Ask any book blogger what their favorite part of blogging is and nine out of ten of them will say the community. But I feel as though the community is something that bloggers happen upon unexpectedly, as a surprise perk. It makes me wonder what reasons people start blogging at all.

When it comes to me, I have a couple of reasons for continuing blogging after all these months.

1) I blog to find new books.

Before becoming a blogger, I’d walk into a bookstore and browse for hours for something that I thought appealed to me just right. Nowadays, I can walk into Barnes & Noble and recognize every book I see in the YA section, as well as knowing what it’s about and what my friends thought of it. It really makes the process of finding a book much easier.

2) I blog out of laziness.

This is the case when it comes to hype. It may be bad of me, but I simply don’t have the time to sort through a million books to find a good one. Reading books that are hyped by bloggers garuntees me a book that is, at the least, well written. Some of my favorite books have been hyped.

3) And yes, I blog for the community.

That’s pretty much a given once you start. I was not expecting the blogging community to be so chipper and kind when I started, but now I don’t think I could blog without the community. I mean, what would be the point?

But is there more to blogging than that? Until a little while ago, these three reasons for blogging would have been the only ones I needed, until a fellow blogger asked me the question, “Don’t you feel a duty as a blogger to reveal lesser-known novels?” At first, it sounded ridiculous. I blog for me, not for the authors. They sometimes benefit from my blogging, and I benefit from their ARCs, so why would it by my duty to do anything else for them? (Gah, it sounds selfish when I type it out like that.)

But then I thought of Monsters of Men. My absolute favorite series, the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness, wasn’t hyped. I have no clue why, as I thought it was absolutely amazing, but it seemed to slip under the radar of blog hype, which is a sad thing because it is by far the most amazing thing I’ve ever read. And it’s YA! A lot of people have heard of Patrick Ness, sure, but I know a lot that wouldn’t read his books because they only read hype. And sadly, I usually fall into that category when it comes to other authors. Is there a gigantic world of amazing books we’re missing out on out there because we’re all busy reading the same fluffy things?

Maybe there is. And although I don’t like the idea of sorting through a bunch of books I don’t like when I can just pick up a hype book, maybe it’s about time to read something new. After all, if you’re a blogger of my genre, you’ve heard of A Court of Thorns and Roses. You’ve decided already whether or not you’re going to read it if you haven’t already, I’m sure, and reading my review on it does absolutely nothing for you. But you HAVEN’T heard of Future Winds. And if I can convince one person to read a book they’d love but otherwise not notice, wouldn’t that be worth it? Isn’t that why we blog at all?

Anyways, this one’s dragging on a bit, so I’ll turn it over to you. What do you think? Why do you blog? Do you think bloggers have any sort of duty to reveal good books to the world? Drop your thoughts in the comments section!