Aurora Dimitre's Books and Rambling

 Third graders are truly like feral cats the week before Christmas. Not that they're being naughty, because they're not--but my god was trying to teach them today like trying to herd cats. Everyone's everywhere all at once! And there are twenty!

 Against all prior expectations, I will be publishing every book I planned to publish this year... probably? I think? I have three weeks left and thirty thousand words left of rewrites, so as long as my cover's done by the end of the month, Kaz at the Approach will be published by the end of the month. Below is the first chapter. Enjoy.  

 So I did my first author fair today. It was at the library I used to work at, back in college; drove about an hour to be there, brought at least one copy of each of my books (man, this shit is hard when you have 30+ books), brought about six copies of SKWC and six copies of Guillaume , naturally, and I sold twelve books. Add the five books I sold to coworkers the week before when I shared the post about the author fair on Facebook and they wanted to buy some, I made like, $155.00. That's taking out what Amazon charges for author copies, naturally. 155 dollars and a box of books in the garage.  This doubled what I made from my books this year. This surpassed last year. I still need to figure out if my one Square payment is going to transfer automatically at some point or not. I talked to a lady who was looking for a book for her teenaged child who was clearly genderfluid or transgender or something (she didn't seem to know) and she was curious about Serial Killers With Cookies...

 

 Not much. The answer is really not much.  I am probably just a week or so away from publishing a novella in the Tinon universe; it'll follow Reko's POV pre- Circus Wing s , so for those of us who wanted more Kai (I'm included here), here's more Kai, and not just Kai, but teenaged Kai who won't keep his mouth shut even worse than when he was an adult. After that, all I have left for the year is Kaz at the Approach, and last I checked, the rewrite of that was going well; I've just been focusing on For My Country because it's so close to being over.  Reading-wise--I've sort of figured it out. How to read during the school year while also getting a Master's and having a more involved class than last year and all that. I've been reading more than I was the first few weeks, which is nice. Still not at top speeds, but, eh, next week we have a three-day week, so that'll be nice.  My Master's is going well. Fall classes are easier than summer cla...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 So, previously, for the past few years, my reading goal per year has been 500.  500 is a nice round number for me. It's doable but it's not too easy; I read a lot and I read fast and 500 has been done before and will probably be done again.  Here's the thing with this year's fifth graders: they're loud. And they're not as self-sufficient. And there's one of them that just wants attention all the time, and previously the only way he's ever gotten attention is by misbehaving, and we have a good relationship so it's really mild but it's just enough that I do have to pay attention to him pretty much constantly on-and-off.  Last year's fifth graders: quiet. Nice. Listened. All the time. So much "modeling" which was me reading book after book after book while they quietly worked on what they needed to work on.  (I do like this year's class. They're just... more .) Either way: 500 will not be happening this year, so I was curious....

 

 

 

 

 It's been a while since I've done one of these. For the first few months of the year I was good about doing them every month, but, uh, that fell off, and I've read a number of books, and so--let's talk about it. This does count re-reads.  TOP TEN BOOKS SO FAR 10. Goodnight Punpun 1 by Inio Asano A manga made it onto the top ten? Hot damn. 9. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson My first full-length Jackson and it was stellar! 8. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly A tragedy, really. Very good. 7. The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic At the end of the day I AM AFTG trash. And I'm Jean trash. So. 6. The American by Henry James This one did truly surprise me; I've read James before and he's always been FINE but he's never impressed me like this. Good times. 5. And Then They Were gone by Judy Bebelaar Nonfiction! Jonestown! So sad! 4. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead As of right now, this is the highest up non-reread and it's look...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  How is your reading going? Ladies and gentlemen, I am BEHIND. It's a tragedy. I'm like thirty books behind my reading goal. Like, I meant to kick it into gear once summer started, but... didn't... exactly... happen? So. I'm behind. Don't think I'll be hitting my goal this year. Best book you’ve read so far in 2024? NOT counting re-reads, it's got to be The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. What a fucking book. Best sequel you've read so far in 2024? Again, not counting re-reads because that's its own question one down, it's The Sunshine Court . Fuck it, I am AFTG trash. And yeah, I have those RainbowCrate editions coming. Favourite re-read? Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis! It's now my favorite book of all time. Genre you've been loving/reading the most? My top two genres are always horror and manga, but.. I've been getting into fantasy lately. Like, in a way that genuinely frightens me, because I've never really been a straight fa...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 a quick update on what i am currently reading and how i'm feeling the music of what happens - bill koningsberg (11/338) only one chapter in but it is cute so far. this will be a quick read.  court of wanderers - rin chupeco (11/435) tbh, i remember LIKING silver under nightfall, but i do not remember ANYTHING that happened in silver under nightfall. so. we'll see how this goes.  the museum of horrors  - dennis etchison (5/374) BUNCH of horror short stories. so far i have only read the introduction.  come out tonight  - richard laymon (0/434) this is a re-read and i am excited to start it... i remember liking this one. the atmosphere especially.  the nephilim, the reaper & the void - ryan kleinnschmidt (0%) haven't started it yet.  words of radiance - brandon sanderson (590/1087) loooooving this. loving this so much. technically a re-read, but i still cannot believe how little college-aurora liked these books. like, this is amazing. you don't ...

 

 

 

 

 

 It is that time of the month again where I update you on what my best and worst books of the year have been! Rereads are included.  WORST FIVE: 5. Pretty Bo y by Jett Masterson Look. I've been experimenting with reading erotica. This was omegaverse. I did not know. I did not want it to be. Also the writing wasn't great. Another self-pub'd one, which doesn't feel great, but, ehh . 4. The Red Labyrinth by Meredith Tate Wanted to be The Maze Runner SO BAD. 3. The Nameless by Ramsey Campbell Also boring! You would think a book with child murder would at least be shocking if nothing else but it WASN'T. 2. Art is the Lie by Courtney Cooke Hopp Boring. Boring boring boring. Wanted to be Twilight SO BAD. 1. Call of the Cherokee by F Gardner Like, I don't like to stereotype self-published books, because I self-publish books, and there are a helluva lot of great self-published work out there... this, uh. The grammar alone is terrible. BEST TEN: 10. Charming Young Man by ...

 

 

 My reading, I mean.  I don't know if it's just because I haven't been especially inspired by anything I've been reading lately, but I've been reading so many books at a time. Maybe I'm missing when I taught high school and let kids do "novel studies", which meant that I read a book with them. Each one of them. Forty separate books. God, life was good. But I dunno. Nothing I've been reading lately has been all that good; currently my main read is The Unborn , which is about a fetus and a computer that become best buds, but honestly the book I'm reading that's captivating me the most is my current kindle read, which is still The Sunshine Court , because it takes me ten years to read anything on kindle, but... What I've been doing is thus: Monday comes. I take a book to the school. I read it throughout the day. I don't take it home unless I finished it. Tuesday comes. I pick out a new book. I take it to the school. I read it, plus Mon...

 Well, it's that time of month again where I look through my spreadsheet and talk about my best ten books I've read so far this year, as well as the worst five. Top ten first--all five star reads. 10. The Dark Half by Stephen King 9. Charming Young Man by Eliot Schrefer  8. Black Iris by Leah Raeder 7. Under the Dome by Stephen King 6. Briardark by SA Harian 5. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee 4. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson  3. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly 2. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 1. Needful Things by Stephen King And the bottom five: 5. 27 Hours by Tristina Wright (1.5 stars) 4. The Red Labyrinth by Meredith Tate (1 star)  3. The Nameless by Ramsey Campbell (1 star) 2. Art is the Lie by Courtney Cook Hopp (1 star) 1. Call of the Cherokee by F. Gardner (1 star)

 Something terrible happened a few days ago: I ran out of pre-filmed, pre-edited videos to post. This doesn't happen often. I just have a mass of unedited videos on my computer (and even more on my phone, which still need to be transferred to my computer), and generally, I can keep up. But a few days ago, I realized, I was out. That was it. End of the line.  So there won't be any videos in a while. My plan is to edit up all the ones I have, and then transfer all of the videos currently taking up space on my phone (not that it's that big of a deal, I have like 512GB total storage) to my computer, and then we can start posting again and hopefully not fall behind again. I will also not be filming anything at this time. I know. I put away all my books I read in the past week without filming a wrap-up. Which is fine, because it's not like those wrap-ups were in any way timely.  But! That's that. Won't be any videos until I get all my current computer ones edited.

 I read my first few Chuck Palahniuk novels back in late high school, early college, and I really liked them. I thought they were fun, kinda edgy--a good time. Then I took a break. In that break, I read Bret Easton Ellis. And okay, these last two years, my top book of the year has been by BEE. Like, the man is a genius, and when I went back into Palahniuk, I was hit with the disturbing thought: "ah shit, he's Ellis-lite." This feeling stuck with me for Lullaby .  And now I'm reading Pygmy , which is. A trip and a half. My god you cannot wander at all with this book. What the actual hell. Do I still like Ellis better? Abso-fucking-lutely. Is this anything like Ellis? Abso-fucking-lutely not. Interested to see where this goes. Glad that Lullaby was just a fluke. 

 I mean, it's been going well. I've put out two books so far, and the only reason Class B isn't out is because I just haven't gotten around to uploading the final draft to Amazon and everything. It's done. I'm about 14k into the next Aughts Boys book, which I am a little lukewarm about (it's Kevin, and he's like, kind of meh, for me, honestly), and about 10k into the last Serial Killers with Cookies book. Next month I start a rewrite of a Tinon novella, and the month after I start a rewrite of another standalone. It's going well. I think I'll publish all the books I meant to publish this year--the only one I'm iffy on is Kaz at the Approach . Everything else should be finished with plenty of time to spare, which is not like, generally my experience. Usually I have crossover between years.  It's been a good year so far.

 

 

 Ah, god damn it, it's not a book month. However! One thing does escape the rules of buying books, and that is eBooks. And as Nora Sakavic is a part of the same school of thought as I am in terms of pricing eBooks (99c forever, baby), I 100% bought an eBook of The Sunshine Court last night. I'm a chapter in. I'm taking my time with this one. I'm doing a chapter a night. I'm trying to avoid all mentions of it on Twitter because I'm SAVORING because Jean is my favorite character and he's always been my favorite and of course I was so glad that March was a book month because I did purchase the hardcovers of AFTG that RainbowCrate put out, so those'll be coming, and of course the paperback is going to be on my Amazon wishlist of The Sunshine Court, and-- It's good so far. Chapter one was good. This book is going to fucking WRECK me.

  Class B , if you're unaware, is a companion/sort-of sequel to the Pentalogy of Hell series. It takes place after the conclusion of Son of Perdition , and it's mostly a companion because, like everything else that is extra content for these books, it's about Casey. You may ask, why the fuck do we care about Casey so much? I mean, he's practically a bit character in the first book, so why did he become so important? The answer is that he's the character I created first. Like, in my whole life. Like, I created the earliest vestiges of the character when I was about nine years old. He was always kind of a misfit ( and he was named after Casey the Cat from JumpStart ), but I was not like, imagining horrifying abuse when I was a third grader.  He grew. And he kind of evolved. And now he's what he is now, and he has his own book. I guess his second own book, if you count Beyr as a Casey book? 'Which it really is, I guess. I did make an effort to make Class B coi...

 

 

 I'm in the next stage of the book wall shrinkage, which is two months without buying any books. The ONLY caveat is my own books. When I put out one of my books, I will get myself a copy. That is the ONLY exception. EVEN if I get a pass, I will not buy any more books. The first couple of days in a no-book month are always the easiest, because I still have books coming in that I ordered the previous months. So I'm still going strong, you know, four days in. I think having an end date in mind is helping. June 1st, I can buy books again. Until July. Unfortunately, my rotation didn't take into account that July is the month that my birthday's in... but I'll just have to deal, man. I can't get books on my birthday this year, and I will just have to deal with it. I've got two months of no book-buying. The hope is that I can wean myself off. Eventually, if I stick with this (and I say if because when I have I ever stuck to a book buying ban), I'll be going... ...

 

 I don't remember where I heard of this-- Happy for Now 's YouTube, maybe? Either way, it's a challenge for the month of April where you read a volume of manga every day. I have a whole goddam fuckton of manga in the book wall, so I figured I'd have enough. Spoiler alert: I 100% did. I didn't even have to dig that far. So, my 30 in 30 plans this year (there will be a vlog up at some point, probably several months in the future): Mob Psycho 100 , 1&2 Deadman Wonderland , 1, 4 My Love Mix-Up , 3 My Dress-up Darling , 1-3 Given , 1 His Favorite, 10 Devils and Realist , 11 InuYasha Ani-manga , 17&18 Haikyu , 1, 3 Othello , 1 Jujutsu Kaisen , 10 Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon, 3 Library Wars , 4 The 100 Girlfriends Who Really..., 1 Noragami, 1 We Never Learn, 1-3 The Good Lie Foo d Wars, 2 Galaxy Angel Deluxe, 1 So, that's the plan! I'm down one, and if nothing else, this will help me kill that book wall--and it's not even a book mo...

 

 

 

 IT IS TIME! It's the last Tuesday/Thursday of March, which means it is TIME to update my top ten, least favorite 5 books of the year... so far. So first up, top ten.  10. Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun 1 by Izumi Tsubaki - 5 Stars 9. A Special Place by Peter Straub - 5 Stars 8. The Dark Half by Stephen King - 5 Stars 7. Charming Young Man by Eliot Schrefer - 5 Stars 6. Black Iris by Leah Raeder - 5 Stars 5. Under the Dome by Stephen King - 5 Stars 4. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson - 5 Stars 3. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly - 5 Stars 2. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead - 5 Stars 1. Needful Things by Stephen King - 5 stars Aaand bottom five.  5. Memories by Francine Pascal - 1.5 stars 4. 27 Hours by Tristina Wright - 1.5 Stars 3. The Red Labyrinth by Meredith Tate - 1 star 2. Art is the Lie by Courtney Cooke Hopp - 1 Star 1. Call of the Cherokee by F. Gardner - 1 star

 

 After March 31st, the next time I get to buy books is in June. While this is good news for the state of the book wall and also my wallet, it's going to be a struggle. I remember the end of February, when I KNEW I could buy books in March, when I KNEW it was only a couple days away... That shit's going to be even WORSE end of May, I can tell. And like, hopefully I actually stick to it. I've done so many book buying bans over the years and honest, my man, shrinking the book wall is like losing weight. I realize the answer is just "stop buying books" like I realize the answer is "stop eating so much candy", but when it comes to actually doing it... But! Hopefully April and May can be big reading months. April I do write a new first draft--my spreadsheet tells me it's "whatever aughts boys book comes next", which means it could be either:  Asking for It -- the Brittney book Sick Sick Sick -- Alan Crockett (he was a kid Matt met in U ntil I fal...

 

 

 

 I've started reading multiple books at a time again. I mean, I've BEEN reading multiple books at a time, just because, like, school, and also "kindle" books, and also books that I started back when I was teaching high school and then somehow found their way back into the book wall, somehow, that I haven't finished. But I've started doing it consciously . Like, every day, before I do my first little task, I grab a new book off of my TBR cart and add it to the stack. I can only add one a day. Right now I'm reading five. I'll probably finish one before the end of the night. My hope, see, is that this will help me finish more books. As of right now there is no conclusive data one way or the other. So, like. We'll see.

 

 

 Currently, I've got a stack on my desk of four: - Seven Faceless Saints by MK Lobb. I'm the farthest in this one and I'm pretty sure it'll be the next one I finish, but unfortunately, I'm not really feeling it. It's very meh.  - The Alchemy of Moonlight by David Ferraro. I'm about twenty pages in--it's interesting! Kinda fun! I'm intrigued so far.  - Kindred by John Gideon. Haven't technically started it yet.  - Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates. Haven't started this one yet either.  Hopefully I can get a good chunk of all of them read this weekend. I'm fucking behind .

 

 So the books are starting to roll in. The books that I've been buying this month, since it's a book month, and they are. so many goddam books.

 

 

 I know it's March, and we haven't even hit summer vacation yet, so, SURE, I COULD be a little DRAMATIC, but I do feel like I'm not going to hit my reading goal this year. Which is fine! I guess! I mean, I have read 75 books so far this year, which is, logically speaking, A Lot.  I've read a lot of books this year. Just not enough. I'm almost 20 books behind on my goal. This time last year I'd already passed 100 books for the year, and here I am, sitting at 75. I have read some LARGE FUCKING BOOKS this year, to be fair. I re-read Under the Dome! I read a BRandon Sanderson! It's only March and I have read 75 books and it's not good enough .  But it hasn't even hit summer vacation yet. And summer vacation will bring me time to do shit like read seven books a day, if I want. That's the beauty of being a teacher. I do get summer vacation.  We keep having issues at recess, and so each of us 3-4-5 teachers has assigned ourselves one of the Troublemaker...

 

 January and February were beautiful. We had a cold snap in January, for like a week and a half, but we didn't get much precipitation and it was warm, for the most part, and now we're staring down a possibility of a virtual day tomorrow. Monday was already two hours late.  Last Tuesday was our first virtual learning day of the year. I will say, it's different doing virtual for elementary. In high school, virtual days mostly consisted of me sitting and reading on Google Classroom while children did writing assignments and asked me if they could leave. Elementary? Throw some IXL up there and then like, talk to them on Google Classroom for an hour and a half before forcing them to leave the call.  I wouldn't hate a virtual day tomorrow. I'm tired.

 

 pick it up now! inspired by lord of the flies and exquisite corpse! these kids be eating each other!

 

 NOTE: What makes this different from my end of the year count is that I do count re-reads, thank you very much, in this list. But! As of the end of February, these are my best ten and worst five books of the year (so far).  THE BEST: 10. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, 5 stars What the hell! It was great! Fuck me, right! 9. Night Shift by Stephen King, 5 Stars I still love this collection. It's just wacky in a way that a lot of King's later short stories aren't ; at this point, when you think short stories and Stephen King, they're almost literary. This one isn't literary. The laundry machine eats people. 8. Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun 1 by Izumi Tsubaki, 5 stars Still the king. 7. A Special Place by Peter Straub, 5 stars Real talk, I finished this last night and it was so goddam good. Apt Pupil WHO???? Keith would eat you alive, Todd. 6. The Dark Half by Stephen King, 5 stars Still a great one. I feel like this one almost leans more Bachman than King, just ...

 I don't know what it is. I mean, I love a good flashback, because I think they're very fun and if a character becomes my favorite I want to write everything that happened to them ever, hence why the Aughts Boys series is like that , but this is going to be the year of flashback books, I swear to God.  Guillaume is coming out March 3rd. About halfway through the book, we get an extended flashback sequence for like twenty thousand words or something. I mean, I couldn't write that book and not include the island parts, right? Like, they were necessary.  Class B comes out sometime after that. About a third of the way through the book, we get what is essentially a rehashing of Beyr , except this time from Beyr's POV. But like, the first draft of this book used to have random flashbacks and I think I like this better? To be decided as to whether it will stay like this or like, I'll start spreading them around??? I don't know. Currently writing the second draft of Pro...

 

 

 This series is never going away, I swear. I'm coming up on the end of Class B , soon, which is sort-of spin-off, sort-of- Pentalogy-of-Hell number six, basically just, wait, Casey's my favorite character and he sorta just disappeared out of the last book in the series, so let's wrap him up and also I LOVE doing Casey backstory so let's shove some of that in there. That one. I'm almost done with that one. It's going to take a good chunk of work, but it'll be done before May is out is my guess. This is not the end of the POH-verse... oh do I have novellas a-coming.  Reminder to pre-order Guillaume if you have not yet done so! If you liked Lord of the Flies but really wished that Roger could like, REALLY go nuts, this is the book for you! March 3rd! It comes out March 3rd!

 

This year has been a Stephen King year so far. I'm not saying I haven't read only Stephen King books; I am, however, saying that I have read five of his books so far this year, most of them re-reads, and it is only the end of February, so, like. You know. And I've been having fun! Let's look at the ones I've read this year! Currently, I'm re-reading Under the Dome for the first time in a long time and fuck I love this book. FUCK I love this book. So fun! Also huge, and so all of my fifth graders were like "what the hell" what I pulled it out during silent reading time.  Most recently, I re-read The Dark Half , which is historically one of my favorite King novels... and you can tell it's so Bachman-inspired it's insane. It's gorier than other King. It's more depressing than other King. It's like "if Richard Bachman wrote a Stephen King novel", lol. Still love it.  I re-read Night Shift! Super old fun stories. I do love his ...

 

 

 I just came off a four-day reading stint of People of the Wolf , which, much to my mother's chagrin, I did not enjoy, and what does the book wall do? It gives me a breather by giving me a fucking DEADTIME STORIES book and then fucking WARBREAKER. WARBREAKER BY BRANDON SANDERSON. I WILL BE BEHIND ON MY READING CHALLENGE UNTIL THE DAY THAT I DIE.

 

 I like to put one out a year! So let's talk about TRUTH OR DARE. First up, cover: So, what's in here? More short stories than essays, but, you know, I write more short stories than essays even though I'm better at the essays.  UNDERSTUDY is a very short, flash-fic story.  OHIO IS FOR EMO KIDS is an Aughts Boy s story! Read it for the ship you didn't know you needed. Also, I guess, spoilers for the Matt book .  PIT STOP is an old, horror-y surrealist mess. I could've sworn I had this in a collection before but I looked through all my collections and I did Not.  THE HORROR AT CAMP JELLYJAM: CAT NUMBER ONE is an essay about my cat, which I wrote the day after we got our cat. See cat below TRUTH OR DARE, the titular story, is another Aughts Boys one. If you ever wondered HOW THE HELL ZEKE AND QUINN GOT TOGETHER BETWEEN ONE MORE SAD SONG AND HIT OR MISS , THIS IS THE ANSWER. Also, got rejected by Taco Bell Quarterly! MATT KLEIN is a character sketch of Matt Klein,...

 

 

 Two sales, actually. I sold two eBooks at the beginning of February: One More Sad Song and Spahn . Ladies and gentlemen, I have made SEVENTY CENTS so far this year. So, in honor of that, let's talk about some of my books. Five, how about. Let's talk about five of them. Five is manageable. First up, Guillaume is up for pre-order. I got a blurb, even, and it's below: "I've had the pleasure of knowing Aurora Dimitre across her entire writing career, and Guillaume is a sort of zenith of all of her strengths. In the days of Lord of the Flies and Stephen King fanfiction, Aurora was somewhat famous for out-there characterizations that went beyond the source material (some of which still exist in those corners of the internet) and Guillaume is a natural outgrowth of that. Where it outshines its inspiration is in the friendship central to it---Though it has its share of macabre and gore, the real tension comes from Ashton and Guillaume's dynamic. That's what...