Kick off 2023 with a Buddy Read: Brandon Sanderson’s ‘Mistborn’ Trilogy + A New Book Community to Meet Fellow Bookworms

I’ve never been a book club girlie. For me, they’ve always felt like homework, and who wants more of that?! No one. So I’ve put off hosting a book club with my book community. However, we did do a buddy read a couple summers ago of Ship of Theseus or “S”, and that was super fun. It was casual, over a Marco Polo chat, and I had the best time, and met some super cool bookworms. It’s honestly so much fun to share reactions with people as you’re reading. But it takes the right book. 

When I shared on Booktok a couple months ago a post about fantasy books I’m embarrassed I haven’t read yet, Brandon Sanderson was at the top of the list. His Mistborn trilogy has been recommended to me so many times, so it’s been on my TBR for ages, but I’ve just never gotten around to reading it. But that ended January 1st. Because new years bring about new things, right? And so many people wrote in the comments they’d be down for a buddy read, so I decided to make it happen. 

In addition to hosting a buddy read of Mistborn to kick off the year, I’ve also launched a new Discord community for book lovers, authors, and bookish creators. While Books are my Third Place has always been a ‘community’, it’s felt very one-way to me, and as much as I try to do LIVES and interact with as many people as possible, I wanted to have a space for all of you who are part of this community to connect with each other. But, I’ll be honest, I’ve been a little scared to create a Discord because it’s VERY time consuming to manage, and your girl is a perfectionist. But the buddy read gave me a good excuse to just go for it. Progress, not perfection. Since more than 200 people signed up saying they were interested in reading Sanderson, having only a Marco Polo chat just wasn’t going to cut it this time. So the Books are my Third Place Discord community was born. 

This Discord is open to everyone who loves books (this is probably your space if you love fantasy, sci-fi, romantasy with lite spice, historical fiction, with the occasional non-fiction thrown in). I’ll also be sharing early merch designs and drops for the Shop there too. Wann join? It’s currently free to join the community, but donations are much appreciated to help cover costs and time. Head here to join:

Since we’re a couple weeks into the buddy read, people keep asking on my Booktok and Bookstagram if they can still join, and the answer is a resounding, “YES!” This is a read-at-you-own-pace buddy read, and per a community member’s suggestion of not wanting to sift through a bunch of spoiler blocks, I’ve just now redesigned the buddy read chats. They’re now organized by chapter sections in forums, so it’s easy to navigate and start sharing your thoughts with others as you read, and you won’t have to worry about running into a spoiler that’s further along in the book, or having to scroll back through a never ending chat to find that one spoiler comment you can now read. If you do want to see all the convos up until this change from the past two weeks, you can check out the spoiler channel!

We are planning to read all three books in the trilogy for this particular buddy read, but of course, people are welcome to read one or all of them. It’s been so much fun so far to meet people from all over the world, and we even have a ‘pet serotonin’ channel for people to share their furry reading buddies. So…see you there? 

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P.S. If you end up getting a copy of any books through an Amazon affiliate link above, you’ll be helping me support this site and newsletter. Thanks in advance for supporting a fellow bookworm! BTW, I will always disclose affiliate links when they’re present. :) Happy reading!