When I texted my friend a few weeks ago to say that I never thought the day would come that I bought a Kindle, she was surprised that I didn’t already have one. So I got to basically say, “Surprise! Plot twist!”

I have always been a physical book girly—thus why I needed my dad to make me a new bookcase last fall since I’m running out of room for all of my books. I love trips to the library and an excuse to take out 10+ books at a time. I always have a book in my bag when I go places, you know, just in case I have five minutes to read a few pages.

Audiobooks aren’t my thing. I’ve tried to listen to a couple of different books, but I can’t seem to focus on the book while listening to it. I believe that audiobooks fully count as reading—it’s just not for me. I’d rather hold a book, park myself on the couch, and read it with my eyes.

So how do a Kindle and e-books make their way into the equation? There’s a method to my madness, I promise.

It all starts with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I bought the first book while on vacation in Maine last month; I had seen it pop on online a few places, the premise sounded interesting, and Josh said a few gamer podcasts he listens to had mentioned it. I read it in five days and absolutely loved it.

Now how do I read the rest of the series? There are currently eight books total, and as I was doing research, it looks like some of the later books are rather large—700-800 pages. My town library has the series, but most of the books are already checked out or on holds. I briefly thought about just buying the books as I go along, but then I go back to the previously mentioned new bookcase and that I’m already running out of room again. (Also my mom was worried about me accidentally dropping an 800 page book on myself while reading.) But wait, what about a Kindle?

I narrowed my options down to the following:

1. Buy the books and just deal with having stacks of books around the condo.
2. Wait until the town library has them available, which could take a really long time depending on how many holds are ahead of me.
3. Buy a Kindle and buy the books through the Kindle store.

I was leaning toward option 3, but then I remembered I had the Libby app on my phone. You can get e-books and audiobooks through your town library card on the app, and after some searching, I found that all of the Carl books were available as e-books—most available immediately. And I could send them to my Kindle! So there was option 4.

I purchased the Kindle Paperwhite in Jade along with a case (through my dad’s Amazon Prime account), and once I got it, set it up and downloaded Carl #2 onto it. It’s safe to say I’m obsessed with not only the series but the Kindle itself. I’m currently using it for the Carl series, but it’ll be a good alternative if I can’t get a physical book from the library but it’s available through Libby. I don’t think I’d ever purchase a book through the Kindle store. If I want to buy a book, I’d still prefer a physical copy.

I feel like I’ve finally stepped into the 21st century.