A to Z Book Survey! + What Have I Read So Far? + My Mom Thought I Was a Lesbian

Currently listening: "Motion Sickness" by Hands Like Houses

I found this on YouTube because I've been addicted to BookTube lately. I really should just create my own BookTube but oh well. Find the video [url=
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MSaCXhyrQs]here[/url].

A: Authors you read the most.
This can go three ways: Novel-wise, poem-wise, or all works. Novel-wise I'll go with J.K. Rowling at 10 books (Harry Potter 1-8, Tales of Beedle the Bard, and The Casual Vacancy). Poem wise: Emily Dickinson because of her collection. All works: Edgar Allan Poe because I read his entire collection as well.

B: Best sequel ever.
This is probably a tie between Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld. Usually whenever I read a series nothing can beat the first book. These two books are my favorites in their series.

C: Currently reading.
Blindess by Jose Saramago. It is about a white blindness that no one can escape from. Some of the paragraphs can get up to five pages long and have little to no punctuation.

D: Drink of choice while reading.
Either water or pop.

E: Ereader or physical book.
Physical book. I haven't used my Kindle in 5 years.

F: Fictional character you probably would've dated in high school.
Oh dear. Either Jasper Hale from The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer or Cam from Fallen by Lauren Kate. Maybe even Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. When I read Twilight in seventh grade I hated Edward and Bella and Alice and Jasper were the only two reasons I kept going. I loved Jasper's quiet nature. I felt bad for Cam in Fallen. Daniel was too mushy for me. And I know TFIOS is hated by a lot of people but Augustus Waters just had a way with words that made 15 year old Domi melt.

G: Glad you gave this book a chance.
There are four for this one (why can't I ever just pick one). The first one I had to read for school so I had to give it a chance whether I liked it or not. That book is 1984 by George Orwell. I was not excited going into this because I hate reading books for school. But I ended up falling in love with it. I take this book as a warning whenever something fucked happens to the government. This book is now considered one of my top 3 favorite books.

The next book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Again, wasn't excited going into this. I read it because everyone else did and I just wanted to say I've read it. I'm also not a huge fan of classics. I ended up falling deeply in love with this novel and is considered a favorite classic after 1984.

Next, The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling. It has a pretty low score on Goodreads but I wanted to read it anyway because J.K. Rowling. The beginning was extremely slow and I almost stopped reading. But I pushed through AND FUCKING CRIED AT THE END HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK ROWLING

Last: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. For some reason so many people from my high school hated this book and they kept telling not to read it. I'm stubborn so I read it anyway. To make a long story short, this is now my favorite book of all time.

H: Hidden book jem.
Not really sure.

I: Important moment in your reading life.
The day I finally read my first book by myself. I actually went into school really far behind. Everyone knew how to read at the end of kindergarten except for me. I was put into after school programs and I couldn't read until the middle of first grade. You have no idea how happy I was when I finished my first book (and it was about Winnie the Pooh!) I walked around the house reading it and I made my parents listen to me all day. I even forced them to listen to me read it before bed. Now I'm a bookworm.

J: Just finished.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. A book in which women are property. Everyone read this book because it's important.

K: Kind of books that you won't read.
Mushy gushy romance. It's difficult to describe what I mean by this since so many of the YA books I fell in love with in high school are essentially romance. But those books have other elements to them. Hush, Hush is angels vs. nephilim and Fallen is about angels vs. Lucifer. Twilight had other elements in it as well and same with The Hunger Games. I guess what I mean is, if you were to ask me what these books were about, I would say, "Kids go into an arena and kill each other" or "Angels fight demons" rather than say "boy meets girl".

I also stay away from erotica and sometimes mystery.

L: Longest book you've read
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling at 870 pages. I'm reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo over the summer so expect this to change.

M: Major book hangover because of...
The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. Boy, I did not want that series to end.

N: Number of bookcases you own.
Three lol. I have a bunch of books on the floor right now.

O: One book you've read multiple times.
I list five because I don't follow directions.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Matilda by Roald Dahl
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

All were read two times.

P: Preferred place to read.
Anywhere that's quiet and I can stretch out.

Q: Quote that inspires you.
“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.” From The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (the girl in the video had the same quote. Twins).

R: Reading regret.
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The premise was cool but the book as a whole ended up being a waste of my time.

S: Series you've started and need to finish.
Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snickett. I read the first book and, to be honest, wasn't a fan. I read about the thirteenth book pissing a lot of people off so I'm willing to read the rest this summer.

The Giver series by Lowis Lowry. I'm not sure what the series itself is called. I keep forgetting there is more than one book.

T: Three all-time favorite books.
Third place: The Giver by Lowis Lowry. This was my first "big kid" and to this day it still passes my mind. To me it's different from all other dystopians and I remember relating it to 1984 a lot. I refuse to see the movie.

Second place: 1984 by George Orwell. Like I said above, I took this book as a warning and it haunts me to this day.

First place: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm a huge WWII buff and I love original point of views so this book was basically written for me. For those of you who don't know, this book is about a German girl living in Germany during the Holocaust. Like the title suggests, she steals books. It is told in Death's point of view. Warning: Usually when I say a book made me cry, I teared up. This book made actual tears stream down my face.

U: Unapologetic fangirl for:
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. No shame.

V: Very excited for this release more than all others.
The books from the Game of Thrones series. I refuse to read the books until he announces something about the sixth book (I like to read entire series all in one go rather than reading a book and waiting a year for the next one).

W: Worse bookish habit.
Don't really have one. I used to fold pages with quotes I loved. Now it kills me when people do this.

X: X marks the spot. Start at the top left of shelve, pick 27th book, open to page 37, type the 5th sentence (page and sentence added by me).
Book: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Sentence: "I backpedaled."

So profound.

Y: Latest book purchase.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Z: Zed - Book snatcher that kept you up really late.
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child even though I hated this
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini AND LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I CRIED AT 5:45 IN THE MORNING

Wow. This survey makes it look like I read the same books over and over. I promise I don't. Here's what I read in 2017 so far (the titles crossed out of my to-be-read list are the ones I read):

1. Evicted
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray
3. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
5. The Kite Runner
6. Dracula
7. The Nightmare Before Christmas
8. Les Miserables
9. The Bad Beginning
10. The Reptile Room
11. The Wide Window
12. The Miserable Mill
13. The Austere Academy
14. The Ersatz Elevator
15. The Vile Village
16. The Hostile Hospital
17. The Carnivorous Carnival
18. The Slippery Slope
19. The Grim Grotto
20. The Penultimate Peril
21. The End
22. Old Yeller (
23. Savage Sam
24. Maus I
25. Maus II
26. The Handmaid's Tale
27. Blindness
28. Winesburg, Ohio
29. The Woman in Black
30. The Da Vinci Code
31. Angels & Demons
32. The Lost Symbol
33. Inferno
34. Stranger in a Strange Land
35. The Martian
36. Left-Hand of Darkness
37. Slaughterhouse 5
38. The Tale of Rawhide and Bloody Bones
39. An Ocean at the End of the Lane
40. The Girl Who Slept with God
41. Room
42. Lucifer's Son
43. The Eye of the Abyss
44. Penpal
45. Stolen: A Letter to My Capture
46. Brave New World
47. Flowers in the Attic
48. Petals on the Wind
49. If There Be Thorns
50. Seeds of Yesterday
51. Garden of Shadows

Books not on the list:
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

Onto the next topic.

Today my mom asked if I like anyone at school. I said no because all of the guys I met just ended up becoming friends. My mom looked me dead in the eye and was like, "...just friends?" For whatever reason, "Mom, I'm not a lesbian" slipped out of my mouth. I guess it's a good thing it did because my mom said she honestly thought I was for a while. I asked her why and she said it's because I don't date around and I hardly ever talk about anyone. LITTLE DOES SHE KNOW I've dated two guys, talked to a lot on tinder, and just recently lost my virginity.

So that conversation happened. I had to tell my mom I'm straight. One of my friends said I'm demisexual. So there's that.

Also I found the video of my first communion. Such tiny. You can tell which kids went to a public school and which when to a Catholic school. Catholic school kids knew all the songs while the public school kids (including me) didn't know a word. I never realized how many people from my elementary school made their communion with me and two girls from high school made it with me as well. Trippy.

That's all for now!

Ciao a tutti!

(also if you wanna steal the survey, do it)

Song at the Moment: "Of the Night" by Bastille