I knew I was a reader before I could read.

When I was four, I asked my mom why I couldn’t just be born knowing how. It seemed like a design flaw. This world FULL of words that I wasn’t allowed into yet. Once I got to kindergarten, I hit the ground running. Books were mine before almost anything else was.

I was also, from the very beginning, a little bit weird. In first grade, a kid stopped me and asked me why I was wearing all black, and found myself grasping for an excuse, claiming that I had a funeral to attend after school (I did not, in fact, have a funeral after school).

This wasn’t the last time someone made a comment because of the way I looked, what I listened to, what I read. I couldn’t understand what crime I was committing by wearing black, having Taylor Swift and Escape the Fate in the same playlist, and carrying a worn copy of Eclipse.

I grew tired, like many do. I folded parts of myself and put them away, until there wasn’t much of me left. Those parts of me started to collect dust. I honestly forgot they had even existed. That is, until I was standing at a wedding, chatting with someone I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Motherhood had made me unrecognizable, but when she told me she admired how unapologetically myself I was, I felt like the invisibility cloak had been pulled off of who I was, and, who I am.

It started with Taylor Swift and Twilight, and then, a change of wardrobe. I joined Swiftie Twitter, then Bookstagram. Then, I bought my first Cricut- and that’s when everything exploded. Shortly after, my online store became, officially, The Tortured Reader. It felt like the final piece put in place, and for the first time in a long time, I truly felt like me.

The Tortured Reader is so much more than a bookish accessory brand. It’s for the weird kids who grew up, for the people who are loud and proud about the things that make them a little “too much”. For the reading tastes that raise eyebrows, aesthetics that don’t match, the feelings that run a little bit hotter than socially acceptable. We don’t soften here.

You don’t have to have a funeral after school to belong here. But if you did? You’re going to fit in just fine 🖤