https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog daily 0.75 2026-05-14 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/booktok monthly 0.5 2026-05-14 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/the-fault-in-our-stars monthly 0.5 2026-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/ed0a29a7-42e1-4524-b1d7-26d78ec38827/The+Fault+in+Our+Stars+cover+art.jpg Blog - The Fault In Our Stars - John Green - Make it stand out Trigger warnings: terminal illness, grief, death. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/annotating-a-book-for-the-first-time monthly 0.5 2026-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/c7684e9c-0e2e-49aa-88a9-5a1be55d3927/The+fault+in+our+stars+-+annotation2.jpeg Blog - Annotating a book for the first time! - As a beginner to annotating, I was very apprehensive about the idea. As I’m working towards my yearly reading goal, I was honestly concerned about how writing, highlighting and tabbing would slow down my reads, choosing to focus on quantity over quality. Sometimes I do struggle with the competitiveness of reading, especially with influencers that can read hundreds of books a year. Obviously, this is not comparative as everyone reads at different paces, and these content creators often read for a living, but even so I feel a need to consume every book as fast as possible. I wanted to re-read one of my favourite books for awhile now, and I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to refresh my reading experience and try annotating the book. As I prepared, like all good researchers, I began to watch lots of videos and read some articles about the ‘best ways’ to annotate. I was very concerned about doing it the wrong way, and I wanted to ensure that everything would be perfect - that meant, the right coloured tabs, the best pen, writing really insightful comments and no mistakes. I tried to search and see if someone had annotated the exact same book so that I could use their themes as my own, prioritising how the book would look, and not about how it would make me feel. Regardless, I did find myself getting very excited to try something new, which I haven’t experienced with reading for awhile now. Don’t get me wrong: I ALWAYS get excited to start a new book, but this was different. It was a new way to absorb the story, especially considering that I have previously read this book before, with a different goal - to change the book, to write in it, and to make it mine. I do have a certain protectiveness over the novel as I read it when I was younger, and so it was very fulfilling to have a copy that was just for me, my thoughts and my feelings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/478589ae-eddb-45a8-a487-464a0aa95864/The+fault+in+our+stars+-+annotation1.jpeg Blog - Annotating a book for the first time! - Also because this was not my first time reading it, I did have some ideas with what themes I wanted to highlight. As the book was ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ by John Green, I decided to highlight themes of romance, morality, emotional/physical pain and character development. Looking back on it now, there were themes that I didn’t use much, such as character development, as I got engrossed with other themes and quotes, but there were also themes that I used a lot more frequently. I found that if I did have a thought and I hadn’t written the theme down, I could write what I felt in the margins of the pages and with time I found that I wasn’t as precious over the book as I was at the start… Half way through the book I found that I cared more about expressing how I was feeling over certain lines than worried about how it would look. I began to realise that any comments weren’t to be read by anyone else, but for me to process what was happening in the story, and how parts of it I could relate to myself. If I wanted to doodle next to certain quotes, I could. If I wanted to highlight a normal, simple sentence, I could. There was no right or wrong way to annotate the book, only whatever I thought had meaning. The fun is that nobody will write the same things that I will, or highlight the same quotes that I will, because the book was uniquely mine and belonged to me. Very cheesy… but very true. I started to understand underlying themes of the book that I hadn’t before, all because I connected the dots with certain quotations that I may not have remembered without tabbing the book. If I found something with a similar theme, I could start to see how prominent it was shown with how many tabs there were, and I was able to see if there was any foreshadowing within the first half of the book when I looked back at the highlighted sections. Overall, it definitely enhanced my reading experience, although I would be careful in future which books I decided to annotate. As much as I enjoyed the experience, I would most likely be saving annotating for re-reads, non-fiction books and other stories from my favourite authors. Personally, I won’t be annotating any fantasy, sci-fi reads as I find these books take me a long time to read anyways, but when I want to slow down and enjoy a book, I think it would be fun to try again. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/eyagd3i7qxci8cppfd2b7lb4uhtltr monthly 0.5 2026-04-18 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/Blog Post Title One-3zaa9-zlxng-g4tl4 monthly 0.5 2026-04-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/fadd1084-a770-41be-9536-d93b21f90289/Redeeming+6+cover+art.jpg Blog - Redeeming 6 - Chloe Walsh - Make it stand out Trigger warnings: abuse, grief, suicide, addiction, arson. https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/category/Advice%2FGuidance+Page monthly 0.5 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/category/Blog+entry monthly 0.5 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/blog/category/Book+Review monthly 0.5 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/home daily 1.0 2026-04-12 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/about daily 0.75 2026-05-14 https://www.bettysbookishblog.co.uk/contact daily 0.75 2026-05-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69dbabf43874a41f6c651ab6/1722379595.727487-GAVMBQOIGFHFVLFZSGOK/imgg-od3-rzx9rq_5.png