AND THE READERS ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER

Barrington’s Katie Shober inspires a love of reading through her wildly popular Instagram account Beach Reads & Bubbly.

When Barrington’s Katie Shober was a little girl, she loved to go to the library with her mom.

“It was the greatest thing,” she recalls with her signature sparkle. “I remember thinking I was so rich. I could pick out any book I wanted, and I brought home stacks and stacks. It was the best.”

As Shober grew older so did her love of fiction, and she developed a soft spot for romance. Her friends began to rely on her speed-reading abilities to tell them if books were “Katie-approved.” Shober then began sharing her recommendations on her personal Instagram page.

“It was such a fun escape for me,” Shober remembers. “I was working in technology sales, selling in a serious space, and working with people who were significantly older than me who I wanted to take me seriously. When I was sharing my thoughts on the latest love stories on Instagram, I felt like I had this alter ego. I was so worried that someone would find out.”

One day, a friend of Shober’s called from a bookstore after frantically trying to locate Shober’s latest reviews on Instagram. “She said she wanted me to share all my reviews in one place to make them easier to find. So, that is what I decided to do. In the summer of 2020, I officially started Beach Reads & Bubbly. My idea was to share a book review paired with a book-themed cocktail.”

It didn’t take long for Beach Reads & Bubbly to gain a following. Soon, readers everywhere were toasting to romance.

“I noticed that I was getting some followers, and I was always shocked when people I didn’t know found my page,” she says. “Then one night, a really big influencer shared my page. I woke up the next day with 20,000 new followers. From there, things snowballed and I grew in ways I could never have imagined.”

Although her account now has more than 200,000 followers, Shober’s original intent behind Beach Reads & Bubbly has not altered. “For me, my account has always been about me just sharing book recommendations with my friends. My goal is to help people find the joy in reading again, to help people fall back in love with reading—however that looks.”

When Shober was on maternity leave with her now 2-year-old little boy, she decided this was the perfect time to see if Beach Reads & Bubby could be a career. “I did all of the things I wanted to do so when it was time for me to go back to work, I didn’t,” she says. “Instead, I became a stay-at-home mom and a content creator.” Shober rotates through romances, thrillers, and the occasional nonfiction book. She picks up books based on her mood and gets many recommendations from her faithful followers who know what she likes.

“Someone once asked me what my plan was for reading and posting and I responded, ‘There is no plan.’ I fly by the seat of my pants. I feel that my book reviews are better when I’m posting about the book as I’m reading it. When I get swept up in a story, my review is so much fresher.”

One parameter Shober always adheres to is to provide a weekly book review. “I have this agreement with my audience that I’ll bring them a book review a week,” she shares. “I feel like that’s what they have come to expect. I love that I get to talk about books with people who love books. It’s a dream come true—truly.”

Shober feels an equal responsibility to the authors she reviews. “These writers are small business owners, and I take that very seriously,” she explains. “I always caveat my reviews with ‘in no way am I qualified to do this.’ My degree is in journalism, and I like what I like. I always try to make that clear. I’m just one girl’s opinion and if lots of other people like something that I don’t, I make that known.”

As Shober continued to connect with her readers, the clamor for her to host a book club became undeniable.

“I would get so many messages from people wanting to know if they could join a book club, or if I could host a book club where the reading would be lighter and fluffier,” she says. “So, I created the Beach Reads & Bubbly Book Club.I leverage an app called Geneva where we have a Beach Reads & Bubbly Book Club room. Using the app, women can find the nearest city to join a book club, or they can create a book club if there’s not one nearby. There’s no requirement on what to read. The common thread is just being a part of the Beach Reads & Bubbly community! Last week alone we had 34 book clubs meet, including one in Mexico and one in Ireland! I think we have 250 book clubs all over the world.”

But even more surprising to Shober than the number of people she has brought together through books, is their interest in her lifestyle content.

“It’s funny,” she says. “People come for the books, but they stay for everything else. I’ve always loved beauty, fashion, and home décor so naturally these things come up when I’m talking about books. Books actually permit me to talk more about myself. I started this account not thinking there was any interest in me. And now when I meet Beach Reads readers in the wild, I feel like we’re old friends.”

In addition to managing daily content on Instagram and overseeing hundreds of book clubs worldwide, Shober maintains a robust website and sends a weekly email to her subscribers—all of this with a toddler and an 8-month-old underfoot.

“The No. 1 question I’m asked is ‘when do I read?’” she says with a laugh. “I read at night because the boys are so good about going to bed and they’re asleep by 7 p.m. My sister, who is getting her master’s in library science, edits everything I publish. She’s the one who’s actually more qualified to do the work I’m doing, but she has no desire to be public facing. It’s her and me against the world!”

While Shober is very happy to live in the present, she has been known to entertain the occasional daydream.

“Someday, way out in the future, I’d love to take Beach Reads & Bubbly more offline,” Shober explains. “I’d love to do more in-person events. And then maybe even further down the road, I want to open an independent bookstore in downtown Barrington. That’s the ultimate dream.”

Pull up a chaise lounge, pop on a sun hat, and dive into a real page-turner, like Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life. And to learn more about Beach Reads & Bubbly, visit @beachreadsandbubbly on Instagram or beachreadsandbubbly.com.