5 of My "UnBookish" Confessions

I watch a few goth YouTubers, and in that little circle there's a video tag called the "10 UnGoth Confessions" tag, where they tell ten things about themselves that go against the goth stereotype, such as liking pink things or not liking a certain popular goth thing. I love this idea of confessions, so I thought that I would put a bookish spin on it and make it an "unbookish" confession thing. Obviously not in video format because there is no way in hell I'm shoving a camera in front of my face. No way, no how. I couldn't think of ten points because my brain wouldn't work that hard, so I've just got five to share instead. Reading back through this, I actually have six, but the sixth one probably doesn't count so five it is.

Okay, when I say that I "haven't read Harry Potter", I mean that I haven't read them myself. I did, however, have them read to me when I was in primary school and we read books 3, 4, and part of 5 as a class. After that, my interest in the series completely dwindled, and it still hasn't come back yet. Fantasy isn't really my thing, and in all honestly, the sheer size and enthusiasm of the fandom kind of puts me off. Enthusiasm and passion aren't bad things, it's just that a lot of Harry Potter fans I know tend to be the "how dare you dislike or not have an opinion on this thing that I like" kinds of people. And those kinds of people are not my favourite. Maybe one day I'll get around to reading the series myself, but for now, I'm good.

Let me put the emphasis on new books. Old books smell pretty damn good most of the time, but for some reason, I can't bear the smell of brand new books. I'm incredibly sensitive to smells to the point that if I so much as walk past somebody wearing a horrendous amount of perfume or aftershave, my lungs just decide to die and I get an awful headache. For some reason, new books set me off and I'm not sure why. There's something about the way the pages smell that I just don't like and it makes my reading position really weird. I'll often hold a brand new book away from my face just so I can't smell it, as opposed to an older book that smells fine and I'm okay with having closer to my face. It's just a really, really weird thing.

I like to consider myself to be a movie buff, so I've seen quite a few movies that are based on books, and sometimes I like the movie adaptation better than the book it's based on. The best example I can think of is American Psycho. I thought the book was gruesome, over the top, and a bit pretentious at times whereas I loved the movie and found it hilarious. Why? Because some things work better on screen than they do on paper, and vice versa. Humour can be difficult to put across when it's written down, and I found some of the passages in the book to be just a bit much because I just didn't get the joke. In the movie, it was completely different and I did get the joke. Another example is the two movie versions of The Dark Knight Returns. I'm going to be completely blunt and just say that I hate Frank Miller's art. I can't stand it. (he's also a complete bigot who wrote batman to be a power-crazed fascist, but that's for another post) Maybe I'm just used to artists like Jim Lee, but I find it hard to figure out what's happening in some of Miller's panels. (it could always be worse though, he could draw human bodies the way that rob liefeld does...) Obviously it'd be difficult to animate two whole movies in his style, but when I got around to watching it, a lot of the time I thought "oh so that's what happened there". The characterisation doesn't change and I'm still not keen on it, but at least I could freaking see what was happening. Thank God they didn't adapt The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Good grief... Long story short, sometimes I think the movie was better.

I guess it's kind of a bookworm's duty to recommend their favourite books to every single person they talk to, but I don't. My reason for this is that I don't usually like the same things as other people. In my circle of friendship, I'm the only one who doesn't like Marvel or fantasy. I'm a DC girl who likes sci-fi, contemporary, and black and white movies. I'm a black sheep, and it's okay with me, but recommending things to people can get so frustrating at times. My suggestions are either shot down or judged harshly, and it's put me off talking about the things that I like with other people. Seriously, when you get a dirty look in response to even mentioning something that you really like, it sucks. And yes, that actually happened once. I got a dirty look for mentioning Nightwing. Nightwing who is the most precious creation ever and doesn't deserve to be treated like that.

I'm not sure if this can be considered "unbookish" because most of the people who study literature are bookish people, but I have seen some people say that forcing kids to study literature makes them hate reading, and I completely disagree. Some people like reading, but don't like studying books. Some people just don't like reading at all and never have. I personally love studying literature, especially if it's a book that I like. I've studied Frankenstein, which is one of my favourites, and for me it made the book more enjoyable because I got to pick it apart and make fun of Victor Frankenstein for being a whiny little baby who can't take responsibility for his actions and blames everything on his dad. Studying books that I hate, on the other hand, that I totally understand. There's nothing worse than studying a book you hate because it just gets tedious. Studying James Joyce in my first year of uni was probably the worst thing ever. Even studying poetry wasn't that bad, and I hate poetry.

What are some of your "unbookish" confessions?