you can still lose even if you really try

Draft last saved on December twenty-fifth, two thousand and twenty-two

"How do you not hate them?" 

The question echoes in my mind as I drive home. It sits in the back corner of my brain for the rest of the month. It pops up unexpectedly the month after that. I'm washing dishes while the voices of Ryder and the Paw Patrol filter into the kitchen from the living room, and suddenly I'm wondering, "How do I not hate them?" It's complicated, this parent-child relationship, and for a while there, I did. Hate them, I mean. But before that, I couldn't imagine a time or situation in which I ever could. And after that, well, I couldn't think of any good it would do to hold onto it. 

We all have those scenes that break our hearts. No matter how many times we see them, how many different contexts we see them in, they push - with unforgiving fingers - at all the parts in us that are bruised and tender. We may not even know what those parts are, but we know that every time we see the child searching the audience for a parent that isn't there, or the pet dying, or the shoes/jacket/picture they were so excited for laying in a puddle torn/broken/ruined, our eyes will burn and we'll find it hard to swallow around the lump in our throats. For me, one of those scenes has always been the moment that a parent goes from hero to disappointment in their child's eyes. That loss of hope and faith crushes me. Every time. And while the bruised parts being pushed may seem like they change as I grow, I think that the fear that's actually doing the bruising stays the same. 

Not all parents do the best they can. Not all parents want to be parents. Some parents refuse to step up to the plate, and that's... well, that's just a difficult truth. A different kind of heartbreak than the one that presses against my ribs when I think of not hating them. Because some parents do try to do the right thing. They try their best, but sometimes the steps forward that took all of their energy still leave them too far behind. Trying doesn't mean you still can't fail. Doing better doesn't always mean doing enough.

Maybe it's the natural progression of things. When you have a parent that tries, they don't always hit their limits right away. You don't know at first how it'll break you when they come up short. And before they have pushed themselves as far as they are able, before your needs move past their capabilities, the very idea of it is incomprehensible to you. It's not a fear that you know to fear. You may as well worry that the sky will turn into pudding. 

I can see, now, the ways in which they tried. I can see the places where they succeeded, the monsters under their beds that they fought and beat so that they wouldn't make their way under ours. I can see the ways that they didn't try hard enough. I can see the places where they came up short. And maybe it takes becoming a parent that tries yourself, maybe it's one of those things where you don't get it until you live it, but I can accept both of those things now. I can hold both the good and the bad and not hate them for either. 

Sometimes a truth will wriggle its way into your mind. It will sit there tapping against every thought you have until you recognize it for what it is. And if you don't recognize it, or if you tell yourself that the tapping is just the drip of the faucet or the sound of legos banging together, it'll find other ways to get to you. After years and years of letting it collect dust on my TBR shelf, I finally read The Glass Castle after a friend suggested it. And that book broke me and put me back together in so many different ways. My childhood could not have been more different than hers, but every single word she wrote spoke to my soul. I needed something light to escape into after it so I picked up a fluffy romance novel and got smacked in the face with similar truths, demanding that I answer the question that was asked of me months ago. 

So how do I not hate them? By recognizing that hate does not help me. By trying to see them without hero worship or victim mentality clouding my vision. By hoping that learning from their mistakes can push me far enough along to get my own kids to where they were hoping to get me. By letting myself be angry and letting myself be heartbroken and letting myself be forgiving and letting myself not forgive. 

"Anger with all the broken parents, heartache that they too must’ve felt like kids—helpless, unsure how to make the right decisions, terrified of making the wrong ones." ~Beach Read 

*All I Need - Matchbox 20

gone but not forgotten

beverly cleary died today, and this death hit me harder than any of the celebrities that died this year, or maybe ever. she was such a huge part of my childhood and the adult that i grew into and the one that i aspire to be. 

i don't remember a time that i didn't love books. my mom is a reader, and we were raised on them. there are many books that stand out to me when i think of my early childhood - from picture books that every child in the school was obsessed with to obscure titles in our little bookshelf in jeddah that we'd read every summer without fail. but the first author i loved, that was beverly cleary. for years, any book that i read for pleasure was one of hers. we had used copies with yellowed pages and covers so precariously attached you were almost afraid to touch them. i got copies, shiny and new, for birthdays and major holidays. i distinctly remember opening up a present that included ramona and her mother, ramona and her father, ribsy, and socks. muggie maggie is the first book that i remember choosing for myself in a bookstore. i can't listen to the national anthem without thinking of ramona. and it should come as no surprise that when, a couple of years ago, i started reading chapter books to my kids, her books were ones of the first that i turned to. and seeing my kids fall in love with ralph s mouse, henry and ribsy, socks, beezus and ramona, ellen and otis, mitch and amy, and emily with her runaway imagination was like falling in love with them all over again. she might have been my most read author in 2020. and while it was special to read to my kids from the same copies that i had first been introduced to these characters with, i also loved all of the reprints we got from the library with interviews with the author at the back. 

beverly cleary books were the ones that made me a reader. i'm so grateful for her and them and the fact that i can share them with my own children, and that they're still as enjoyable to read in my 30s as they were back in 3rd grade. (which also happened to be the first year i had already read the book we read in class. my teacher had told me he liked henry more than ramona and i thought he was crazy, but reading them again last year and seeing how much my son loved henry definitely endeared him to me.) 

*I'll See You Again - Westlife

 as part of my writing every day, i think i'm going to try and blog again. at least semi-regularly. it's weird that so many years of my life went by without a written documentation. most of my life i either journalled, blogged, or both, but the past few years have been nothing. and yes, the brain fog from having 3 kids in 5ish years along with everything else that had been going on is nothing to sneeze at, but still.

i'd be lying, though, if i said i was writing this right now for any reason besides the fact that my phone is being screwy and my kindle app won't work and so i can't read. i feel like kicking myself for not reading earlier when i had the chance instead of scrolling facebook. yes, the book i'm reading is a reread from earlier this year, but i listened to the audiobook then and i wanted to read it read it, and now i can't and i'm annoyed. (side note: the audiobook of oona out of order is fantastic. the narrator was excellent. she's definitely one of my top audiobook narrators and that was the first book i heard from her.)

while i'm trying to focus my writing energy on novels (although the one i've first drafted is a beast i'm not sure i really want to tackle right now), i did decide that i would try some flash fiction/short short fiction competitions just to get some more rejections under my belt. i have this block when it comes to poetry or prose poetry and i'm honestly just avoiding it altogether right now.  

this is choppy and disjointed and i just want to go to bed to read but my book isn't working and people keep talking to me. so it is what it is. 

they invent her a new world with oil skies and aquarelle rivers

is it weird that i get the blogging itch bad enough to scratch at one year intervals? maybe. it would be better if i planned a yearly post instead. anyway, things look different around here. i feel like a stranger in some place that i was once a regular. 

which fits my current mood. 

i'm reading the midnight library and i was struck pretty early in the book with the realization that nora's depression feels so familiar but so distant. i'm reading the words and i keep thinking "i was there, i was right there. and i'm not there anymore. and i don't really know when that happened?" i was sitting in that room, not in her chair maybe but it was in the same room, and i know it so intimately that part of me hadn't even realized i had left the room. but i did.

i started this blog over a decade ago - eventually i will need to sift through these posts because i know there are many that should be taken down - and some days i can barely remember the girl i was then, the anxiety and depression, the pressures and expectations that weighed so heavily on me. there was light, too, and friends and laughter. but always with the knowledge that i was three steps away from too late. that girl is still inside me somewhere, and on nights like tonight i'm kind of happy that this roadmap exists to lead me back to her. just in case i ever need/want it. 

this book is making me feel things. this year is making me feel things. and nostalgia will always be the place i feel most at home. but there are times, a surprisingly lot of them recently, when i feel like i could get pretty comfortable in the here and now. 

after i had my second son, i had bad post partum anxiety and depression. i had gotten a glimpse of it with my first, but that second kid... ouch. after weeks of thinking about it and talking it through with people (some of which were the wrong people, and even though i know they didn't do anything maliciously, i don't think i can ever truly forgive them), i remember sobbing on my bedroom floor after coming to the realization that i was the worst thing that could have happened to my children. i begged my husband to take the kids and leave. to move to the other side of the world and raise the kids alone, or with his parents. i'd go to library story time with friends and mommy and me classes and playdates and then come home and just cry and cry and cry. and yell. so much yelling. and stare blankly at the wall as my kids cried or watched tv or destroyed the house. and i'd go to bed drowning in guilt. and in the midst of all of that, i stopped writing. 

i didn't notice it at first, because i have had my share of writing dry spells. but one day it hit me that it had been well over a year since i had written a single word that wasn't messages on my birth board and social media posts. and this was a different kind of not writing. this was not that i wasn't putting the words down, it was that the words didn't exist at all. november 2019 i decided to try nanowrimo again. i had written like a thousand words in 2017 and didn't even bother trying in 2018, but in 2019 i decided to try. and that first day of writing was like filling my lungs with air when i hadn't even realized i had been holding my breath. i remember telling friends (because along with an awesome kid and a decidedly not awesome time, i came out of that pregnancy with amazing friends and the best support group) that it felt like i had found myself again. i hadn't realized how lost i had been, but putting words to paper (or screen), no matter how bad they were, was like coming home.  

the midnight library goes beyond sylvia plath's fig tree that has haunted me for most of my life. you can look at your book of regrets and then choose a different life and live it and if you don't like it, you can come back to the library and choose something else. i'm the person whose anxiety spikes every time my kids watch the lion king and mufasa says "you are more than what you have become." (and they watch this movie a lot.) the idea of trying on different decisions is definitely my cup of tea. 

and yet, i also feel like i have reached the point where i've got my foundation down. after extensive talks with friends and countless hours of my typical introspection, i have come to the conclusion that entering your 30s is the best thing that could happen to a person. your 30s are where you find your why, your how, your no. you learn your who and figure out where to distribute your fucks. that's not to say anything gets less confusing or easier or anything, but, well, maybe it does. maybe you just get better at being confused. there's altogether too much pressure put on your 20s. 

but back to my point. 

a recurring thought in the book (so far) is that the only way to learn is to live. hardly groundbreaking, but still. the only way to learn is to live. 

maybe there's no real midnight library, but the girl that started this blog feels like she belongs in a different book than the one writing this post today. maybe there are lots of books within me, that start and end with my decisions. sometimes i go back and have to relearn a lesson again and again before it sticks, changing small things before i can really understand what i'm meant to. how many books within me have the same title, the same plot, but a cast that's just that side of different? 

i feel like i've learned enough to know that the versions of myself that feel the most comfortable are the ones where words are prioritized. my goal this year was to focus on writing. and i have written/worked on my writing every single day since january 2nd. for the first time in years and years, i wrote a novel. from start to finish. i didn't give up halfway through because november was done or my idea fizzled out. i wrote almost 100k words, and most of them are crap, but i know what needs to be fixed. even if i might not always know how to fix it. i've read 41 books so far this year. and yes, a lot of them are trash, but you know what? i like trash. i like silly romances and dramatic teenagers and hidden worlds. and with every word i read and write, i feel like i'm finding more of myself. i'm piecing myself back together like a puzzle. and maybe by the end of it i'll find myself in the book that i want to stay in, and the midnight library may lose, if not its appeal, at least my desperation coloring that appeal. (no, i never did learn not to mix metaphors.) 

and maybe that's why i keep coming back to this blog every time i know i'm done blogging. maybe i need some way to catalog these books, so that when i find myself in the right one, i don't forget every book that was written to get me there.

*Far, Far - Yael Naim

so before i had cricket, i had resigned myself to the fact that i would spend the next few years of my life without getting lost in books. i had heard, "i used to read, but then i had kids, and you know, you really can't anymore," so many times that i had accepted it as absolute truth. but then i had him and learned something about myself. i learned that a lot of the time, i will choose books over tv. i will choose books over movies. i will choose books over sleep. i will choose books over music (i went from music in the car to audiobooks. it's awesome.) it may take me longer to get through books, i may have to put it down way more often than i like, but i still pick then back up again (most of the time). i had kids, and i did not give up my stories.

so, without further ado, here's a post about my 2015 books. when i realized i was still reading, my goal was to read 15 books. i surpassed that, obviously.

my list of books that i read this year (mostly in the order that i read them in):
bold: favorites of the year
italics: this was a bad book and i read it so that you don't have to
*: disappointing (this doesn't necessarily mean that it was bad)
anything linked goes to my review of the book on goodreads

1. Pwned by Matt Vancil
2. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline *
3. Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews
4. Hey Natalie Jean by Natalie Holbrook *
5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
6. Six Moon Summer by SM Reine
7. All Hallows' Moon by SM Reine
8. Long Night Moon by SM Reine
9. Gray Moon Rising by SM Reine
10. Falling for Hamlet by Michelle Ray
11. Emma and Elsie Meet Fitzwilliam Darcy by Maddy Raven and Monica Leonelle *
12. The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima
13. The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima
14. The Gray Wolf Throne by Cinda Williams Chima
15. The Crimson Crown by Cinda Williams Chima
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling (reread)
17. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (reread)
18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (reread) 
19. Home by Clementine von Radics
20. Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine von Radics
21. Healing Old Wounds with New Stitches by Meggie Royer
22. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (audiobook) (reread)
23. Wings of Fire: The Brightest Night by Tui T. Sutherland
24. The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart (audiobook)
25. Love, Rosie by Celia Ahern
26. The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet by Katie Rorick
27. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (audiobook) (reread)
28. Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (audiobook) (reread)
29. The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray (audiobook) (reread)
30. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
31. Deception Point by Dan Brown (audiobook)
32. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
33. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (reread)
34. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (reread)
35. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephenie Perkins *
36. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephenie Perkins (reread)
37. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephenie Perkins (reread)
38. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephenie Perkins (reread)
39. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl *
40. Dramarama by E. Lockhart (audiobook) *
41. Stargirl by Jerry Spineli (audiobook)

and i started but have yet to finish:

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
2. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray *
3. Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry by Albert J Bernstein

stats (only counting the completed books):

75.6% of the books read were YA or middle-grade books (this year i'm thinking of reading for my age group more)

7% were poetry 

29% were rereads

80% of my favorite books of the year were rereads

43.9% were standalone books

notes:

i feel like i have to talk about the seven realms series (the chima books). i had so many issues with the writing and the consistency and the wasted potential of the characters and the predictability and just so many things, but it took me almost all summer to get through them because i was traveling and mothering and stuff, and by the time i was ending the series, i was legit sad. after spending so much time with these characters, i had fallen in love with them. i read the books on the kindle app on my phone, but i feel like they now deserve a place on my shelves. i just can't bring myself to buy the series again when there wasn't much difference in price between the ebooks and hard copies. anyway, i wasn't sure if i should bold it or not because i did love them, but i also really didn't. 

isla was another one that i was on the fence about. i remember being over a third of the way into the book and thinking "there is no tension!" (which was actually very helpful because that's always been a problem for me (starting the book too soon) and i never really knew how to fix it but seeing it in someone else's work was a very a-ha moment) and then when the "tension" hit i couldn't get over how contrived and stupid the problem was. but i still liked it? i dunno. i reread the rest of the series to see if that changed anything, but it actually did more damage than good because it made me see how problematic things in the other books were, and those were my go-to fluff in times of stress and now they're ruined. sigh. 

overall, though the titles are every bit as embarrassing as usual (and by that i mean you should all wish to have my taste in books), i'm actually pretty proud of the number of books i managed to get through. honestly, it would have been more if i didn't drag out the bad books because i refused to just put them down but couldn't seem to pick them up either. next year i'm hoping to branch out a bit. i'm also planning on getting through the books that i keep buying but not reading. my to-be-read list is getting a bit ridiculous. i think those two hopes may be contradictory. 

baby knows, but baby don't tease me

i went to harry potter world! which was awesome! and included a twelve plus hour road trip! with an infant! please know that i mean every single one of those exclamation points. i am screaming this at you from your screen.

buuut i'm not going to tell you about the trip - at least not right now - because i feel like it deserves more concentration and pretty words than i am currently able to give it. (i mean, harry potter world.) plus, i want to literary rant. it's been far too long since i've done one of those. (i think. honestly i've been away from this blog for so long that the previous post could be a literary rant and i wouldn't even know because i am a lazy bum who won't check.)

anyway, last time we drove down to florida, i reached a point about halfway through the trip where everything on my ipod was making me nauseous or angry or bored. basically, i was sick of my music, had run out of things to say as we sat in traffic, and the car was too quiet. this time, i was prepared. i brought audiobooks! (can i just say that as someone who claims to love libraries and someone who has complained numerous times about how audiobooks are too expensive, it took me a ridiculously long time to check out audibooks from the library.)

we listened to the golden compass first because i loved that series and my husband had never read it and always said that he wanted to. (i remember being mindblown after finishing the first book and immediately going to the library to get the second and third. and refusing to read anything afterwards for days because i did not want to leave that world or those characters. my husband's reaction to the book after listening to it for almost twelve hours? "meh.") but once we had finished that one, on the way back to virginia, we started deception point by dan brown, and oh. my. god.

so at first i thought that this might be his debut novel, and i was willing to cut him a little slack, but i just looked it up and nope. it's not even his second book. it's his third. as in, you had two books to perfect your writing and my slack? you get none of it. he wrote this after he wrote angels and demons, and i read that and did not have to stop in the middle to rant about his writing. at least, i don't remember doing that, and i don't think that's something i'm likely to forget, but that is exactly what i had to do while listening last night. my husband loved that, let me tell you.

my main issue with dan brown was always that reading his robert langdon books made me feel uncomfortable. like i was invited to a dinner party and the host was obviously playing footsie under the table with that guest that he was flirting with while his wife was cooking dinner earlier, and his wife is sitting right next to him and you're not sure if you should say something, but she has to know doesn't she? i mean the way he's looking at that guest makes it abundantly clear that he is in love and there is no way that she could have missed that, is there?

but anyway, this was an entirely different issue. this was a writing issue that even i, as someone with no formal writing education and exactly zero published novels under her belt, know not to do. see, in good writing, you are taken along on a journey with the character. you see what s/he sees, learn what they learn, fall into the story. when you want to build suspense or create curiosity about something then you don't tell your main character about it. they should not find out and then tease us with the information. we should not have to read pages about how he is in total shock about what he is seeing and oh my god he cannot believe  his eyes and this is the most amazing thing ever and he can't stop looking at it and shut up i'm not telling you what it is. i mean, sure, end a chapter with something like that to make sure the reader starts the next one. you can maybe go a couple of pages once every book or two where the reader is left in the dark. maybe. but do not go on for over a chapter with the incessant teasing every single time new information is revealed. it does not make me want to read on to find out what's happening. it makes me want to smack the author with his book and never pick it up again. it makes me hate your characters, lose interest in your plot, and wonder how your editor has a job. it feels like betrayal. and frustration. and just enough annoyance to make me stop and rant. (also, it seemed like the characters themselves deal with this inside the book way too often. for example, the president flies rachel out to tell her something and after what sounded like forever (at least a few typed pages) talking around it, she snaps something about getting to the point already. which were my sentiments exactly.)

maybe it's because i'm listening to the book instead of reading it, i'm not sure. but i cannot handle this writing "style" - if you can call it that - at all, and i think this may have turned me off of dan brown books forever.

*Tranquilize - The Killers

it's haunting me

does everyone remember the twits by roald dahl? i actually don't remember the plot very much at all, but wasn't there a part where someone glued all of the furniture to the ceiling so they thought they were upside down? hardly an unheard of prank these days, but to young elementary school me, it was the the funniest and smartest idea in the world. aside from the furniture on the ceiling part, which i'm not actually sure was from that particular book in all honesty, there was one point that got lodged in my brain and never really left it.

there's a part in the book that says that if you have ugly thoughts then they show on your face and you get uglier and uglier until people can barely stand to look at you, and if you have nice thoughts then you get prettier and prettier because they shine out of your face. that idea used to haunt me.

now, i had an amazing childhood, but i was a slightly weird little kid with a fondness for melancholy. i remember being in fourth grade and laying on my bed with my windows open, there was a cool breeze blowing in just a few degrees too warm to make it chilly and birds were chirping just outside. my sisters were somewhere in the house or yard playing, and i just stayed in my room listening to music that made me sad. because apparently i was always like that. and to this day, whenever there are clear blue skies and a breeze and chirping birds and solitude, i am transported to my nine year old body laying on my bed, staring up at the canopy, and enjoying that particular satisfaction of digging yourself into a hole of sadness.

anyway.

when i was still really young (think first or second grade) and first read that line, i one hundred percent believed it. if a single thought that was anything less than pleasant crossed my mind, i was terrified that everyone around me would see me getting uglier and just know. i eventually grew out of that, but the echoes of the fear still lingered in my mind, and once i hit fifth/sixth grade, it kind of came up again. i knew that whatever thoughts i had were not changing my physical appearance, but i also knew that there was nothing hiding in the dark to kill me and that didn't stop me from turning on every single light on my way upstairs and flying into bed when i turned the light off in my room at night. (it also didn't exactly help that i was entering that lovely awkward stage lol.)

that went away, too, after a while, but the excerpt still sticks with me. and at random times i'll suddenly remember the twits and how they got uglier because of their thoughts. usually it's just a passing thought or a one-liner in response to something someone said/did, but today it stirred up the other memories. there are so many bits and pieces from books that i can barely even remember anymore that have stuck with me my entire life. a lot of them seem pretty pointless, like a scene of picking up baggage at an airport or gluing a napkin into a scrapbook, and i start to wonder why. why my brain decided to store that little snippet but lose the rest of the plot. what was the point?

and those are the deep introspective thoughts that have kept me from working on my dissertation. i should've chosen a topic related to children's literature. maybe then i could have at least pretended i was doing work.

*Everytime - Britney Spears

we've got a fantasy affair

you know when you take a baby to get his/her shots and then they are cranky for the rest of the day because ugh, shots? that was me last night. i'm not even sorry about it.

today marks the start of my thirty-first week of pregnancy which means that we are officially down to the single digits, people. nine weeks until my estimated due date. sixty-three days. (i'm still undecided about whether counting the days makes it seem shorter or longer.) and that urge to deep clean the house that people keep telling me about has yet to kick in. i'm starting to think that it never will. i did get halfway through another baby's blanket last night (when i stupidly ran out of yarn and now need to leave the house today and risk the cold to get more) so i mean, some nesting is going on i think.

but this post is surprisingly not about babies or pregnancy. without further ado, i hereby present to you my extremely embarrassing list of books read in twenty-fourteen. (i would like to preface this list by saying that i am the kind of person that turns to lifetime movies and chick flicks i have seen a million times when i am stressed.) oh, and it's in whatever weird order that goodreads likes to remember things in. i thought it was alphabetical until we hit number eleven and then realized that goodreads is just weird.

1. Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann
2. The Code Witch by Sarah Sterman
3. The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson
4. The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness
5. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell 
6. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
7. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
8. Landline by Rainbow rowell
9. Landline by Rainbow Rowell
10. Landline by Rainbow Rowell
11. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart 
12. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephenie Perkins 
13. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
14. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
15. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
16. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
17. Wings of Fire: The Hidden Kingdom by Tui T. Sutherland 
18. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
19. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
20. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
21. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins
22. Ranger's Apprentice: The Siege of Macindaw by John Flanagan
23. Ranger's Apprentice: Erak's Ransom by John Flanagan
24. Ranger's Apprentice: The Sorcerer in the North by John Flanagan
25. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh
26. Wings of Fire: The Dark Secret by Tui T. Sutherland
27. Ranger's Apprentice: The Battle for Scandia by John Flanagan
28. Ranger's Apprentice: The Icebound Land by John Flanagan
29. Crazy Comes in Three by Elizabeth Barone
30. The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
31. The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Kate Rorick
32. Ranger's Apprentice: The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan
33. My True Love Gave to Me by a bunch of authors that i'm not going to type out
34. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling
35. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
36. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
37. What To Expect When You're Expecting

so i didn't make it to the fifty books that i wanted to read, but oh well. and to cap off the book failures of twenty-fourteen, i spent around $60 dollars on new books over the year which is ten dollars more than i said i was going to spend. (although to be fair, i bought the great greene heist to support the diversity in books movement. they were trying to get enough people to pre-order it to show the publishing companies that books with non-whites on the cover and as the main characters can sell just as well. if it wasn't for that, i wouldn't have bought it. so it kind of doesn't count. and if i don't count it then i came in under fifty dollars so yay me.)

*Wrapped Up In Books - Belle and Sebastian

choosing a baby name is so hard, you guys. i mean, aside from the fact that i get sick of a name about ten minutes after deciding i really like it, it has to be an arabic slash islamic name that can also be said easily in english and/or is also an english name. if it sounds too english-y then it has to be easily said in arabic. it can't immediately bring to mind someone that i know, because it just feels weird when i say, "hmm what about (insert name here)" and all i can think about is the girl from my fifth grade class with her mouth stained blue from warheads. with practically every single name i start to like, someone will come along and say, "you mean like (insert insult or ugly word here that sounds kinda like the name)?" and the name is immediately ruined, because now it just seems like i'm naming my child demon. and my husband and i don't exactly have the same taste in names. and i have to like the meaning. and have i mentioned the fact that i get sick of names really, really fast? ugh.

this is why we need diversity in books and movies. if i grew up falling in love with characters that had names i could name my children, i would not be having this issue right now. 

the things we lost in the fire fire fire

so i read we were liars last night (because i have awesomely amazing friends that surprise me with books i want to read in the mail because they are awesomely amazing). i'm not going to talk about the story because if any of you want to read it, you should go into it completely blind. (i will say though that i predicted the ending super early in the book but still found it really enjoyable. so. also i wrote a review of it on goodreads and if you read it (the book) then i want to talk to you about it. because book talk.)

but anyway, the book is written in this lyrical slash poetic prose (and don't you hate reviews that say that? don't you hate even more books that are written in verse or try to be "lyrical?" so much pretentiousness. this one grew on me, though.) and i started reading it last night after a pretty crappy day ending. i had that dull headache that you get after crying too much and my eyes were burning and still not sure if they were done crying and would randomly tear up again when i least expected them to. i was only going to read the first chapter or two (or ten when i saw how short they were) but i ended up just reading through to the end. because of the story and the writing style and my headache and my thoughts that i didn't want to think and the quiet that settles on the world sometime after one:thirty in the morning and the bright light of my bedroom compared to the dark of the rest of the apartment and my husband sleeping next to me (i asked if the light was bothering him, okay? i'm not entirely selfish) and the way that every position gets uncomfortable when you read in bed for so long and the random lines in the book that would jump out at me and crawl into the folds of my brain to stay there forever, there was something surreal about the whole thing.

now, usually, when i read a book that i like, especially one like we were liars, the first thing i do when i finish it is turn it right back over and start reading it from the beginning again. when you read a book for the first time, you are reading to know what happens. and sometimes you miss things. little lines or glances between characters or small references that your brain just skips right over to get to the big ending. so i read it again. and i read it slower. and i enjoy picking up on all the little things that i missed the first time. last night, though, i closed the book, thought about it for a minute, played candy crush, checked instagram, and went to sleep. and now i can't decide whether i want to reread it or not.

i mean, i really liked this book. (the good thing about being busy this summer was that i missed all the hype for it and got to go into it without expectations or spoilers.) but i don't know if i liked it so much because the surrealness added something to the chaos of the book or because the book really was just that amazing despite the predictability and if it would fall short on a reread. i don't know if i want to risk how much i like the book just to get the small things that i missed. (these are the problems in life that i don't mind having, that i wish all problems were like.)

what i do know is that i have missed books. more than i realized.

*Things We Lost in the Fire - Bastille

so last night was the kind of night that you wake up at three:thirty in the morning really needing to pee and then go back to bed and toss and turn and toss and turn but just can't. fall. asleep. and after playing candy crush and checking instagram and putting down your phone to try and go back to sleep, you're still staring at the ceiling then the wall then the ceiling then the back of your eyelids just to look at the ceiling again. and then you grab your phone every fifteen minutes to find answers to extremely pressing questions like, how exactly do you pronounce fondant.

apparently this leads to the kind of evening where you sit down to write a blog post because you have stuff to say but then you keep getting distracted because your husband is watching dennis the menace and you haven't watched that movie in decades and oh look it's the tying the robber up scene and suddenly the movie is over, you've barely written a paragraph, and you've forgotten what you have to say.

but anyway.

the past week or so has been filled with the most perfect summer days. like, seriously, think of a good way to spend a summer day and we have spent it that way this week. do you like to sit outside eating frozen yogurt while kids splash in a fountain? did it. do you like to spend your day at the farm looking at baby animals and taking hayrides? did it. do you like to laze around the house playing video games and watching old disney movies? did it. do you like to gorge yourself on pizza and hot fudge sundaes? did it. do you like to eat half a chicken with your hands while you watch knights on horseback engage in fake battles to the death? well, that's tomorrow.

ideal as this summer is at the moment, though, it's reaching that point where thoughts of school and responsibility and everything else that i pretend doesn't exist during the summer months are starting to creep in. it is not fun.

also, remember how excited i was for landline? and how upset i was that i wouldn't get it before i left on vacation? well, as soon as i came back, it was the first piece of mail that i opened. and then i carried it around for the day. and then i threw it in my tote bag and carried it around for the next two weeks. and now the dust jacket looks worn and i still haven't even opened the front cover. two thousand fourteen really sucks as a reading year for me. 

all of our plans have fallen through

did i mention on here that my travel plans changed a bit because airlines suck and way too many people want to leave and come back on the same days that i do and i suck at planning and maybe some things should not be left to the last minute? lesson learned, by the way.

anyway, because my travel days changed a bit, i was going to be in my apartment on the eighth. when landline comes out. and i was super excited. i mean, i pre-ordered this book in october. i was ready to read it.

as you may or may not realize, today is the eighth. and just take a wild guess who is sitting in her apartment without the book with no chance the book is going to get here today? yup. that would be me.

because, you see, i pre-ordered this book in october. and sometime between then and now, my credit card expired. and while i did change it on amazon after a different order told me it couldn't be shipped because my credit card was expired and i should probably change that, i forgot to change it for this specific order. and so a couple of days ago amazon basically told me the same thing for this book. and even though i updated my credit card information literally seconds after receiving the email (i was lucky enough to be online at the time), they counted it as a new order. which means i had missed the pre-order cut-off date. which means unless i wanted to pay extra for one-day shipping (i have not paid for shipping from amazon for years. i was not about to start now. even if it is for a book i want.) i was going to have to wait a couple of days before i got it.

and so i'm waiting. and hoping it gets here before i leave. this book better be good.

*The Way It Was - The Killers

at first, when i see you cry, yeah it makes me smile

a few weeks ago i watched the fault in our stars with a friend. it was... an experience. it was the first time i had ever been in a situation with so many teen fangirls in one place without being a teen fangirl myself. (because, yes, we went to a ya book's movie adaptation on the saturday night of its opening weekend and were then surprised that we were outsiders in the theater.) i can only assume that it was the feeling you would have gotten going to a harry potter midnight book release if you liked the books, sure, but were the type of fan that did not have every character and their house and patronus memorized. the type of fan that didn't own nor particularly care to own any potter-world merchandise outside of the books. it was awful because at the point where the plot turns sad and the tears started building up, the entire theater burst into sobs, and my friend and i completely lost it. it was hilarious. and also completely distracting. the girl sitting in front of us had a little bun on the top of her head that bobbed up and down as she sniffled non-stop through half of the movie. the girls to the left had a frantic passing out of tissues moment when the lights went down. a girl behind us got up, said "i can't stay here," and ran out of the theater crying. one of the boys in her group, after asking the rest of the group if she was okay, went out to bring her back in and she spent the last ten minutes or so of the movie just sobbing. loudly. heart-wrenching-i-just-saw-my-entire-family-murdered-in-front-of-me sobs. it was completely over the top. (oh, and they clapped after every. single. scene.) i was biting my lip so hard to keep from laughing out loud that i'm surprised i didn't go right through it. my friend and i were shaking with silent laughter, because obviously we couldn't risk being killed by a theater full of over-emotional fangirls for having the wrong emotions. it was bad. 

but we made it through, and after leaving the theater and laughing for fifteen minutes straight, we started to discuss the movie. my friend, who hadn't read the book, thought the plot was pretty predictable. if you haven't read/watched it, you may want to just skip down to the next paragraph. you know it's a sad movie so you're expecting something bad to happen. the movie starts with hazel "dying" and then things just continue to get worse for her so you kind of assume that she's going to make it out okay, because there's no way it could be that obvious. gus, on the other hand, seems to have everything going for him, so you figure that he's screwed. it's just the way of books and movies and whatever. so when he dies, it's really sad, but it was also a bit expected.

anyway, i told her that it was less obvious in the book. but something i just read online made me realize that i was wrong. it wasn't just about reading the book vs watching the movie, it was more about when you read the book. i read the book before it exploded into something popular enough to warrant a movie. and i think that made all the difference in the world. because now, everyone knows that the book, and by extension the movie, is Sad with a capital s. you're in that mindset from the beginning, subconsciously preparing yourself for grief from the minute you start it. and when i read it, i had no idea that it was a Sad book. i knew it was about cancer kids, so i kind of thought that it would have a sad ending, but it was touted so much as Not a Cancer Book that i wasn't entirely sure. there was still that little thought that, "this might actually turn out good. there may be a happy ending after all of this." when you know that a book is Sad, there is no hope of a happy ending which makes it less sad then when that hope is crushed and spit on and then run over by a car. twice. 

and that's why i like to read books before the hype. that's what gets me. it's not about that weird hipster-real-fan mentality that is running rampant around the internet. (if i hear one more person tell me that they're a real fan of whatever book because they liked it before the movie, i will scream.) it's about the expecting. and i'm not talking about expectations not being met because it was overhyped or whatever, i'm talking about going into it with a particular mindset. i'd rather someone tell me that something was good/bad than sad/scary/happy. when you go in with a clean slate, everything is sharper. i like to have my feelings crushed and spit on and then run over by a car. twice. i like the feeling of realizing something is laugh out loud funny when i had no idea it would be. it's always funnier than when you expect it to be funny. i like that feeling when you have to pause reading to take a deep breath because this is totally not what you expected. i think that's why i'm having so much trouble getting myself to read any of the books that are becoming movies soon, despite actually wanting to read them. (well, that and the fact that i am in a serious reading slump still and oh my gosh i can't read anything these days.) 

*Smile - Lily Allen

all i could think about

[one] so i've been stuck on this level in candy crush for months. this is not an exaggeration. i think i got to it in january or february. maaaybe early march. and i cannot for the life of me get past it. i think they should have an option available after you try a level a few hundred times (i usually go through all my lives around twice a day, which means i try the level ten times a day on average, which means i have tried way more than a few hundred times, which means i am pathetic.) that says, "you suck and we feel sorry for you. pay ninety-nine cents to move on." i would totally pay. anyway, this morning i was playing and doing awesomely. like, i really thought i was going to win. i still had twelve moves left and was close to clearing all the jelly and then my phone up and dies on me. out of nowhere. despite being fully charged. and of course when i turned him back on, candy crush just figured i had rage quit or something and counted it as another loss. ugh. way to ruin my life, jasper.

[two] i really like rainbow rowell. the author? i've read everything she's written multiple times despite just discovering her late last year. shortly after i discovered her, her newest book (due out this summer) became available for pre-order. which i obviously did. i have been waiting all year for this book. i really have been. for some reason, though, i have thought it comes out july first. and i planned my summer travels around that, as stupid as that sounds. well, okay, so i didn't really plan it around it but i did happily think for the past three months that the timing was so perfect because her book would come out on the first and i would leave on the third and is there a better way to spend your last days before leaving the country than lost in a book you have looked forward to all year? i think not. but i just found out yesterday that i am an idiot and the book doesn't come out until july eighth and i am so disappointed. it's obviously not the end of the world and my husband can easily just bring the book when he joins me later (because he is not leaving the country with me because he went and grew up and got a job and now has to worry about things like vacation days), but still. i won't properly be able to read it because i will be doing the visiting family thing and then i will come back and do more of the visiting family thing and taking a day to devour a book will probably not be appropriate. gah.

[three] sometimes i think about the way we actually are and the way that we are remembered and the gap between those two people and if it matters at all and which one is more important. (i once started a short story that kind of touched on this that i constantly think about and say i will finish, but three years later and most of it is still in my head. which i guess is better than forgetting about it completely, but still. get your act together, sarah.) anyway, what brought on this latest round of pondering things which probably don't matter much at all in any scheme of things, grand or ungrand, was lilacs. i love lilacs in the way that i love navy blue and the number seven, in a nostalgic eye-rolly phantom limb sort of way. they were my favorite for a long while (all three of those things) because they were my mom's favorites, and growing up i really had no personality. (it was also a case of crippling insecurity and self-doubt and liking things that were valid to like, and who was a better judge of worthiness than my mom, right? sometimes i want to go back to little me and just shake her.) anyway, lilacs are no longer my favorite (they are second, though. and i'm pretty sure it's because i really like them and not just because i used to like them. my favorite flower is sunflowers and daisies because they can both share the number one spot if i say they can), and every time i see them i think of my mom. but, as it turns out, lilacs are not my mom's favorite flower. oops. i found this out last year (possibly the year before) and yet in my head, even though i know they aren't, they are. because they are what i associated with my mom for so long. i don't think i'm making sense anymore, but you get what i'm saying, right? lilacs are not my mom's favorite flower, but i will always remember my mom loving lilacs the most: my mom vs how i remember my mom.

*Landing in London - 3 Doors Down

the television's on, i turn it off and smile

so remember a little while ago when i complained on here about the price of audiobooks? (this is where i'd usually link to the old post, but i don't feel like it so you're going to have to just trust me on this one. despite it being just barely past nine:thirty, i am exhausted. i have been having this weird exhaustion-insomnia thing going on. like, i will be super tired but i just will not go to sleep. and i'm not even sure if i'm not going to sleep because i can't or just because i don't want to. even though i do. and because i refer everything back to books, it's kind of like this scene in enchantment (which i have told you all to read several times already so you should know what i'm talking about) when princess katerina is finally going head to head with baba yaga (the evil witch). the princess draws a pentagon (hexagon? octagon? i think i'm due for a reread.) to keep baba yaga trapped in, but she does it by making baba yaga not want to leave the pentagon instead of actually trapping her, effectively using baba yaga's own strong will against her. once baba yaga realizes what's going on, she makes the floor fall out from under her and comes back outside of the pentagon. i kinda feel like i am trapped in an insomnia pentagon, but i don't know yet whether i am trapped because i am trapped or if i am trapped because i am under a false impression that i want this. will i be able to drop the floor? and is trying worth the risk of losing the hope i have that i can?)

anyway, audiobooks. sometimes (like when i am knitting or driving or doing similar hands busy but head not activities) i will want to read a story. and because i can't, i will want to listen to an audiobook. and since they are so expensive, i will end up listening to music or watching tv, which i love i really do, but it doesn't really scratch the itch. i want a story. and one that will play out in my mind.

i think i finally found the solution the other day. one that had my comic-book-loving-thinks-batman-is-cool-majored-in-economics-willingly-and-on-purpose husband to call me a dork, but i'm okay with that. apparently after i stopped reading fanfiction on mugglenet, they decided to turn some of their stories into audio-fanfiction. which you can download and listen to. for free. (the benefit of learning about this five years after it started is that i now have over two hundred episodes (it's set up as a podcast) to pick from.) i was super excited when i found out about this. i mean, it's the perfect solution. my harry potter nostalgia that's been hounding me lately gets fed and i get my stories without emptying my back account.

i haven't listened to very many yet, but i think i may restart my neglected knitting just so i have an excuse to listen to these more.

*Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf - The Killers

what the hell

i've been at mason a long time. a really, disgustingly long time. i've seen the campus nearly double in size and the number of trees shrink to almost half. i have seen buildings and the school paper change names. i experienced the migration from webct to blackboard and from masonmail to outlook. i have seen professors and presidents and deans come and go. there's a part of me that finds comfort in this fact and a part that wants to die just to put an end to it. i have learned the hard way that the experience of a student at a university changes drastically depending on what level you are at - and not in a good way. encouragement turns to scorn, helpfulness turns to hindrance, and everyone loves to blame you for the fact that they just didn't prepare you for the next step.

after all of that, you'd think that i'd be used to change. but i'm not.

i get on the computer this morning all ready to face the responsibilities i put off yesterday for the super bowl, and they changed their freaking email system again. it took me twenty minutes of fiddling with the settings, and it still looks wrong. the font is huge and the bold isn't bold enough and every reply opens a new window. what the hell, mason. stop messing around with this. gah.

going back to the super bowl. during the playoffs, i decided that i was going to root for the seahawks because none of my teams made it in and they had pretty colors. (duh.) plus, i somehow hadn't seen them play at all this season and thought that they were some kind of underdog cinderella story. so, i should be pretty psyched that they won. but i have never rooted against the team i was rooting for so much before. it all started with their game against the forty-niners where i spent all but the first fifteen minutes of the game hoping the niners would win. and then yesterday was pretty much the same thing. (and also, what the hell were you broncos doing? it's like you were actively trying to suck. goodness gracious.) despite this, i never "turned" on the seahawks formally. i wanted them to lose both times while simultaneously telling anyone who would listen that i hoped they won the whole thing. lesson learned: i am really bad at being a sports fan. also, i like underdogs. BUT after marrying an avid sports fan i can pretty much hold an intelligent conversation in most sports and you'll think that i know what i'm talking about and that i'm a sportsy person... but i'm not. and if you talk to me long enough then you'll realize i start to slip and call the players characters and turn plays into plot twists and that annoys hardcore sports people for some reason. (you'll also learn that i spend most of the game commenting on looks and names. like, did you know that the lions have a character named pettigrew? as in peter pettigrew? i don't care how many times i am told his name is not peter. he is still a rat, and that's why they lost because they put their trust in a traitor. they're just lucky it didn't turn out worse. i mean, the last people who put their trust in a pettigrew ended up killed by lord voldemort.)

and speaking of harry potter, what the hell jk rowling. you cannot write a book and then years and years later come back and say, "actually, no. i changed my mind." it doesn't work that way. have a problem with how you wrote things? write yourself some nice fanfiction and move on with your life. i feel like i have to have a rant about this lady soon. it's been building up for years. (in case you have no idea what i am talking about here, jk rowling recently came out and publicly stated that she regrets putting ron and hermione together, that hermione should have ended up with harry, and the whole ron thing was just wish fulfillment and didn't make any sense. whatever, rowling.)

*My Eyes Burn - Matchbox 20

sometimes i plan to celebrate the anniversary of certain events and then i realize that i can't remember anniversaries to save my life and when i go check the date it turns out that the anniversary already passed. and since i'm already late, i drag out the celebration until i don't even feel like celebrating anymore. and then i write a blog post about it.

the most recent instance of this is me not remembering that is has been exactly one year (and then some) since i released my first ever book of prosetry. i announced it first here on my blog. you can reread that post for nostalgia reasons here. if you didn't buy the book for whatever reason, you should click that link and read all the reasons that you should buy it. and then go buy it from amazon. i mean, you can get the kindle version for just under three bucks and get the kindle app for free and then you can read it almost instantly.  or you could wait a little longer and pay a little more and get a copy you can hold in your hands. or you could do both. you know, if you really want to.

one of the reviews i got on please listen was that some of the pieces seemed melodramatic. since it's been a year, i'm going to address that comment. i wrote a lot of those prose poems either as a way to work through or a result of getting through stuff. some of that "stuff" was depression-related, and if you know nothing else about depression then know that it is all melodrama. the worst thing is always happening and never ending. (notice that i didn't say "it seems like..." that was intentional.) so yes. a bunch of it is melodramatic and over-the-top and  you know what? i'm totally okay with that.

i haven't read any of the pieces in the book for a while, but some of my favorite things i've ever written are contained within those pages. (i also think i have most of it memorized from the number of times i read through it while putting it together, and yet there are still typos i didn't catch.) though i'll probably always look back and think, "if i only did..." i will also always be proud of please listen. no matter what happens in the future. for more reasons than i can list.

end shameless self-promotion. 

giving the academy a rain-check

okay, so. it's common knowledge around here that i like books. and that i think that writing competition shows should be on tv just like cooking competition shows, remodeling competition shows, and who looks prettier competition shows. and since it is award season (is it? i honestly have no idea. is there even an award season or do award shows just kinda happen throughout the entire year? i've never actually watched an award show ever in my entire life. i plan to sometimes, but then i forget. i do enjoy the gif sets that appear after an award show though. anyway, let's just pretend that i know what i'm talking about and that it is awards season, okay?)  i think that books should be awarded right along with movies, tv shows, and music. and yes, i know that books do get awards, but where is their televised glitzy show with a red carpet and readings from the top books of the year and trophies given to the authors? it just doesn't seem fair, if you ask me. so i will be awarding some book-oscars. the nominees are all of the books that i picked up to read last year (you can find the complete list with all of the authors here) because they must have done something right to get picked up, you know?

i'm adapting all of the categories that wikipedia tells me the academy awards use as best as i can. and now, without further ado, i present to you our winners: 

Best character (male) in a leading role (leading role means narrating to me): tobias (allegiant)

Best character (male) in a supporting role: gus (the fault in our stars) 

Best character (female) in a leading role: cather avery (fangirl)

Best character (female) in a supporting role: reagan (fangirl)

Best children's book: wings of fire: the lost heir

Best short story: life on the refrigerator door (since i finished it in half an hour it counts as a short story)

Best narrating voice: lawrence (when we were romans) 

Best costume design: the divergent trilogy

Best author: rainbow rowell

Best nonfiction story: discovery of luray caverns 

Best nonfiction short story: climbing everest: tales of triumph and tragedy on the world's highest mountain (this was a library book so i can't tell you which exact story was my actual favorite)

Best editor: it would NOT go to the editor of the tmi series, the divergent series, chose the wrong guy, or the host for sure 

Best story in a foreign location: stolen

Best action story: trash 

Best character descriptions: the host

Best self-published book: off with her heart

Best title: chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger 

Best book: fangirl

Best cover design: the fault in our stars

Best dialog: eleanor and park

Best setting description: stolen

Best world-building: the mortal instruments series (cassandra clare)

Best play: long day's journey into the night

Best poetry collection: teaching my mother how to give birth

this was a lot harder than i thought it would be. i wanted to have ties for almost every category, and the books that i read later in the year were freshest in my mind which was slightly unfair. if i read through the list again, i'd probably change half of them. i would also like to point out that i really  liked the beach street knitting society and yarn club even though it's not bolded in the previous post or the recipient of any of the awards here. i have no idea why because i really enjoyed the book. a lot. 

if you feel like awarding your own books, then let me know who wins. 

*It's Time - Imagine Dragons

a little late

i mentioned early last year how i changed my reading goal on goodreads from fifty books to thirty-five because i am basically afraid of failing anything, even stupid self-made goals. and then i started the year with a bunch of rereads. since i'm already too late to write any year in review lists for 2013, here is a year in review list for 2013: books read edition.

the books i read last year (sort of in the order that goodreads shows it to me):

1. the fault in our stars by john green*
2. eleanor and park by rainbow rowell
3. eleanor and park by rainbow rowell*
4. fangirl by rainbow rowell
5. fangirl by rainbow rowell*
6. attachments by rainbow rowell (and a half)
7. stolen by lucy christopher
8. the host by stephenie meyer*
9. the beach street knitting society and yarn club by gil mcneil
10. long day's journey into the night by eugene o'neill
11. divergent by veronica roth*
12. insurgent by veronica roth*
13. allegiant by veronica roth
14. she's come undone by wally lamb 
15. persuasion by jane austen*
16. pride and prejudice by jane austen*
17. when we were romans by matthew kneale
18. chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger by beth harbison
19. city of bones by cassandra clare
20. city of glass by cassandra clare
21. city of ashes by cassandra clare
22. city of fallen angels by cassandra clare
23. city of lost souls by cassandra clare
24. wake by lisa mcmann*
25. fade by lisa mcmann*
26. gone by lisa mcmann*
27. night of the tiger by debi emmons
28. the tiger's cub by debi emmons
29. wings of fire: the lost heir by tui sutherland
30. the long fall by walter mosley
31. discovery of luray caverns by russell h gurnee
32. trash by andy mulligan
33. intentional dissonance by iain thomas aka pleasefindthis
34. off with her heart by amy dale
35. ranger's apprentice: the ruins of gorlan by john flanagan
36. miss peregrine's home for peculiar children by ransom riggs
37. climbing everest: tales of triumph and tragedy on the world's highest mountain by audrey salkeld
38. weekend in paris by robyn sisman
39. life on the refrigerator door by alice kuipers
40. to be or not to be: a choosable path adventure by ryan north
41. how to be a woman by caitlin moran
42. perfection by dayna bailey (x)
43. the story of her holding an orange by milos bogetic (x)
44. pride and prejudice and zombies by seth grahame-smith (x)
45. intelligence: from secrets to policy by mark lowenthal
46. jane austen's england by lesley adkins
47. teaching my mother how to give birth by warsan shire
48. twenty-five by rachel l hamm
49. love is a dog from hell by charles bukowski
50. bits and pieces of a broken heart by janice angela burt (x)

and then there was a book about fishing that i could not get more than a few chapters in to. 

i find it ironic that i read fifty books in the end. you may choose not to find it so. 

i'm not going to tell you which of these you should read, because i am all for reading anything and everything. so i think you should read all of them. even the ones i did not like. (i will mark the ones that you can push to the very end of your to-read list, though.) i could talk about each of these books for seven hours, so if you want to have a conversation about any of them i will be more than happy to do so. also, after adding so many different symbols after each title that i confused myself, i took them all off except for:

* means it was a reread

(x) means you probably don't need to worry about reading it any time soon

bolded means it made my top five of the year list. (rereads were not included in this list.)(there were some i really liked that i did not bold.)(read everything.)

i am way behind schedule for this year's goal in case you were wondering.

*Torn - Natalie Imbruglia

talk like that won't get you nowhere

sometimes when i'm out in public places by myself, i eavesdrop on people. and by sometimes i mean a lot of the time. i'm not even ashamed of it anymore, because people say the most amusingly stupid stuff when they don't know that i'm listening to them.

case in point: whenever i go to walmart, i always stop by the pathetic book section. i rarely buy anything, but i always have to go and see what books they have. (side note: whenever these not book stores that sell books have harry potter on their shelves, i get ridiculously happy. it really makes my day.) anyway, the books and CDs are in the same aisle, and there were two teenagers already there. one was looking through the CDs and the other was clearly just waiting for her to finish. she glanced over at the books and said, "you know, i might actually read more if getting books was more convenient." the friend looking for CDs hmmed noncommittally. "you know what they should have?" the friend continues, excitement building. "a netflix for books!"
the other friend looks up. "oh my god you're a genius!" she exclaims. "if you could have access to a whole collection of books and then you can just choose whichever one you feel like... that would be awesome. we should totally invent that."
i had to bite my tongue to keep myself from butting into their conversation with, "they actually do have that. it's called a library."

and with the ability to check out ebooks from the library from your own house, claims that libraries are too inconvenient are groundless. i don't think i mentioned it on here, but i gave myself a fifty dollar book buying budget for twenty-fourteen. there were just too many books that i bought last year to read that i didn't even really like and are now just taking up precious bookshelf space. so i will be returning to my library days and if i really like something then i'll add it to my book collection. plus, i already have too many books sitting on the floor to be read. i don't really need to add to them.

oh, and because facebook fills my newsfeed with scribd ads, i know that scribd markets itself as a netflix for books. sorry, girls, you're a little late to the party.

*All I Need - Matchbox 20