Bookish Confessions

Something I have been thinking about recently is how my opinion on book-related things relate so differently to other people but sometimes my opinions are so similar. So I thought I would try and get some of my confessions in writing for the world to see and maybe find out that I’m not entirely crazy and others feel similar.

1. I hate J.K. Rowling as an author – Okay, before you all burn me at the stake, hear me out. I have read the entire Harry Potter Series and I own the entire series in a very pretty hardback edition and it makes me happy to look at them. Yes, I do understand that they are books designed for young readers (well the first few are anyway). However, can we just take a moment to think about the language, description and repetition used by Rowling throughout the ENTIRE series? Honestly. Every single book she reintroduces every single character. When I am five books in I really do not need a recap of who Dumbledore is. Some of the character development was great and some was terrible. The series could have been so much more. I can’t even just complain about the Harry Potter books – I need to complain about her. She has been a huge success, she has made so much money as an author and she has done wonders in proving that women can write successful novels. And then she changed her pen name to a man and pushed women back twenty bloody years. What kind of message is she sending to young girls and aspiring authors if someone as big as J.K. Rowling changes her name to a guys name just to publish a book? Women authors have more than proved themselves and she has just added to an old-fashioned notion that women authors can’t write crime. Agatha Christie? Patricia Cornwell? Martina Cole?
2. I am a book snob – I can buy second-hand books (happily) but if it is a paperback book and the spine has been broken I can’t buy it. If I’m in Waterstones buying books, I will investigate the condition of the book before I buy it and if it isn’t up to scratch, I won’t buy the book. I need to have pretty editions and series that match – everything needs to be the same size. No movie covers. They give me fear. I judge books by their cover.
3. I can’t let other people borrow my books – My books are my babies and I will protect them until the very end. The thought of lending a book to a friend (one I trust and respect as a person) and them returning the book to me with a broken spine, folded pages or *shudders* food stuck to the pages is enough for me to lose the respect I had in that person. I gave my boyfriend one of my new textbooks to use while studying and he trashed it. He broke the spine, bent the pages and just generally beat it about while it was unceremoniously shoved into his bag. I got upset about it and didn’t speak to him for the remainder of the day. It’s just easier if I chose not to lend my books to people.
4. Sometimes I think about characters in books and it genuinely hurts to think about them. – Rhysand from ACOTAR or Jem Carstairs from TID or Raffe from Angelfall. the list is endless. When I think about characters that I love – and I do love them – it hurts to think that no one gets the way that I can understand these characters, that they have been created so perfectly that in my heart of hearts they are people to me. I can imagine their lives so perfectly, so beautifully, that it just pains me.
5. Sometimes I can hate a book character more than real people. – Have you ever had a character in a book that just boils your blood so badly that you hope they meet a messy and untimely death? No? Maybe? Well, I do and I do more often than I’d live to admit. Especially if they have wronged my favourite character. Like Sebastian Verlac. or the King of Assassins Guild. Sometimes they more than deserve their fate.
6. I would cancel plans if it meant that I could have a date with a good book. – Sometimes people just don’t get you. Sometimes your life gets too real and you need to escape someplace else and live a different life for a few hours. Sometimes people just suck. Books do it better
7. I take a book with me everywhere even if I know I won’t have time to read it. – It makes me feel better knowing that I have something a reliable as a book nearby. It’s a comforting thought knowing that a good book is within arms-reach at all times. And hey, you never know when you’ll get a spare second that you can spend reading that book.
8. I sometimes delay reading the last few pages of a book for ages because I’m scared for it to be finished. – Empire of Storms came out last year and I haven’t read the last page and a half because I can’t handle the pain.
9. When I meet new characters in books, it can be hard not to be disappointed by people in real life because they don’t live up to the standard of that character. – I still haven’t met my Will Herondale. But I did meet my Levi.
10. If the font in a book isn’t right I won’t read it. – If a book has a weird layout on its pages, or the font is too big (or too small) or I hate the font I won’t read it because it makes me uncomfortable…

 

Here are 10 confessions of a book lover/snob, I suppose. Looking at these now I’m wondering if there is something mentally wrong with me.