1. You constantly allow people (well, um, authors) to manipulate your emotions.
Can we just think about how stupid this is of us for a second?! You know how the old saying goes, “Don’t hang out with people who bring you down…blah blah”. Well, I sure finish every Throne of Glass book a) hyperventilating and b) wailing. Yet I CONTINUE to read the books. Is this an abusive relationship?
2. Worst of all: you’re not even sorry you’re in an abusive relationship with a book.
You talk about it. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Tell your friends about it. Buy the book for all your friends for Christmas/Birthday/Hanukkah. Break up and move on? Not likely.
3. You become fixated on people who aren’t even real.
It’s not even healthy. It’s imaginary. But you can’t help it, because you know these unreal people so much they’re like your BFF. They understand you, you understand them, it’s wedding bells basically.
4. You get fixated to the point that you sacrifice sleep to read about these unreal people.
5. And you plot their futures. Aggressive shipper? Yes, yes you are.
6. Shipping is a very dangerous hobby to get started on because the really mean authors (that you continually read their books, shame on you) like to ruin ships.
Authors are never even sorry and occasionally, oh gosh, SOMETIMES it does happen. Your happy ship will sink. The wrong people get together. All goes to the dogs. And you’re left in a mess of anguish and gnashing of teeth. Why?! Why do you do this to yourself?!
7. Then there’s the times when authors don’t finish their series.
And you literally sit there for years waiting for the next book.
8. Your non-reader friends have no idea what you’re talking about half the time.
You make this awesome fandom reference or quote and they’re all, “Excuse me?”
9. And then a book BREAKS YOUR SOUL and you go crying to your friends, but they have no sympathy.
It’s not like you asked to be this way. IT’S THE AUTHOR’S FAULT. The least they could do is offer you tissues and ice cream and perhaps pat your back, right?
10. Because, let’s face it, books don’t always end how we want them too. Bookworms have to put up with sucky finales.
I’m pretty sure the authors just sit in their evil lairs and laugh.
11. You joke about it…no big deal, right? You didn’t need your heart anyway.
Sometimes you just smile on the outside to keep from crying.
12. What is it with nice characters dying??
13. You go through grieving processes when your favourite characters die. REAL grief. And all you can do is tell yourself:
Pfft. Like that even helps.
14. At least you can live in denial of their devastating deaths, right?
15. Also buying books. DO NOT underestimate how much it sucks to be slaves to buying new books. They’re so shiny.
Books are like air. You need them to live. And it’s not just a, “Yeah, books are cool, I like to own the occasional good one.” It’s more like “I NEED BOOKS LIKE I NEED TO BREATHE.”
16. Then you develop this awesome collection…sucks to move house.
Lifting those boxes of books…no, no no no.
17. Because you have an awesome collection, people think they can borrow from you.
Ha ha ha. No.
18. What if they rip your books? What if they lose your book? WHAT IF THEY BEND THE SPINE??!
19. Also: you worry and fret about so many things non-readers don’t.
Trust me, the list is HUGE.
20. Do your book covers for the complete series match?
21. Should you start a series now and ride the fandom wave OR do you wait until the books are all out?
22. Do you admit you don’t like a popular book?
23. What do you do when you run out of bookshelf room?
24. Hardcover or paperback?
25. Ebook or physical?!
See? Impossibly stressful list.
26. And let’s not get started on watching book-to-movie adaptations. They’re either AWESOME or AWFUL. There is no in between.
27. And if they make a really awfully horrific adaption???
28. But at the end of the day? It all comes back to the plain and simple reason: your emotional stability is often compromised by mere paperbacks.
300 or so pages of trees’ souls and ink. THAT is what manipulates you. You have zero control and…and you can’t get out. There is no escape.
Please let no one say that being a bookworm is the most glorious thing in the world. It is like battle. And there will be no end.
Cait is not usually dramatic. Ha! Why would she be? She’s a perfectly logical and sane person and thinks Vulcanish thoughts all the time. But occasionally her fingers slip and these kind of posts come out. But she’s aware bookworms must rally together and give each other emotional support! Huzzah! Currently, she’s
being torturedcrying over HEIR OF FIRE.