the evolution of my crappy reading tastes: part two

*this is a long post. if you want me to drag you down memory lane, enjoy.

a couple of posts ago, which in the timeline of this blog is about a month, i wrote about the evolution of my reading and how it has unfolded over time. it was epic, really. now i will conclude what i have started with part one.

after high school typically one goes on to college -- this was 15 years ago (yikes!). i am from the midwest, so going to college after high school was more of an "everyone goes to college, there is no not going to college" thinking. i was one of those people. i went to The University of Minnesota when all i really wanted was go to The University of Wisconsin. Wisconsin didn't accepted me, i was heartbroken. boo! oh, how i planned my whole college life while in high school with the notion that i would be going to Wisconsin. i was devastated. like everything in your youth, it felt like the end of the world.

in college i put reading as a hobby on hold. i was too busy with school work and some drinking, or more aptly i was busy with drinking and some school work. i was an English major, or at least i finally settled on English after spending three years of trying to figure out what i wanted to do for the rest of my life. that's a scary thought, and one i am still working on. what the fuck do i want to do for the rest of my life? ugh! so i had a number of other majors that i went through.

the list:

• Anthropology/Archaeology - because i wanted to be the next Indiana Jones. seriously. 
• Computer Science - because a number of people in my family when this route, and it seemed to make them some money. unfortunately computers are not my thing. 
• Art History - because it brought me back to my Indiana Jones roots. i pictured myself as an art historian, working in a museum all sexy and bookish and smart, but i am not any of those things. what was i thinking? 
• Graphic Design - because i loved art, and i thought this would totally be my thing. i spent a year taking all these classes only to find out i wouldn't be able to transfer into the program at Minnesota and that i'd have to transfer schools. i was like "oh hell no!" let's move on.

by my third year i was looking at what classes i'd taken and noticed that if i went the English route i would be done the quickest and have myself an honest to goodness college diploma. after all, i was already three years in, and i would be damned if i wasn't getting myself a diploma. my time was filled with lots of reading and writing. then i came across the best news ever, if i do do English i could emphasize in Creative Writing instead of English Lit, instead of writing a long-ass thesis paper on some book, i could just write my own crap. that is how i got into writing and came to actually enjoy it.

good lord, this is not my long-winded college history of fuck up after fuck up (or as i like to call it "my time where i pissed away a big chunk of money"). it's a rite of passage.

in college i read all the staples that one in college reads. lots of Shakespeare, lots of British Lit and some American Lit. no recreation reading except for the Harry Potter book series. i loved those books. i never was a hard core Harry Potter fan -- you know the ones because i'm that way with my Jane Austen fandom; dresses, hair and food -- but i did enjoy the read. honestly, towards the end of the series i was just annoyed with Harry. he couldn't get his shit together and leaned on Hermione way too much. she was da bomb. i loved her. we really need to see more characters like Hermione in YA literature. i know Harry was all busy trying to survive Voldemort, but one would think "this crazy-ass guy is trying to kill me and the ones i love. i think i will try a bit harder in my Defense Against the Dark Arts class and all my other classes for that matter." you would never see Buffy back down. she would get her shit together and work out until she could kill the evil demons. i digress. the fantasy world of Harry Potter appeals to me; who doesn't want to find out that they are a witch/wizard and are destined to live in this whole different world/life? i sure did.

after college and Harry Potter, i would read here and there, but nothing really got to me. the boy would suggest books for me, but they just didn't hold my attention. i read some Murakami, but he just didn't do it for me. i know, i know. how can i say that because everyone seems to LOVE Murakami, especially the boy, but i couldn't even finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

now that i look back, i just wanted my guilty pleasure books. it all started with Twilight. NO! i remember seeing the teaser trailer for the Twilight movie and thinking that it looked amazing, and i have to find out more. oh Twilight, how you've sparked so much polar fandom. from haters to lovers, this book series is just crazy. i read the entire Twilight series, and i hated it, but i couldn't put these books down. there was just something about them. i couldn't stop. i could go on and on about how terrible the story is, or how Bella is the worst girl ever, or how Edward is the creepiest (like in a lecherous way) vampire ever, or how Meyers is the worst writer ever, but the internet is full of such reviews. my favorite is here, check it out. it's amazing.

the floodgates have opened. i really like The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris aka the True Blood books. they are super easy and fast, and they make me think that i too can write a novel because i am often dumbstruck by how stupid something strikes me as being when i read these books. i like the main character Sookie. she is sassy and strong, and sometimes she just wants to make it through the year without being beat up.

most other books that i've taken to reading recently are from the wonderful genre of YA (young adult for those who don't know.)
the books that i LOVED:

• The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
• The Mortal Instruments series and The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare
• The Divergent series by Veronica Roth
• The Graceling Realm by Kristin Cashore         
• any John Green books
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak    

there. the books that i enjoy and love. i could go on an on about each series because i tend to fall in love with book characters, i'm looking at you Peeta, Jem and Four. my evolution isn't very magnificent, but it's a nice little history of my crappy reading tastes. xoxo.

the evolution of my crappy reading tastes: part one

i'm not sure if y'all have noticed, but i'm a bit of a reader.

it all started way, way back in elementary school when i picked up a copy of The Boxcar Children. oh, how i loved The Boxcar Children: thinking about how i would survive in my own boxcar; how i would find food and eat; how i would survive my orphan life. i was a bit imaginative as a child. now that i think of it, i think The Boxcar Children is what started my obsession with this whole survivalist genre in books and movies that has morphed into my post-apocalyptic obsession. (see what the boy has to deal with? prepping for doomsday and shit.)

then when i got a bit older, i moved onto The American Girl books. since i am older (thirty-something if you will), i actually remember when the Girls were introduced. at the beginning, there were only a handful of Girls, and they all came from a different time periods. because i have no kiddos of my own at present, i have no idea on how The American Girls have evolved, but it seems they have themselves a store and empire. you go Girls! i liked Molly and Felicity, but my favorite was Kristen Larson. sadly, she is retired--what does that mean? Kristen was the Girl from 1854, kind of like Laura Ingalls Wilder or Dr. Quinn Medicine Women (which i never was into but my mother totally loved--i think i have my mother is to blame for my period piece obsessiveness). Kristen was a survivalist. i had all her books. i even had the Kristen doll. hell, my aunt even made me a dress to look exactly like Kristen. i dressed up as her for Halloween one year.

i can't forget The Babysitters Club books. anyone my age has had to have read them. it is a part of being a teenage girl. it was a rite of passage written in the handbook on how to be a girl (in the 80s). i was all over The Babysitters Club. i remember thinking that my girlfriends and i should start a babysitters club because it would be "totally cool." i do, however, remember the one thing that drove me crazy about The Babysitters Club books was the whole recapping in the first 2 chapters. i detested the first 2 chapters of The Babysitters Club books. to this day, i have an issue with series' that do recaps from a previous book because of The Babysitter Club. because no one, NO ONE, will pick up a book in the middle of a series.

good lord, there is more. i'm telling y'all, this is my evolution.

in junior high i got into the Indiana Jones Choose Your Own Adventure (or at least i thought they were Choose Your Own Adventure, apparently they were Find Your Fate Adventure) books. i had such an obsession with Indiana Jones that when i first went into college i wanted to be an archaeologist. (i have always and will forever be a dreamer. i spend most my life in my head.) i remember biking to the public library in my hometown and spending all day there in the summer reading my Choose Your Own Adventure books. this was all happening during the wonderful Book-It time. y'all remember Pizza Hut's Book-It program? i remember getting the Book-It button and then collecting the star stickers to place on the button. oh boy! i can't believe it was a Pizza Hut sponsored program. sidenote, i really hope the Choose Your Own Adventure books are still popular.

in high school my book of choice was the Sweet Valley High books. oh good lord, what was i thinking? i guess it was because they were easy and fast, and i just liked to read. Sweet Valley High was easy, and they were a series. (i am sensing a trend with my obsession with book series.) back in high school, when i would have to do this stupid weight training summer program because i was a competitive swimmer, i would skip the class and sit in the empty high school hallways and read my Sweet Valley High books. oh Jessica and Elizabeth, how i always wished i was like them. i remembered them as being blond hair, blue eyed and a perfect size six, which with today sizes would more likely be a size four or even two, so sad. i can't remember if that's exact, but that's how i remember Jessica and Elizabeth.

i should mention that while in was in high school i read a lot of books that were literary works of art that had opened my eyes to what writing as an art looked and felt like. yes, i liked reading my guilty pleasures--they were a lot easier--but these literary works of art were novels that needed time and patience and demanded a slower pace to truly digest each and every word. sometimes deciding between the fast read guilty pleasure and the literary work of art is a hard choice, but the high school reading list helped expand my horizon. the first book that i fell hopelessly in love with was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but of course. another book i had to read in high school that i thought was amazing was The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. oh high school reading lists, how us high schoolers hated you, but when i look back i am very thankful.

so now that i am looking back, i can see why i am drawn to the guilty pleasure reading as opposed to the more lyrical writings that i had always thought i would be more likely to pick up (even having been an English major in college). i am finding myself more and more very day. i thought i had already gone through all this self-discovery as a teen, but i guess thirty is the new fifteen, right?

fangirl obsession: Divergent

i can be a bit obsessive--well, really obsessive, if we're being honest. usually it's with things like movies, television and books. i am not an obsessive crafter or do-er of things because that would require me to be active, and i am not an active person. my pinterest boards would suggest that i have plans to be a crafter and to do many things, but i will never do those things. pinterest is just a place for my intentions to go and DIE. but maybe someday i'll sew that quilt i've been working on for the past 15 years. maybe.

my most obsessive self comes out with books. i have a really REALLY hard time with them because i will hands down fall in love with characters. i become so invested with the story i will go nuts and then my internet stalking will begin. oh the rabbit holes i have fallen down while ingesting as much crap as i possibly can of stories and characters from books that i couldn't get enough of.

one of these said obsessions is that of Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth. i couldn't put these books down and i can't wait for the third book to come out this fall (because all good YA needs to come in the form of a trilogy, of course). and what always comes next for popular YA books? a movie. yay! then the disappointment comes in the form of casting of these characters. because hollywood just can't seem to get casting right in a majority of these movies. just my opinion y'all.

so am i ever gonna get to the point of what i'm posting about?

Divergent the movie is being made. yes i know, i am way way behind the news here. i will always and forever be behind the news, so get over it. if you want up to date info, do not come here (i always get my news from Oh No They Didn't). anyways, the movie will begin filming in Chicago in the spring. yay! Tris will be played by Shailene Woodley (from The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and i'm ok with that casting. who will play Four? (and we will not call him Tobias here!) let's ask Woodley (from MTV news at Sundance),

dude, i want to find him. we have been doing some tests. we've been doing some auditions. we'll see what happens.

but my favorite is what she said about the actor who will be Four,

the thing about Four is that he has to be a man. no feminine actors, please. you cannot walk in that room in pretty little boots and pretend you're a man. i'm sorry. you need to walk in there, and you need to not have muscles that look good and not actually work. there have been a few guys that have this power about them. it's a natural masculine power that some people have and some people don't. there's nothing good or bad or wrong or right about it. this character needs to be extremely masculine, and his eyes need to scream vulnerability and sensitivity. it's really hard to find in a dude, especially a dude who can act.

i love it! and dude, so many dudes.
but i agree with her. i am very curious as to who they will cast as Four. i feel there is a lack of younger male talent in hollywood. like, for example, the casting of The Hunger Games Peeta and Finnick. but that rant shall be for another day. xoxo.