Wednesday Chatter: Strange Things I Think About While Reading

Wednesday Chatter is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books where we'll be talking about anything and everything related to books and reading. Click here if you want to see what we talked about in the previous weeks

WARNING: Some bad words might be used in the following post. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Hello my fellow book lovers! I wanted to get a little bit more personal today, so I'm going to talk about the weird stuff that goes through my head while reading. Now, I'm not going to talk about the super famous things most people think about. These are weird stuff that I've rarely seen people mention, maybe because they're smarter than me or because they don't have the same issues I do. I'm also including a trigger warning, because I feel like for this post, I really should.

TW: menstruation, phobia

Strange Things I Think About While Reading

- the adult edition - 

• Where's the period?

So here's the thing. I love reading erotic romance, and romance in general, and I've been reading this genre for about 13-14 years now. In all of these years I think I've only read about 5 books where the heroine had her period. This question is more present on my mind when I'm reading vampire books. Where is it? Is no one in the book world having their periods while the story is happening? If vampires can smell blood and go bonkers when that happens, why are human women safe around them if and when they start their periods.

 And while my chicken brain can accept the fact that authors don't want to go all graphic on what it means to have a menstruation (I really don't though, but let's pretend for a second), my brain can't compute making PMS the butt of jokes. PMS is no joke, and if you've ever experienced it, you know I'm right. Some months I'm a crying mess, others I feel slightly deranged and angry at everyone, other times it's like my entire body is one giant ball of pain. It is not pretty. It is not funny. Don't make jokes about it! (TMI warning: I'm not PMSing right now either and I don't feel like it's okay to joke about it!)

• But why is it a spider???

This is actually true for any type of fictional story: books, animated shows, tv shows, movies, even photos. Why is it that spiders are present everywhere? I wish that the most used phobia was...I don't know, teddy bears, or something. Why is it that spiders are used so often? And I'm not saying it's a stupid phobia (duh, I have it!), I'm saying that I should at least get a warning or something, because I get cold sweat just writing this paragraph. And while we're at it, can we cut down on the description of said animal? I know how many legs and eyes they have, thank you very much. I'll mentally change every spider mention with a teddy bear from now on, because it's easier and much simpler than breaking out in hives when I read.

• Ugh, not flowers again

Have I ever mentioned I don't like getting flowers as presents from potential SOs? I don't. Flowers die, because I don't have even a green nail in my body, let alone a green thumb. I'm trying to think of something romantic that happens in books that has me go all mushy inside, but all I can come up with is the time Jeremy Danvers distracts Jaime with a tic-tac-toe game I think it was when they are trapped in a tunnel in No Humans Involved. Or that time when Knox told Vale he'll help her kill some of their opponents in Shadow and Ice, the newst Gena Showalter book. That's romantic! Not flowers. I literally roll my eyes when I read that the hero brings the heroine flowers. It... I... I guess I'm just a sad, sad woman. And they're not even in a pot!! I... I'll shut up now.

Source: Gifer

• Here it comes. I know it. I can feel it. Here comes... The Phrase

So I have a ton of phrases, words and expressions that I hate: "luscious little body", "nether region", "moist", "his male hardness", but there's one that gets me every friggin' time. That phrase is lord help me "She/he didn't realize she/he spoke out loud". 

Now listen. I myself have not been equipped with that little alien device polite people call "a filter". I have heard of it, I've seen people use it, and I've been told by the people who do have it that it can save lives and relationships, but I don't have it.

HOWEVER. I've never had an "oh shit, I really talked" moment, because usually talking implies...oh I don't know...opening your mouth to make sounds that form words. So I know when I open my mouth. I have talked under my breath and later found out that I've been heard, but I've never had a moment where I wasn't aware of the fact that I was talking. So I don't understand how people can not realize they're talking. And I'm not talking about being in any way mentally impaired, like high or drunk or anything like that. I'm talking stone cold sober. Help me out, fellow readers. Help me understand this, please!

• But are they yelling or are they using their inside voice?

I have a strange relationship with reading verbal fight scenes or just dialogue in general. I'm someone that speaks loud in general, but emotion will make me speak louder. So I often wonder if characters yell or if they speak softly all the time. I usually picture them yelling, and I get super confused when there's a "X replied/said softly" after a particularly emotional phrase. It's very confusing to me and I hope I'm not alone in this.

***

As you can tell, I'm a very strange individual. I've never claimed to be anything but, really. In reality, I have tons more strange thoughts, and I might share them later, but we'll see.

What about you? Do you have any strange thoughts going on through your head while reading?