Meet Your Neighbor is a weekly feature by Spartan Weekly News writer Grace Anne Johnson. If you’d like to be featured or know someone that would be a great candidate to be featured, please email us at sprtnwkly@aol.com or call 864.574.1360.
***
If you ever pop by Hub City Bookstore, you’ll likely meet Amanda Rosa — the store’s assistant manager, who’s always ready with a recommendation for your new favorite read.
Despite her current profession, Amanda didn’t grow up calling herself a reader. However, that all changed when a shopping trip with her dad turned into a bet.
“We were at Costco, and I saw that they had the Hunger Games trilogy,” she recalls. “I’d seen the first movie, and I had no idea it was actually a series of books. I asked my dad if he could buy it for me, and he gave me the biggest look, like, ‘You aren’t going to read that, you don’t read.’”
The two made a bet: if Amanda’s dad bought the trilogy and she finished it within the next two weeks, she didn’t have to pay him back. Needless to say, it was a bet Amanda quickly won — and her love for reading took off.
Growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Amanda spent a lot of time at her local independent bookstore. She was too young to work there, but the store became a safe space. “I would get out of school and walk to the bookstore almost every day,” Amanda says, “and then I would just find a corner to do my homework until my mom could pick me up. One day I was eating dinner with my mom, and I was just like, ‘Call me crazy, but I think I want to have a bookstore one day.’”
In 2017, Amanda moved to Spartanburg to attend Spartanburg Methodist College, where she earned her BA. She held a job at the campus bookstore for three years, and started working at Hub City during her senior year after an internship with Hub City Press turned into taking on a part-time bookseller position.
She fell in love with the bookstore, and with Spartanburg’s small town feel. “I was getting to know the customers and started forming those relationships, and it just felt like my own little Hallmark town.” Nearly five years later, she still calls the area home.
As the Hub City’s assistant manager, Amanda orders sideline items for the store — selecting everything from journals to stickers to pens. She also loves curating recommendations for returning customers, paying attention to what they enjoy reading and finding books she thinks they’ll like. “I start thinking, oh, this would be a good book for so-and-so,” she shares. “Then, the next time they’re in, I try to mention it.”
It’s these relationships that are Amanda’s favorite part of the job. “I’ve formed so many friendships,” she says. “It’s been really nice.” She also loves when she has the opportunity to put her bilingual skills to use and connect with Spanish-speaking customers.
In her own reading time, Amanda says that she’s recently been diving into a lot of young adult fantasy novels. She also holds a deep appreciation for translated literature, especially Japanese nd Korean works — two places she hopes to visit someday.
In the meantime, she plans to keep exploring from the pages of her favorite books — and sharing those adventures with the Spartanburg community, one chapter at a time.
Do you know a Spartanburg County resident that would like to be featured? Let us know via email at sprtnwkly@aol.com or call us at 864.574.1360.
