Bookish Truths & Confessions

Hey Guys!
Fancy seeing you here? :)
I am BACK! :D
Having a break was definitely the BEST thing for me to do and I feel so renewed and ready to take on blogging again in a way that I haven’t felt in a LONG time. I have some posts all scheduled and ready to go up in the next few weeks and some more that I’ll be popping in as and when I feel like it. But basically, I’m back and it feels good. Did you miss me?

And I thought the BEST way to announce my return is to do a list of all my Bookish Truths and Confessions. This is a list for you to really get to know ME. Maybe you will dislike me after but this is who I am and I’m not changing for anyone.

Enjoy ^_^

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I will never read every single book on my TBR pile…
This I know but that doesn’t stop me from adding more. Because all the books sound amazing and I want to read them.

I stopped reading for three years
WHAT? It was half a year before university and the first two years. I did read a little, like maybe three books in the three years but no where near as religously as I did before and after. It was a weird period of my life.

I used to love the Twilight books…
I devoured them. I fell in love with them deeply and just wanted more. But then I read the final book and everything fell to pieces. I realised what Stephanie Meyer had done in EVERY SINGLE BOOK and the illusion simply shattered. Now I can’t stand them.

It can sometimes take me a long time to finish books because I start them, I get halfway through them, and then my mood changes and I want to read something else… but it is not the sign of a BAD book.
It’s really, really, not. Some of my FAVOURITE books have taken me weeks to read because I put them down for a long time in between other books. Unhinged and Splintered being perfect examples of this!

Reading YA is still relatively new to me.
I read some teenage books when I was a teenager (Malorie Blackman, Kevin Brooks!) but mostly I read adult books (Jodi Picoult, Cecelia Ahern). But then I started blogging and the rest is history…

I buy and borrow books to make me feel better when really I should just read the books I already have…
This sort of falls in line with the first one but the reason I buy and borrow more books (and get excited when I get review copies) is because books CHEER ME UP. I get so happy when I get a new book and even if I don’t read it STRAIGHT AWAY, knowing it is there and waiting for me is really nice. Instead of buying clothes and shoes, let me buy books please.

It takes me a long time to read the last book in a series because I just… can’t… say… goodbye.
Seriously. The only time I read the final book STRAIGHT away was with Harry Potter and that is ONLY because EVERYONE at school was talking about what happens and I was NOT going to be left behind. Now though, I rarely read books that people around me talk about so the ending can be given a bit of time to gear myself up for!

I don’t think I have ever read a series from start to finish without having a break of other books in between, even when I own all the books…
This goes with my reading books halfway analogy… I NEED other books to keep my interest in the series. It sounds odd, but otherwise I just KNOW that I’ll get bored and that would be terrifically sad.

With that in mind, I am in the middle of SO MANY series, I have actually lost count. Many series of which I own all/most of the books for…
Sometimes I will read the first book in the series and will convince myself I WILL return to the series later. Then a year later I’ve forgotten all about it…

I used to damage books. Bend spines, dog-ear them, bash them about without a care. But now I just can’t. Books feel wrong if they’re not pristine.
I know, it’s bad. But I was a kid and I just wanted to read the story. I didn’t care about the books. (And my Harry Potter books are the BEST example of this) But now they need to be PRETTY too. I don’t know why though.

I also used to borrow ALL the books from the library. Now I work there and inspect EVERY book I take out first. Which means I don’t take out nearly as many books as I should.
I work in the library. I see the state in which some of the books come back in and then I can’t help but wonder… WHAT DO PEOPLE DO WITH THESE BOOKS? Do they read them in the bath? Do they eat food NEAR them? Do they go to the beach with them? It’s all just a big NO-NO for me now.

I loved signed books but it’s still a little foreign to me. Sometimes I still wonder why a signed book makes it more special…
This is a difficult confession for me as I own SO MANY signed books now but only started getting them signed since blogging. But for me, it’s more exciting SEEING the author than it is having the book signed. Hence why I’m unlikely to buy a book JUST because it’s signed. Unless it’s a book I LOVED. (Hello Books of Wonder books!)

Meeting authors is also new to me. I have now met MANY authors and still I sometimes don’t know what to say to them, even those who I would probably now consider friends. Sometimes I just have a little… (Oh My God, Blah author just had a FULL conversation with me.)
This one I think stems from putting authors and there amazing books on pedastals. And also because these are people who have done what I have continuously failed to do; written a book to the very end, edited it, and put it out into the world.

But I fangirl in a very different way to other bloggers. I get MORE excited about receiving/buying books than I sometimes do about meeting authors and it can still feel odd jumping up and squeeing. I would rather fangirl online.
When I first started blogging, I loved fangirling online with fellow bloggers but I had never met an author before. Then I did and we spent ALL day together (with his publicist) and it was so lovely and I realised he was, you know, human, and it was all FINE. But now, I actually fangirl more than I ever did but it’s more of an “oh wow” than a “SQUEEEL. OHMIGOD.” moment. It’s hard to explain but… yeah. Embarrassing.

I will be SO EXCITED about receiving/buying/borrowing x book and then I may not read it for months or years.
This is incredibly bad of me. I got Talon, Heir of Fire and Lockwood & Co 2 at BEA and I was SO EXCITED for all of them. Had been waiting for all three of them for MONTHS and they ARE STILL SITTING UNREAD on my bookcase. I can’t even…

I am, and always will be, a MOOD READER.
And the clincher of ALL my problems, I read what I’m in the MOOD for. I cannot read a fantasy when my brain wants a contemporary. I can’t read a YA when I want an adult story. And my mood changes DRASTICALLY. I could be halfway through a book (*cough*above*cough*) and suddenly, I want to read a thriller, not a sci-fi. It is hard to deal with, especially when you have review deadlines and this is why blogging got hard for a little bit but now I am allowing myself to read WHATEVER the hell I want to. Yay!

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I am certain there are more confessions and truths to tell you all but these are the ones I have shared with you today.

Do you have any of the same confessions? Or what do you do differently to me? I’d love to hear from you!