You know what I love about reading books? They can take you any f-cking where. Today I traveled to 1800s England, some high fantasy world with countries of its own, and back to another world with its own counties. Currently I am reading the Love Hypothesis: it’s based in my real world (or the closest to it).

You can’t judge a book by its size. I sped through Daughter of the Moon Goddess, and for the life of me I can’t get through the flimsy Dkhilo book or the even flimsier commentary of water and energy. Below is a size comparison.

I’m trying to read mostly everything, though. I even bought a Steven King book with an interesting premise, but it lags. It’s a whole lot of non-story. (Sorry Mr. King).

In the similar vein, The Priory of the Orange Tree is a hot mess of name-dropping and subplot, upon plot, upon plot. It’s considered “high fantasy”, and maybe it’s dubbed high because it encompasses an entire empire-like universe. I can’t keep up. At all.

The Six Crimson Cranes does the same sort of world immersion. (It has a fancy map in the beginning too). I follow it easily because there’s just one plot.

In stark contrast, The Priory of the Orange Tree is the first book in my life that has me taking notes*** just to follow up with four sub-plots, four narrators, and a plethora of characters who are easily confused in my brain.

It took me half a day to get through 50 pages. I’m not giving up on the Priory though. The book seller at the register kept repeating to me about how good it is. Apparently it’s popular on Book-tok as well. But that’s not why I’m reading it.

I’m reading it out of respect for the sheer colossal effort that it took the author to write 1608 pages (counted double sided). My own life’s work is at a chunky 1027 pages, and I like that. I digress, but down below is a picture of my feelings about my own work.

Anyway,

Last year I finished reading 5 books. I read them with nonchalance. If I was bored, I’d take a break and read something else. It was a good rotation, no pressure; just good books.

I recently found out one of my friends finished 27 books, with a future goal of a 100 in a year. I can’t imagine doing that, even if we do have the same hobby of reading. She’s cool though. She takes deep thought to what she reads; down to the very ethnicity and sex of the author. She even catalogs her books in this huge excel spread sheet.

Reading for her is like loving BTS for me. I get it. It’s a passion, and a drive, and a rabbit hole that neither of us ever ever ever want to emerge from. We just dig dig dig. And if it makes us happy, who cares what others think?

If we ever have children I’m going to take them on outings, and one of those outings will be libraries and book stores. They’ll have their own little shelf of books. It’ll be wonderful, at least I hope so.

That’s it. That’s my commentary on why I love to read. Thank you.

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Notes***

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If anyone is interested in starting The Priory, I’ve taken the liberty to share with you my notes on it. I hope that it helps you digest this book rather than being thrown into a world of word-salad.

There’s a glossary in the back, but I found it helpful to write things out on my own.

I don’t know when I’ll finish this book, but I hope it’s worth it.

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One more commentary, and it’s regarding the Bridgerton Books (I’ve read out of order)

Penelope’s story: shallow with one epic quote line

Daphne’s story: unremarkable

Eloise’s story: I LOVE THIS ONE, and it actually made me cry. It’s a mature sort of love, a love that someone has for children and marriage. Anyway, I’m sort of (resisting but still entangled) in a budding romance with this one person. So I’ll end this post with a cheesy video, an ode to both the Bridgerton book: To Phillip, with Love….and also to my real-life caller.

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Actually, I’ll end this with a picture of the LOML, the only Book wyrm I see… Mr. Kim.

I can’t wait for him to enter my storyline. He is my main character and favorite book wyRM.

Fin.