15-Day Book Blogger Challenge - Day 1

April from Good Books and Good Wine has created a fun new challenge for all of us book bloggers.  It's the 15-Day Book Blogger Challenge (one challenge per day), and I'm participating because I totally relate to what she says about not having any energy to blog.  I've been following the same pattern as her, just turning on the TV when I get home and not reading or blogging.  So this challenge is something to do for fun and to get back in the swing of things.

Day 1 - Book Related Confessions

1. I'm kind of OCD when it comes to matching covers.  I need them to match, and when they don't, it bugs me SO much.  I will go out of my way to find the matching covers, even if it means paying a little more or having to visit several used book stores.
2. I hate book jackets.  They annoy me so much when I'm reading because they're always slipping off or ripping.  I usually just take them off when I'm reading so I don't have to deal with them.
3. I prefer paperback to hardcovers anyway.  Partially due to the problem with book jackets, and partially because I just love the way they feel.  They're so much lighter than hardcovers, and I can fit more of them in my shelves too.
4. I try to take super-good care of my books - no cracking the spine beyond repair or bending page corners.  If I get a used book, I don't usually care if it's been beat up.  But once it's in my hands, I try not to further the damage.
5. Even though I'm super careful when handling my books, I have no problem lending them out to people and expect them to have a little more wear & tear than they did before.  The only time I'll freak out is if I get the book back with the cover ripped or mangled, or if it was obvious that they spilled food or drink on the book.  Then you might see a meltdown.
6. I passionately hate e-readers!  I'm so in love with my print.  The only time you will ever see me use any form of e-reader is if a book is ONLY available via Kindle/Nook/whatever.  And then I'll use my iPod or one of my parent's Nooks, but it seriously affects my appreciation of the book.
7. I collect blank journals & notebooks.  I don't usually write in them, but I buy them as if I someday will.  And I'm really picky too, when it comes to buying them.  They have to be college-ruled or unlined (I hate wide-ruled notebooks/journals); there has to be something unique about each one like it has a beautiful cover or it's handmade; and I have to be able to see myself using it, even though that may never actually happen.  I know; it's weird, but it's become a habit.  Whenever I go into a bookstore or stationery store, I usually leave with at least one book and one journal.
8. I hate spoilers, BUT if I'm reading a book, and the suspense is driving me nuts, I'll peek ahead to see if someone dies or not, or who they end up with, just to ease my mind.  I usually end up hating myself afterwards, but sometimes the tension is just too much to handle. (My younger sister's the exact opposite.  She goes on wikipedia and sees everything that's going to happen in both books and TV shows to decide whether it's worth investing her time.)
9. I almost always fall for the bad guy or the guy no one else likes.  I usually love the main love interest too, but I also have a thing for the other guy.  I don't know why, but if there's a secondary character who doesn't get a girl, I end up liking him more than the main love interest.  Or if there's a bad boy/villain, I tend to like them too.  So long as they've got more to their personality than just being a jerk.  If they've got great emotional depth or layers, then I like them.  I just like to believe that they can be redeemed.
10. I rarely go outside of my comfort zone, and when I do, I tend to dislike the books for the very reasons I was afraid of.  Not always though - The Fault in Our Stars is an example of a book I thought would be outside of my comfort zone, and it's one of the best books I've read in the past few years.  But that tends to be a rare experience.  I think we all have our comfort zones for a reason.  We've tried lots of things, discovered what we liked best, and then just stick with those.
11. But to follow-up that point, I will also say that I have a pretty expansive comfort zone.  It's not really about liking certain genres over others; I like to read lots of different genres (although I do tend to read a lot of fantasy).  My comfort zone is more about what's in the books than what genre they are.  Graphic violence/sex, horror & gore, excessive profanity, blatant anti-religious sentiments - all of these would put a book outside of my comfort zone, no matter what genre they were in.
12. I try to always read the book first when they make a movie adaptation.  Some people think this is crazy because then I'm constantly comparing while watching the movie.  But I like to imagine the characters for myself without being influenced by the movie's interpretation.  And I'm also pretty understanding about them making changes for good reasons.  It's only the stupid changes that bother me, like when they completely change the ending for no apparent reason, or they add characters that don't fit anywhere in the story.
13. I have no organization scheme when it comes to my bookshelves.  It's pretty much just putting the books wherever they fit when I purchase them.  So I have series that are split up around the room because I bought them at different times.  And I also find it hard to have any sort of system set up because I've run out of room on my shelves.  The shelves are double-stacked with books in front of books or on top of books, and there are books inside my desk, in my wardrobe, in and on my TV stand, in a box in the corner, in stacks on the floor.. you get the idea.  It's kind of hard to organize all of that.
14. I have a love-hate relationship with fads.  I hate it when one book does really well, so then everyone feels the need to copy it.  After Twilight, there were vampire books everywhere, and since I don't like vampire books, I was not too thrilled with that.  But then The Hunger Games started a huge dystopian fad, and since I really enjoy that genre, I've been pretty happy about the amount of dystopian/post-apocalyptic books available.  So I both love & hate fads.
15. I do not utilize my library that much, because my library... is terrible.  Smaller towns than mine have way bigger and better libraries.  My grandmother's town (which is teeny) has a library so big that the first time I saw it, I asked my mom if it was a school.  I think my house has more books in it than our local library.  And while I can do inter-library loans, my county has it set up that you can't order a book that's just come out from a different library until they've had it for at least six months, in order to give the people from that town time to read it.  So I tend to buy most of my books, because I honestly don't have many other options.

And that completes day one of the 15-Day Book Blogging Challenge.  Now how about you?  What are some of your book-related confessions?