Karly

Growing up, books were something close to sacred in my house. We had shelves upon shelves of them, some worn, some pristine, but all treated with a reverence that felt almost ceremonial. You opened a book with clean hands. You used a bookmark, never, ever dog-eared a page. And most importantly: you did not write in them.

This quiet rule became part of my relationship with reading. I learned to love books as companions, not canvases. Even now, when I read, I instinctively reach for sticky notes rather than a pen or highlighter. There’s something about the idea of writing directly on a book that feels, for lack of a better word, wrong. Like I’m defacing something that was entrusted to me.

Academic texts have always been a bit of an exception, although even then, it feels awkward. I vividly remember trying to highlight passages during my undergraduate years and ending up with neon-streaked pages where almost everything felt “important.” I would highlight entire paragraphs, sometimes whole pages, and feel a creeping sense of failure, like I was doing it all wrong. Studying became less about understanding and more about frantically trying to capture every word before it slipped away.

And then there was the time I decided to finally try the dream: to have a “cute annotated book.” You know the kind, colourful tabs, dainty underlines, little handwritten thoughts lining the margins like a private conversation with the author. I even bought special mildliners, the ones everyone online swore wouldn’t bleed through.

Spoiler alert: they bled through.

My gentle, pastel highlighters betrayed me, leaving ghostly smudges on the opposite side of the page. It felt like I had ruined the book, and any illusion of a Pinterest-perfect reading journal went out the window. I haven’t really attempted it since.

In the Summer of 2021, I thought about applying for a MA in English Literature at Exeter, so I spent the summer trying to craft a sample paper about Howards End, one of my favourite Forster books; and I remember reading, sticky tabbing and writing down the important quotes and sentences in a notepad. I thought to myself that it would be so much easier if I could just bring myself to annotate my nearly 10 year old copy of the book, but I didn’t. And I also didn’t end up applying to that particular masters in Exeter. C’est la vie.

Instead, I’ve made peace with my method: sticky notes tucked neatly (and sometimes chaotically) into pages, each one a whisper of a thought rather than a declaration written in ink. It might not be as aesthetic. It might not look like the curated spreads you see on Instagram. But it’s mine, and it keeps the books intact, just the way I was taught to love them.

Maybe one day I’ll work up the courage to annotate freely, to scribble and underline and highlight without fear. Maybe one day I’ll see books not just as sacred objects, but as living conversations, messy and beautiful. Until then, I’ll stick with my trusty sticky notes, and the quiet reverence that taught me to love reading in the first place.