Rereading, Escapism, and Overconsumption

Someone on the internet said that reading 100 plus books a year “isn’t reading, it’s just consuming,” and I could not let that slide. If you’ve ever felt judged for reading fast, reading romance, rereading favorites, or using books as pure escapism, we’re getting into it. I talk through what high-volume reading actually looks like in real life, why comprehension and connection don’t disappear just because your yearly count is high, and how reading can be a genuine coping mechanism when the world feels loud. 

From there, I pivot into my current forever obsession: Dr. Emily Rath’s Jacksonville Rays series. If you’re searching for hockey romance books with real emotional development, big laughs, high heat, and characters that stick, this series delivers. I break down the setup and tropes across Pucking Around, Pucking Wild, Pucking Sweet, and Pucking Strong, including why choose romance, forced proximity, off-limits tension, surprise pregnancy, and marriage of convenience. I also talk about why the balance of spice, romance, and character growth keeps pulling me back for rereads. 

We also spend time on the deeper layer that makes these books more than a quick binge: thoughtful queer representation and the messy, honest process of figuring yourself out. We touch on queer labels, the ace and demi spectrum conversations on the page, and why it matters when identity exploration is treated as part of the love story instead of a side note. Then we zoom out to reading habits: trigger warnings, learning your limits, the freedom to DNF, and why rereading can be the best cure for a book slump. 

If you’re into BookTok debates, Kindle Unlimited reading life, or you just want your next comfort series, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs permission to read what they love, and leave a review with the genre you think gets judged the most.

Check out our Bookshop.com book store where you can get your own copy of the books we are covering!  https://bookshop.org/shop/wreckedbyfiction

Transcript

Welcome And Comfort Reading Debate

Emma 0:01

Welcome to the Wrecked by Fiction podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

That's not a comfort reading. Yes, it is. Did I read it on my lunch break? Yeah. I made I made notes because I didn't know if there was gonna be a quiz.

Emma 0:13

Hey, everything is for a grade while I was watching a movie with my six-year-old. Yeah. I didn't know I could be both right and so fucking wrong. Wrecked by fiction, where we read, cry, and question our emotional stability.

The 100 Books A Year Take

Emma 0:31

Hi friends. I sat down here with the plan to discuss my favorite hockey romance books from the last two years. I have a list. But then I saw something. And if you are chronically online, like most of us are now, and you exist in the book talk community, you've probably seen it. There was a woman who said that reading a hundred plus books a year isn't reading, it's just consuming. And while I guess I can see part of the point there where maybe your comprehension isn't all the way or you can't remember everything, sure, I I guess, but as someone who has read over 550 books in the last two and a half years, I don't necessarily think of it as just consuming because it can be so many different things. For me specifically, it's a like my main coping mechanism when I'm dealing with a lot of things. There's a form of escapism that comes with reading. Um, no matter the type of books you're reading, whether that's fantasy or romance or thrillers or you know, whatever your vibe is, there's something that happens to your brain when you're reading a book that allows you to separate that from everything else.

Why Reading Becomes A Lifeline

Emma 2:05

And so on that note, I changed my mind about the list that I made, right? And I'm gonna talk about my favorite uh series that I read. I don't remember exactly when I read it, but I have read it four, three times in its entirety since I read it the first time. So is that four times total? I don't know. Either way, the The Queen, the goat, if you will, um, Dr. Emily Wrath wrote the Jacksonville Rays series and the sensational pucking around, and then all the books that followed. And I don't typically read uh like overhyped books, and I had not gotten super into hockey romance when I first read the Jacksonville Ray series, and there is something about the way that Emily Wrath creates these characters that they have burrowed deep into my psyche. I have read specifically pucking around, I've read it I know for a fact I've read it three times in the last two years. And that's kind of crazy when it comes to the amount of like when I think about how many books I read and how often I'm reading a new book, and I always come back to that book, which is kind of brilliant. I mean, and I think she's brilliant, brilliant. But when you've created a world where your reader wants to come back over and over and over again, even though they know exactly what's going on and they know what's going to happen, and I always come back because that book specifically, but all four of them that have been released so far, is some of the most like the romance in that in those books is probably I mean my favorite of any books I've ever read in the romance category.

Jacksonville Rays Series Overview

Emma 4:22

Uh and the trope situation across the series as a whole really hits for me on my likes list. So Pucking Around is like a why choose RH situation. It's an MMFM. Um and it's Rachel, Caleb, Jake, and Amari. And then the next book in the series is Pucking Wild, and it's uh Tess and Ryan. Um, Ryan Puppy Langley, and they have like a forced proximity situation with an evil ex and um kind of this like off-limits not allowed to date each other thing. And then book three in the series is Pucking Sweet, and that's Poppy St. James and um, and then Lucas and Colton. And again, it's a why choose, but it's an MMF. And so we get this queer awakening situation where um the boys are falling in love with Poppy, but they're also falling in love with each other. Love it. That book has one of my favorite tropes ever, which is a surprise pregnancy. Uh, top notch for me. And then the last book that was released last fall, which, and it's not the last book in the series, but it's the last one released. So there's more coming to us. But the last book released was Pucking Strong, and that's uh Teddy O'Connor and Henrik Carlson, and theirs is a kind of like marriage of convenience or like business arrangement marriage where uh Henrik is trying to get custody of his niece, and Teddy volunteers to marry him so that one, there are two parents in the picture, and two, there are um is like a like a visa situation happening there, and you get the other thing in Pucking Strong that I absolutely adored is this exploration of like queer labels, and so Teddy is gay through and through, um, think bedazzled wag jacket, and Henrik is basically abstinent, he had he has no interest in sex. There's kind of this exploration of like ace, but then on the flip side, there is uh discussion of like demisexual, where you have to have an emotional relationship with a person before you can have an intimate relationship with that person. And Dr. Emily Wrath, as a queer woman herself, has said that the queerness in this series means so much to her because um it's kind of a it's like a direct reflection of her journey in learning about the queer community and being a part of it. And I I love the like figuring yourself out thing that happens in this book series a lot.

The Love Declarations That Wreck Me

Emma 7:40

Um, to go back to the top of the list, pucking around, because again, it's the one I've read the most out of this. I was recently asked a question about which of my uh which character in the Emily verse, like her universes, uh, which character of hers is my favorite. And my snap decision is Ilmari from pucking around. But the longer I think about it, while Imari is incredibly romantic and wildly like, he's the guy that he doesn't speak unless what he has to say is really, really important. And while he was is my snap decision to say he's my favorite in the universe, I think that Jake actually is my favorite because there are some things that he says, no matter the book, across a series, where his declarations of love are the most intense things that I have probably ever come across while reading romance. And I I feel like I need to share one specifically. So at the end of Pucking Around, they uh agree to get married. You don't get their wedding in Pucking Around, but you do get their wedding in the beginning of book two, which is Pucking Wild, that's Tess and Ryan. And there is something that in the vows that Jake says, and he's speaking to Caleb, who in their wedding they're having a double wedding, slash they're all marrying each other, but legally Caleb and Jake are getting married, and then Rachel and Elmari are getting married. And just to share the the like level of romantic that Jake is for me, was he says, and I'm I am gonna touch on it because it's so great. He says, I realized I was a sun with no planets, the center of my own universe. I had everything I ever wanted, but I was alone, just me and my career. You were the only one who stayed, Kay. You stuck it out, you let me be selfish and self-centered. You let me put my career first and never once questioned it, never made me question it. You joined me at the center. You didn't orbit me like all the others did. You stand resolutely at my side, unmoving. Babe, you are love in suspended motion, the calm in the storm of our lives. You are where everything stops. You're where I stop. You are everything. Oh my god. I might die. So so yeah, I think Jake might actually be my personal favorite. He really just does something to me. And then while because Amari is my would then be my second favorite, again, it's really a cross, you get their foundation in the first book, and uh they're building their to to provide a quote, the fearsome foursome, they are building this universe, right? That first book places you in here, you get little side characters, you get side quests, you get pieces of people, and this original four follows you through the rest of the series. And like in Pucking Wild, Ilmari is taking care, well, really all three of those guys are taking care of Tess. But specifically, there's a scene that really got to me where Tess is dealing with a psycho X situation, and Ilmari says to her that no answer is still an answer. And that's something that I mean, I think we've all probably heard at least once in our lives, where we know that no answer is still an answer. You don't have to say anything, you don't have to explain yourself to people, you don't have to provide any words if you don't want to or you don't feel like it. And I just love that he's so simple. Like the things he says are just resolute, it's to the point blunt almost, but it is said out of the deepest part of him where he absolutely adores the people in his life because he chooses them intentionally, and that's the other thing about this series is the intentionality in the way that they interact across the series. So in Pucking Strong, your one of your MMCs is Teddy O'Connor. Teddy is in Pucking Around, he's in the beginning. You get little funny kind of like comedic relief moments with Teddy in the beginning of the series, and then by the time you get to Pucking Strong, you've built this foundation of like, you know who Teddy is, you know that he was um a PT with the team, you know that he has been a part of it, he's seen, you know, all of the craziness, the parties, the weddings, the marriages, the babies, whatever. And there are so many things in this series that have just grabbed me, and that's not even to mention the level of heat and the spicy pieces, because I there are a lot of authors that I maybe not a lot, there are a good number of authors that I enjoy reading where the spice that they have created is just delicious, right? And sometimes I read it be just because of the spice, and that's perfectly fine, but in Emily Rath's books, there is such a balance between the level of spice and the level of romance and the level of character development, and I just it's it's really beautiful, this series specifically, and to just plug um uh um my most recent purchase, I have been try I've been reading these books for two and a half years on Kindle Unlimited, and I have desperately wanted copies, and I finally found them secondhand because we don't throw books away. Um, and I wanted to give them new life. I recently found them on Pango Books and was able to get all four of them, and I they got in them, they came in the mail today, and I immediately rearranged my bookshelves because they needed their own home. And now I need a little Jacksonville Rays bookshelf decor. I think that I need to, you know, may there's I'm sure DIY, somebody's got an idea of something I can put on next to the books. Maybe I need to purchase character art. I don't

Shifting From Bingeing To Choosing

Emma 15:11

know. But to go back to the reason that I decided to talk about these books is that there was a time when I was reading just an excessive amount. And yes, I know that in two and a half years, even slightly less than two and a half years, 550 books is a lot, right? I'm not oblivious to that fact. Um, I have been extremely privileged in my life to have the time to do that. However, there was a time when I was I was consuming to consume. I wasn't choosing carefully, I wasn't um remembering everything that I read. And I at the beginning of 2025, I told myself that look, um we're we're deciding to be better about what we're consuming. We're taking into account like, do I actually want to read that, or is it a random spicy scene that Facebook Reels served me? I mean, and those still get me, don't get me wrong. I still had there's like a screenshot folder on my phone, probably. And in 2025, I made the effort to to try to do that, to be more aware of what I was reading, to remember things that I was reading, and something that I have learned through this podcast and discussing books with other readers is that while I do consume a lot, my comprehension is high. I'm not forgetting everything. I'm not great with names, I'll be really honest. Sometimes I will read a book and then two days later I won't be able to remember the female main character's name. So that's a issue for another day. But I read um, I think it was like 260 books in 2025, and there was a point in 2025 where I was reading a book a day. And you know, that's a book that's 300 to 400 pages in length. And I could not tell you what all of those things were, probably. Um, not a list anyway, not without looking at a Goodreads or my spiral-bound notebook that I used to keep. But in 2026, I have I have been rereading more. I have been enjoying things that I've already read that I know that I've like thoroughly enjoyed at the when I read them the first time. And I think that's my favorite part about reading is finding something. I've read so many things now that I have found things that I can and will continue to read for a very long time. Um, it's like finding your favorite movie, and you watch that movie 50 times, or you have little kids who watch the same movie every single day, multiple times a day for three weeks, and then never want to watch that movie again. Except I will always want to read my favorite books again, and that's why I don't have an insane library in my home, a physical library, because there are so many books out there, I don't need to own them all. I don't. I might want to, but there are other ways for me to read those things, especially new things, but I do have what I prize as my um trophy shelf. Um, and now that I'm rereading things more, they are being touched and used, and I'm lending them to other people, and but I have learned a lot about the way that I read and what I choose to consume.

Trigger Warnings And DNF Freedom

Emma 19:11

There was a time when I thought I could be one of those people who ignored trigger warnings, and there are a lot of things that don't bother me. But I have, because of the amount of things I have read, I have found my limits. There are absolutely things that I cannot read anymore. Um, I used to pride myself on never DNFing a book. There was nothing I wouldn't finish because even if it was bad, I still read a book and that number ticked up higher. That's kind of crazy to think about, actually. But I stopped doing that. And my list of DNFs has gone up because why spend my time reading something that I'm not enjoying? Why waste my time and energy doing that? My mental space. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. There are so many things to read. If you don't like the thing that you're reading, stop reading it and find something else. And when you read something that's really, really good and you're worried that the next thing you pick up won't be as good, don't pick up a new book. Pick up something you read a year ago, six months ago, something that you know and love and makes you feel good because why allow a book slump to ruin that for you? Like I recently finished The Long Game by Rachel Reed, and I had been putting it off. Okay. I had I I'd read the Game Changers series um in its entirety. I just had not read the long game because I knew that my feelings were going to get hurt. And I didn't want to have my feelings hurt at that time. And there are a bunch of series that I have actually stopped because of that. But I recently finished it and I I cried. Absolutely, I did, but I realized that I had been saving it because I didn't want it to be over. And you know how silly that is when I realize I just read them again. Yes, it was sad, yes, I was emotional, yes, I have a favorite from that series, and it's not actually He's Rivalry, it's actually Tough Guy. But that's for another day, another conversation.

Read Any Genre Without Shame

Emma 21:21

So I have figured out that there are just so many reasons to consume. And if your reason is escapism and you love reading because it means that you don't have to deal with the shit that's currently going on in the world, that's fine. Sometimes that's the reason I read. If you read because you are an insomniac and you can't sleep, and instead of watching TV or scrolling Instagram reels, you are reading a book. Great. Do that. I don't watch TV. Not really, anyway. I'm a true crime person. When there's a new one of those, I will absolutely like I'll put a book down for an evening and watch a true crime documentary with my husband instead. But I used to buy books because they were pretty, not because of their contents. And I have stepped away from that because I realized that those are just books that are sitting on my shelves that nobody has ever cracked open that I spent my money on. And that doesn't make sense to me. I struggle with that. My personal library, yes, it is larger than other people's personal libraries, but I have met many people who have massive, like wall-to-wall libraries in their homes. And they're gorgeous. Sprayed edges, special editions, like the box, you know, I don't even know an example of one, but like the box deliveries where they'll send you a book every month that you don't get to choose and they just send it and you pay for that. But they have never read them. My physical TBR is relatively small. The things that I keep in my home that I have not read is relatively small. Is it tiny? No. But because I again there was a period of time when I was buying things because they were pretty, or because I had seen somebody read them and I thought I would want to, or because somebody recommended it and I was like, oh, I'll just pick it up. And I just, you know, I think that there is for me personally, there's a better way to go about it. Do I own the entire Throne of Glass series? Yeah. Did I read all of them on my Kindle instead of reading the paperbacks? Also, yes. I still will keep the paperbacks though, because that series is absolutely insane. I just there are lots of reasons to read, and it doesn't really matter what your reason is, because no matter what you're reading, reading is good for your brain. You want to read smut exclusively, like the dirtiest, nastiest stuff available? Uh more power to you. I uh can appreciate the game. You exclusively read romanticy? Perfect. You like contemporary romance, small town romance, dark romance, great. You want murder mystery, thriller, the housemaid, and uh what is it? Geneva Rose, the perfect divorce, something along those lines. Fantastic. We should all be reading more because what's the statistic? Something like the average American reads one book a year or something, which I can't imagine that's an accurate statistic now. Cause I don't think I know anybody who doesn't read at all. Do you know people who don't read? Corey says he knows people that don't read. A surprising amount. Really? Oh. Well, I think that that too matters because yeah, you you cultivate the people that are around you. And yes, everyone around me reads, but I built that group of people, or I put them on to reading again, which is a flex, in my personal opinion, because I have two best friends that I'm still friends with um from high school, which is like a like a 17-year friendship, which is wild. And um, when I started reading again, they thought that it was crazy the amount that I was reading, and but now one of them has a daughter who tells random strangers um that her mom doesn't need to buy another book from your garage sale because she already has too many at home. And the the next one just finished rereading all of Twilight, and she still believes that uh they are better than the books or better than the movies, but uh wildly cringe worthy, and then immediately jumped into a 15-book series. So, yeah, that's a win. And all of these people are reading different genres. I I mean, it's not it's not like I'm the romance peddler. Do I really, really enjoy reading romance books? Yeah, I also read fantasy and currently read Project Hail Mary, uh, which was a beautiful, beautiful story. So there is diversity in the things that I read. Um, I also really like a thriller book that like makes you sweaty because you're so anxious.

Final Word And Challenge To Read

Emma 27:05

And so I just think that this idea that reading a hundred books a year means that you aren't reading and it's not real reading is ludicrous. Yeah. Pick up a book. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if you really, really enjoyed God, what the summer I turned pretty on Netflix and you decided that that's the book you're gonna pick up because you want to see if it's as good as the movie was, or whatever. Or a TV show. I think it's a TV show. Do it. Prove whoever that girl was wrong. That reading is just consuming when you read that much. Because if that was true, I wouldn't remember a damn thing about the shit that I read. Like at all. I wouldn't be able to sit here once a week and talk. So that's bullshit. And maybe we'll revisit the list that I made. Because it's pretty good. It's every hockey romance I've read, um, every hockey romance series that I've read in the last two and a half years. So if that's something that you want to talk about, uh maybe I'll maybe I'll come back to it. Okay. And on that note, I'm Rack by Fiction, and I'll see you later.