Sunday, June 20, 2021

Weekly Recap: 6/13 - 6/19


HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG

Hi, everyone! It's been another couple weeks with barely any posts because I'm getting ready for a puppy!! My lil guy, Rufio, will be here in just over a week and I'm so excited to meet him when I go to pick him up! His head and his ears are massive and I'm just hoping that he grows in to them. XD 

This week I dug into fan edited films for the first time. I have a couple (one Hobbit and one Star Wars) but I've never really gotten into finding and downloading them for myself. I am so far down this rabbit hole I think I may be obsessed! I'm starting with the basics - Star Wars Prequels - but I'm definitely going to be trying to locate some horror movie edits soon! 

My reading life has been truly all over the place. I finally read Master of Sorrows and, while it wasn't what I expected, I still enjoyed it. I also read some really awful smut, a Gossip Girl inspired mystery, and a dark romance. I've been rereading The Hobbit in anticipation of continuing with The Lord of the Rings (I stopped in the middle of book two years ago) and I'm loving it all over again! Here's hoping my reading time doesn't fly out the window when Rufio gets here.  


NEW BOOKS THIS WEEK

   


THIS WEEK I READ
 
    


IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The topic was books that made me want more for Top Ten Tuesday


UPCOMING REVIEWS

Surprise review week!


I'm linking up to Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post!
Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Top Ten Tuesday #302: Books that made me want more


Today's Topic: 
Books that made me want more

Happy Tuesday! This week I'm sharing books that were so unique they made me want more of the same immediately! I haven't found any good recs for most of these so if you have some, please share them in the comments! 


The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
Under the Dome by Stephen King
And I Darken by Kiersten White
Neon Gods by Katee Robert
The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Weekly Recap: 5/30 - 6/5


HAPPENINGS OFF THE BLOG

Hi, everyone! Shockingly, it has been almost a month since I've done a recap so I suppose I'll just wrap it all up here. I kind of fell off the internet for awhile when the situation in Palestine came to the forefront of social media a few weeks ago. I became a bit overwhelmed and somehow it didn't feel quite right to be blogging at that time. Since then I've been trying to educate myself and have realized just how much I wasn't taught about the world at school. Please feel free to drop any resources that you've found useful!

Unfortunately, I've also been in the midst of a huge reading slump for the past several weeks. I've picked up several books and managed to finish a few, but not much has been sticking. My brain tends to do that once in awhile, but hopefully I'll snap out of it soon! 

In more exciting news, our new puppy will be coming home at the end of this month! Our new little guy, Rufio, will be coming home almost exactly a year after we lost Kovu. He certainly isn't a replacement, but we're so excited for him to be part of the family! I'm not sure the other dogs will be as excited as we are, but they'll probably get over it. 


NEW BOOKS THIS WEEK

   


THIS WEEK I READ
 
    
    


IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The topic was nature on the cover for Top Ten Tuesday
Friday book review of Flock
Wednesday ARC review of For the Wolf
On Friday I talked about reading and writing with aphantasia


UPCOMING REVIEWS



I'm linking up to Stacking the Shelves & The Sunday Post!
Friday, June 4, 2021

Reading (and writing!) with aphantasia


In January of 2020 I wrote a post about reading without a mind's eye and discussed what reading with aphantasia is like for me. Since then, I've thought about this A LOT. Almost daily I think about whether or not I can "see" things. Am I overthinking this whole visualization thing? Surely people can't literally see scenes play out like they're watching TV. They must be exaggerating, right? Maybe my being able to think about or imagine something is what visualizing is. But no, I'm definitely not visualizing.


I've talked to countless people about their experiences and, while I'm still not convinced people can actually SEE things in their minds, I've accepted that I truly can't do whatever it is they can. This week I decided to reach out to both sides of the book community to see how many readers and writers are able to visualize. 

First, I reached out to readers on Book Twitter and in a large reading group on Facebook. While I didn't have tons of responses, I did end up hearing from just shy of 400 people.


READER RESPONSES


Most of them were fully able to visualize while reading. We're talking movies playing in their heads and forgetting they're looking at words on a page! Some were also able to visualize in flashes or could see settings but not people. One person even described visualizing more like a storyboard. Several readers said they took on the role of the main character and saw events from their point of view, which sounds amazing to me! Some people were very confused about how it's even possible to read without being able to visualize and got a bunch of info from various aphants. 

Next, I tweeted out into the universe in hopes that Twitter would get me to the right place. Thankfully, some wonderful people got my tweet to Author Twitter and I got a really great response there too! At the time that I made this chart, I had 180 responses. 


AUTHOR RESPONSES


I honestly did not see this coming at all. While the overwhelming majority of authors who responded do visualize what they're writing, it seems that more writers than readers are unable to do so. One reason I've given for not wanting to write is that I can't picture settings or faces or clothes or anything else, but apparently there is a significant portion of authors who are able to come up with entire books full of visuals without being able to see them. One aphant author said she uses reference images if she really struggles to describe something, while a visualizing author said she considers all the senses while writing.

The only thing I can confidently say is that everyone has very different things going on inside their minds while reading and writing.


MUSINGS OF AN APHANT

This post is already getting long, but I really want to share some random thoughts I've had while thinking about my own aphantasia over the past year and a half. 
  • People often ask me if I can hear the character's voices while reading and the answer is a hard no. I don't hear things in my mind either. I've also heard that some people can imagine taste, smell, and touch in their minds and I can't do that either. I guess I'm what they call a full aphant. 
  • I think that my lack of visualization is the reason I get so bored with books people consider slow. Unless it's extremely atmospheric, I don't have much patience for books that are super slow, probably because I can't visualize what's happening during the lags. 
  • Similarly, I think this is why it takes a certain kind of horror book to scare me. SO many books on "most terrifying" lists don't do a thing for me. Pet Semetary is constantly recommended to me as terrifying but I was incredibly bored. I tend to prefer creepypasta-style horror because it's more to the point.
  • As I mentioned, I am okay with slow books if they're very atmospheric and make me feel a certain way while reading. Several of my favorite books fall into this category! Some great examples of this are For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten and The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson. Both have been repeatedly called slow in reviews, but the atmosphere created by the authors transported me without visuals.
  • Very often when I'm reading I skim long descriptions of places and people. I really couldn't care less about how many ruffles are on Jane's dress because I can't see them. I don't need to read about the seventeen species of trees in the garden because I can't see that either. I've been known to skim full pages of description, especially in fantasy. 



Do you visualize while reading?
How would you describe your reading experience? 
Let me know in the comments!