The Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly challenge post previously hosted by The Broke and Bookish and now hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. You can follow along for each weekly post here. This week’s post was originally the top ten outrageous things I’ve done for the love of books. I couldn’t quite think of ten things so I modified it a little to top ten ways I know that I’m a book lover.

I’ve Lost Count of How Many Books I Own

I used to have a count of how many books I own but truly, I can’t even keep track anymore. The picture only shows my favorites – I have an entire closet practically stuffed to the brim with books. I just buy and buy and buy and get them as gifts and receive ARCs in the mail and its always growing and I love it.

I Own Multiple Copies of the Same Book

I have such an obsession with owning multiple editions of the same books! You can see I own multiple editions of various Leigh Bardugo books and I own about five copies of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. I love owning different covers and if a special edition is released for one of my favorite books? Forget it, its an instant buy. They just look so pretty on the shelf!

I Have Waited HOURS in Line to Meet My Favorite Authors

Not only have I waited hours in line to meet a particular author but I’ve spent hours of my life going to various book signings, book festivals and such to meet my favorite authors. I would be curious to add up all the hours I’ve spent doing it because I bet its a pretty astronomical amount, especially in the past nearly seven years I’ve been blogging about books! I love meeting authors, I love having signed editions on my shelves. I look at my shelves and think…wow, majority of those books are signed!

I Have 12 Book Related Tattoos

I actually had to stop and count for a moment and I was actually surprised – I have 20 tattoos total and I thought more of them were book related but twelve is still a LOT! I originally started with book related tattoos and I definitely want more but money definitely gets in the way of that haha. Tattoos aren’t cheap, they shouldn’t be (PSA – PAY FOR YOUR TATTOOS!) but I love the book related ones I DO have. I have six Harry Potter, one Vampire Academy, two Mortal Instruments, one Divergent, one Rusk University and one for my own book and I count that!

I Read Roughly 100-200 Books a Year

I LOVE to read and I want to read as many books as I can because there are so many books out there to read and I get major book FOMO when I hear people talking about a great book or series and I haven’t read it yet! When I’m writing, I definitely read less but I do still read a lot more than most people and I love it. I consume books. I wish I knew the amount of books I’ve read in my lifetime but its impossible to know but I’m sure its a ton. I’ve read 100 to 200 every year since 2012, when I started recording on GoodReads. I was 24. Who knows how many I read before…

I Can Read a Book in a Matter of Hours

I have always been able to read really fast and I think its less a talent to brag about and more because I just love to read, I love diving into an amazing story and I love getting to the end to find out what happens and that’s why I read fast. When I’m reading a book I do not like, I cannot read very fast. It’ll take me anywhere from days to weeks to months to finish it, if I even decide to finish it. I read fast because I love the book and I want to know what happens!

Most of the Movies I Own Are Based Off of Books

I have a small four shelf bookcase for my movie collection, which is a fairly decent size, and its mostly movies that are based on books. Before I Fall, City of Bones, Divergent, The Darkest Minds, Chronicles of Narnia, The 5th Wave, The Hate U Give, Harry Potter (obviously), The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, If I Stay, Howl’s Moving Castle…I mean, I could go on and on. Even all the Marvel movies I own are based off of comic books. I really don’t own many books NOT based off of books that I love!

I Write Books – I’ve Written 8 and a Half Novels

I love books so much that I write them – or I do the best I can to write them. I’ve been writing full novels since I was about 16 years old; Cast A Spell was the first one and it was god awful and will never see the light of day, so don’t ask. But since then I’ve written eight – three of which were published – and I’m currently working on number nine. I love the stories I get to delve into as a reader and I love creating those kinds of worlds for other readers.

The Bookstore is My Happy Place

I have my happy places – Trader Sam’s. Angel Stadium. Disneyland. Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood. But my ultimate happy place is a bookstore. I walk into a bookstore and I feel like there are so many possibilities. Sometimes I walk in, super happy because I know exactly what I want and its exciting to finally get my hands on it. Sometimes I’m just happy because I don’t know what I want and I’m excited to see what I end up with before I leave.

Bonus – I’ve Attended Movie Premieres for Books I Love!

I don’t do it as much as I used to because I’m old and tired LOL but mostly because I don’t hear about premieres as much as I used to and I don’t really have the friend group to do that with anymore but I used to go to premieres all the time! I was at the red carpet premieres for City of Bones, THG: Catching Fire, THG: Mockingjay Part 1, If I Stay, Divergent, Vampire Academy and The Hobbit, to name a few. I love seeing my favorite books come to the big screen and I love to meet those who worked hard to make it happen. Like Theo James, who I thought did a fantastic job playing Four in Divergent.

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