of my serotonin), Katya Zamolodchikova.

You're welcome.

If you are unfamiliar with Katya's Contact obsession and Trixie Mattel's exasperation, I bless you with this video, "Katya CONTACT Compilation".

Now that that is all settled and I have some brand new used books, my only question is, what book to read first? Let me know if you've read any of these, I'd love to hear your opinions!