When I first heard about Kindle Matchbook, while pulling weeds in my backyard and listening to the Book Riot podcast, I was ecstatic. I’ve purchased so many books from Amazon over the years, especially since there’s no bookstore in the town where I live. I thought, this is going to be awesome.

MatchBook launched last week and much to my chagrin, there was only one title that I’ve purchased since I started buying from Amazon that was eligible for MatchBook. And it wasn’t YA. I was disappointed. As a reading teacher, I find that it’s advantageous to have multiple copies of the same book, as kids talk about what they’re reading with their peers, and their peers want to share that reading experience. MatchBook would have allowed me to lend those books to students without having to spend a lot of money to get another copy (my students seemingly know nothing about delayed gratification and if I don’t put it into their hands within a day or two, I’ve lost them).

I genuinely hope that the publishers decide that bundling ebooks with print texts is a good idea. This is an initative I really want to see take off.

That said, as a result of the number of titles publishers made available, I’m not going to stop buying books in bookstores. I’ll admit that I put off buying a couple of books when I was in a bookstore a few weeks ago (I bought other things, don’t worry) because I was waiting to see how Matchbook would shake out. Unless I need the book quickly (Amazon Prime does have its advantages in a bookstore-lite town), I’m going to keep going to the bricks and mortar stores.

And single-handedly keep them afloat.