I Got Called a Karen

A small rant about 63-book months, literary speedruns, and why I care more than I should.

It finally happened. I got called a Karen, but not in a customer-service meltdown sort of way, and certainly not in a racist rant sort of way. No one was harmed in the making of this identity crisis. But apparently, I've now crossed the line from curious skeptic to judgy busybody. And here's how it happened.

It all started with a Facebook post.

I'm part of a reading community called the 52 Book Challenge. The premise is simple: read 52 books in 52 weeks. It's a fun endeavor, especially because it comes with prompts that push you out of your comfort zone. Thanks to it, I recently finished my first romance novel (which I didn’t hate at all), and I’m currently forcing myself through a sci-fi bestseller (which I sort of do). It’s been good for me.

Except for a type of post that comes up in the group at least once a day and inevitably ticks me off.

Here's one of the most outstanding examples from the beginning of March, when a fellow group member shared their monthly reading summary from February:

“63 books finished. 23,503 pages read. 13 genres. I’m at 149 books for the year so far.”

Sixty-three books. In February. Twenty-eight days. That’s 839 pages a day, every day. No breaks. No skipped Tuesdays. No migraines. No obligations. Just pure, unadulterated page-turning bliss.

And I said what I thought: I don’t buy it.

Cue the pitchforks.

Reading, Apparently, Is Now a Competitive Sport

The responses were spirited:

• You’re jealous.

• Some people read faster than you. Deal with it.

• Stop being a Karen.

• Don’t gatekeep reading.

Gatekeeping? Really?

It wasn’t my intention to police anyone’s bookshelf. I was just asking the question that still stays with me: At what point does reading stop being reading?

In their responses, people explained to me that they listen to audiobooks on 2.5x speed while doing chores or work. Have you ever tried listening to any story at that speed, let alone while working? To me, it doesn’t sound like storytelling. You’re not listening to language, let alone a plot or nuances of character building. You’re skimming a stream of syllables.

Moreover, since someone is out there every day declaring that they have already finished 100/200/300 books (and we're only in April), I don't understand what they're doing in a 52-book challenge group.

Literature Wasn’t Built for Speed

To be clear, I’m not against reading a book quickly. We’ve all had those “devour it in one sitting” moments. But that’s not the same thing as averaging 2–3 novels a day, every day, all year.

That’s not reading. And honestly, it doesn't sound like a healthy life.

I, too, get very lonely. I, too, read a lot. I always have at least one audiobook and one physical book or ebook going at the same time, and I get through them quickly. Anything more than that would take away from my work, my other interests, my family, and my social life. And even if I didn't have any of those and were alone and idle day and night, I'd still find that rhythm unsustainable.

Novels are not YouTube videos. If someone listened to one of my works at triple speed while doing their job, I’d be horrified. Not because I think my prose is too precious to skim (or maybe I do!), but because the entire point of literary fiction is to have space to breathe, to sit with a sentence, a moment, to notice the subtleties, and to give yourself time to feel something!

That Said, Why the Hell Does It Bother Me So Much?

I’ve been asking myself ever since the first post I saw, when a person declared in the third week of January that she had already finished 40+ books.

If I’m wrong and people really do read that much, I'm 100% certain I don’t envy them, and they don’t make me feel insecure. If someone offered me a magic ability to read 100 books a month, I’d say, “No, thank you.” I like chewing on my books.

So what is it?

Maybe I’m too conservative about how literature should be consumed.

Maybe I’m biased as a writer, and can’t stomach the idea of someone racing through a story I spent years building, like it’s on a conveyor belt.

Maybe I’m just tired of online fakeness, tired of pretending we all believe everything we see, tired of a world where lying for clout is expected and dissent is punished.

Or maybe it’s all of the above.

The Internet Doesn’t Like Questions

There’s a weird moral panic that erupts any time someone challenges one of these high-volume reading posts. People act like you’ve spit in the face of literacy itself.

But I think it’s fair to ask:

• Why do we need reading to be a performance?

• Why is quantity the most celebrated metric?

• Since when did books per year become a badge of honor instead of an act of love?

If that's all it takes to be called a Karen, I will bear the title with honor and wear it like a tote bag that says, “Please slow down. Some of us still read with our whole hearts.” In that bag, of course, I will be carrying my current read.

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P.S. Where Have I Been?

Quick life update for those of you wondering why I vanished for over a month:

1. My book Fathers Before Sons came out in Montenegro, and I got swept up in a craze of waiting for feedback from readers I know, giving interviews, and all the other beautiful chaos that comes with releasing a book in your tiny homeland.

2. The English version hit a bump in the road when my cover designer sent me horrible AI-generated covers on which he even slapped the wrong title. I had to fire him and postpone the publication because the other designer I want to work with won’t be available before May.

3. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I had to get a biopsy and spent a good chunk of time terrified that my cancer had returned. It hasn’t. But the wait was ugly.

So when I finally got the all-clear, I decided to celebrate the book launch, the temporary pause in publishing, and the best news a doctor can give, by taking the family to my favorite country in the world — Spain. And before I knew it, over a month had passed since my last Substack post.

Also, I had the unfortunate idea of starting a BookTok account. So far, I’ve amassed the jaw-dropping following of about 20 people, which I think qualifies me as an influencer in 2004.

So, if you’d like to follow my book reviews and recommendations (with a few travel posts thrown in), you can find me here.

Or here:

Thanks for sticking around. More soon.