Aurora Dimitre's Books and Rambling

 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, so,

 

 

 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'

 

One of our fourth graders is a little horror guy. I understand him, because I am also a little horror guy (first book I remember reading was Monster Blood by RL Stine, my bible as an upper elementary student was Encyclopedia Horrifica , started in on Stephen King at twelve), but some teachers understand him less. They're concerned about this.  I teach grammar to all of the third, fourth, and fifth graders. Fourth grade recently did adjectives and, of course, they had a page where they could go crazy and add adjectives to nouns and this is what he came up with:  killer bee robber store demon dog bloody shoes I'm wandering around, as I do, and this kid normally needs a lot of attention, so I'm stopping by frequently, and as I'm walking past, he looks up at me and goes, "Can I actually write these?" And so I thought about it. And I thought about his homeroom teacher. And I thought about having to deal with the possibility of discussing all that shit when, really,

 

 

 So, Lord of the Flies is my favorite book of like, all time, currently about to put out a book inspired on it ( preorder GUILLAUME here) and this year I started teaching elementary school. And there have been people talking about how, how there have been instances about kids pulling together and working together and well.  Well .  As someone who does currently teach ten year old boys, well . I teach a Jack. The boy holds court in the lunchroom and is generally in charge. They split him up from his Roger this year (his Roger is my favorite even though he does cause Constant Problems and Sometimes Looks Like Jack Nicholson From the Shining In Pictures) but the boy is a Jack. The Roger! Teaching elementary school has made me convinced that I could fix Roger from Lord of the Flies.  I think that one of the biggest strengths in Lord of the Flies is just how realistic the interactions are between the kids. I don't think I fully appreciated it until my most recent re-read, which happene

 

 I did this a couple times last year, kind of randomly, and I think I want to keep a better updated version this year. Of course, this does include re-reads, and my final, Top 19 of 2024 will not, but... here we go. Current top ten, worst 5 books of the year. I've read 32 books this year, for context. 10. Holly by Stephen King This was not my favorite Stephen King book (I rated it four stars), but it's not a bad Stephen King book. I could appreciate what it was trying to do and it was definitely gross at times. I love gross! 9. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan Re-read! I read this with one of my groups of fifth graders and By God there is a Reason This Man Is Still The King of Middle Grade.  8. Can We All Be Feminists? by June Eric-Udorie Nonfiction essay collection. I felt like it said a lot but was more of an introduction to intersectional feminism than anything.  7. The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee I've stated that this mostly made me want

 

 

 I decided this week that I wanted to start being consistent with my blog posts and my YouTube posts and all that. Theoretically, it's been MWF Videos, T-TH blog. Like, that's where I put it in my little agenda and that's how I used to do it back when I was consistent. And it's going! It's going great! Here we go! Unfortunately, I'm starting to like, run out of stuff to talk about, so I'll have to do that... maybe I'll do book reviews? On here? About books I've read? Man! The opportunities! Maybe I'll talk about teaching! I'm a teacher! I could talk about that! Kids've been real goddam goofy lately!  But, yeah. Look forward to more blog posts, more consistent videos... videos are still, you know, years old, but at least they're being posted consistently now.

 

 Hello hello! So Guillaume--my next book--it's coming out March 3rd--I'll let you know when I have a pre-order link I PROMISE--now has a cover! The cover is done! I'll post cover + synopsis below! (Cover by Larisa Katz , by the way) SIX YEARS AGO, FORTY-TWO BOYS CRASHED ON AN ISLAND IN THE CARIBBEAN. ONLY FIFTEEN OF THEM MADE IT BACK ALIVE.             Now in his first year of college, Ashton Collins is trying to keep his life normal. But turning eighteen means that Guillaume Argot, the purported antagonist of the island, has been let out of the psychiatric ward he’s lived in since their rescue. And Guillaume getting set free means that Ashton has to confront some things he’d rather keep inside: for example, the fact that he was Guillaume’s right-hand man.             When Guillaume shows up as Ashton’s college roommate, Ashton is faced with a decision: does he slip right back into his role at Guillaume’s side? Because Guillaume has a list—and he’s not resting until e