Top Ten Bookish Confessions
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created over at The Broke and the Bookish which I adore and therefore chose to adopt into my weekly blog posts!
We’re all friends here, right? No judging? If you promise then go ahead and read my bookish confessions. I just hope you won’t stop being my friend because in my head some of them are truly terrible.
I totally judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t get me wrong I don’t ever look at a book, hate the cover, and decide not to read it but I do scan shelves at the book store and pick up the books with covers that stand out to me. Shame!
Sometimes, I like the movie more than the book. It’s a rare occurrence but I enjoyed The Princess Bride film significantly more than the novel and only recently read Stardust by Neil Gaiman and felt the same.
I love trashy vampire lit. Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Mary Janice Davidson? Sign me up. I once saw a cartoon of a bookseller commenting to a customer on how Laurell K. Hamilton’s first books were good but then they just turned into stories with…um..relations with shape shifters & vampires. In the next picture it shows the customer holding a leaning tower of Laurell K. Hamilton novels. That’s me, totally.
I become drastically more upset when an animal is abused or killed in a book than when a human is. I’m not sure what this says about me as a person but I always want to scream “WHY IS THAT NECESSARY?!” when that sort of thing happens. Anna Dressed in Blood SPOILER ALERT: This book contained people being massacred and I just kept reading without (metaphorically) blinking an eye, but when the cat died? FORGET IT. I was MAD.
I totally judge you by what you’re reading. I am a librarian and therefore it is a severe NO NO to judge someone by their book choices, but sometimes I can’t help it. When you come up to me asking for your book on hold that just happens to be 50 Shades Darker and you want to spend 20 minutes talking to me about how awesome this book is? Just no. Stop. Please.
I have read a pathetic amount of so called “classic” novels. I know what they are, I know why they’re awesome but for the most part they continue to remain unread on my beautiful bookcases. Rory Gilmore would be ashamed.
I never use a bookmark, yet I probably own a hundred. Being a reader people always think “Oh let’s buy her a bookmark” for her birthday/Christmas/Wednesday but guess what? I usually end up using a gum wrapper or simply commit what page I am on to memory.
I really love my e-reader and no, I don’t think the popularity of e-readers will make libraries and books in print obsolete. I also kind of judge you if you do. Readers will always be readers and a true lover of literature loves to hold the physical book in their hands and smell the pages. I own both digital and print copies of books I truly love.
I have irrational feelings toward some books and feel a little tinge of jealousy when people I know read and/or want to discuss them (see: Harry Potter). These feelings also go for non-readers who try to discuss books and have a completely different opinion than my own, RAGE.
My number one book confession and there really are only a handful of people that know this because I am so ashamed…
Dear Kitty: I hate The Diary of Anne Frank. Wait, Wait! Let me explain! I completely appreciate the heart wrenching and horrific details of this story and cannot even begin to imagine the harrowing circumstances that led to the writing of this diary. I also think there are many factors that go into my loathing of the book. I believe it’s mostly due to the fact that I was forced to read it over and over again in both high school and college. I am obsessed with Shakespeare and can’t stand Romeo and Juliet for this same reason. Please, don’t judge me and think me heartless, I am ashamed enough as it is.
Woo, that was hard! Perhaps reading your book confessions will make me feel better about my own…
Books Take You Places 
I absolutely judge books by their covers! Sometimes I feel like if you didn’t care about what the cover looks like, did you even care to write a good book?
And I judge people by their books too. Sorry, 50 Shades readers. It happens.
I have some bookmarks, but never spend time searching for them. If I don’t have one handy, it’s often receipts or scraps of paper!
Still love books and don’t really like my Kindle! But I like that I can use it and that I have it. I just much prefer hard copies all the way!
I can’t help but notice you didn’t comment on my last confession…you’ve shunned me, haven’t you? ADMIT IT!
Of course not! Pshhhh. I don’t blame you! You don’t dislike the book because of this content – Overkill does that to anything for me! Movies, books, songs – I can’t handle it!
I mean I literally think my eye starts to twitch when I even see the book.
I don’t use bookmarks either…and I’m that person who uses the…does it even have a name? Flyleaf? to mark my place with in hardcover books. It ruins the cover…but I still do it. I have a *beautiful* bookmark made for me by a friend of my mom’s…and I use it for decoration and use a scrap of toilet paper or my grocery list to mark my place. 😀 That is, when I actually mark my place…
Scrap of toilet paper? GENIUS.
I also cannot handle animals dying in books and usually it phases me way more than when people die. I still tear up whenever I think of a particular dog death in a book I read. My husband thinks it’s funny and will mention it just to get me going.
Also, I understand your hate for the Diary of Anne Frank… I can’t read Holocaust books because that is all they assigned in school and they always feel like forced reading, even when they aren’t!
Uhh dude…When the whole Hedwig “incident” in HP7 happened I slammed the book closed and said “OHHH HELLLLL NO!!” I obviously picked it up immediately after but there was a moment of sheer rage toward J.K. Rowling. Also? The entire time I read Because of Winn Dixie for my lit class in college I literally said out loud “Please don’t let the dog die, PLEASE don’t let the dog die!!’ (P.S. It’s totes a happy book and there is no indication that the dog is going to die, ever, but I have issues.)
Thank you for understanding my Anne Frank situation! I really try!! The bf was like “Don’t do it!” When he knew I was going to post it on the blog!
I’m totally a cover whore and will be a book without reading the synopsis if the cover is awesome! I can’t handle in when an animal dies. I can’t watch Dumbo to this day without crying my eyes out! Awesome confessions 🙂 My TTT:
Crystal @ Elegantly Bound Books
Have you seen Homeward Bound? At the end when Shadow comes bounding up the hill I bawl EVERY SINGLE TIME!! Even though I know he’s okay I’m still like “C’mon Shadow, please!!” It’s a sickness.
I would love to be a librarian but if you take a look at my list, I can’t, because being surrounded by books in such poor conditions from being read so many times! I might pass out! In fact I got nauseous and dizzy the last time I was in a library and saw all those books looking disheveled! I’m weird about conditions of books I know!
I totally feel you about the 50 Shades people. Personally, I found the first book so juvenile I could not get halfway through it! And I agree that books we are forced to read dozens of time can quickly become a least favorite. I can’t say I ever had to read Anne Frank in school. That I picked up on my own. But Romeo & Juliet for sure. It’s a story that has been read too often and portrayed WAY too often in different ways on stage and screen.
I looovee old books! They smell so good (I know that smell is mold) and they just look like they had a happy life :]
Thanks for making me feel better about Anne Frank, it really is my biggest book confession!
Awwww, don’t feel bad about Anne Frank, really. I honestly found it to be a dull and boring read to be honest. I felt the same about Brokeback Mountain when I finally saw the movie. Don’t judge me.
I can agree with you on most things. I wish we had discussed the Hedwig at lunch today because you would have seen me riled up. Honestly, Hedwig was one of my favorites and I still think it was callous and uncalled for.
My book confession? I hate The Catcher in the Rye. Like hate hate that book. Everyone loves it, and I have never wanted to commit violence onto a book, but I have thrown that one across the room after the 18th time I tried to read it convinced I would like it.
Catcher in the Rye is definitely an acquired taste. The dialogue is few and far between and quite frankly, I could care less about what goes on in the mind of a juvenile delinquent. I would say it’s a “guys book” but I have yet to meet a guy who’s 1. read it and 2. liked it, IF they truly read it!
I never had to read Catcher in the Rye! MUAH HA HA! We can totally discuss Hedwig next time we see each other and I never saw Brokeback Mountain, but I want to!!
I can relate to so many of these. I think that PNR books are an awesome way to get reluctant readers in or people who just want entertainment. I unashamedly loved Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, and Laurell K. Hamilton for years. I think all their series have gone way downhill and I never even finished any of them. MJD’s book started getting so short that I used to joke with my friend that pretty soon, an installment would just be a leaflet.
I judge people all the time by what they read. Just today, I was talking to three guys who work there and none of them even knew who Patrick Rothfuss was! Get real. I’ve also read a pathetic number of classics and, AND, I’ve been known to make musical songs to remember my page numbers in books. I’ll walk around this house going, “TwwwoooOOOO, twenty—-seeeevvvvEEEEN, don’t forget you’re on, paaaaaage, Twwwwwoooo, twenty seven!” (obviously these are usually to the tune of some other song that is stuck in my head:)
Their series have TOTALLY gone downhill but I keep reading them!! I mean they take me a few hours to get through and it’s almost like I am detoxing because I read SO MANY BOOKS so it’s nice to just chill and be entertained haha (This is mainly the same reason I watch True Blood..) MJD’s books are getting shorter!! They are not my favorite out of the 3, I actually like LKH enough to where I wait for the next installment..I check it out from the library but still!
I just recently jumped on the Rothfuss bandwagon but from what I have read so far, he is freaking amazing. Your song to remember page numbers is an excellent idea..I might have to start doing that! Explain to me how I can remember what page I am on a week after I put a book down but I sometimes forget what I am doing/looking for etc. on a daily basis? Priorities.