You know what’s odd….?

I sometimes wonder if anyone else refuses to flagellate themselves with a shitty book ending the way I do. If a book is middling or worse, I’m usually perfectly content to accept whatever fate the author dishes out to my intrepid heroes and their assorted loved ones. After all, those characters belong to the author in a way, so if they want to sink the ship, fine, I’ll salute and go down with it. Kill them. Marry them off to a houseplant. Whatever. Those characters aren't my monkeys OR circus, and that is none of my business. I’m just an addict passing through to the next hit of that sweet, sweet, preferably filthy, literary fix.

However, the absolute *MOMENT* I am an innocent victim to the intoxicating power of the written word and become emotionally invested in a character or their relationships (forming what is SURELY an unhealthy emotional attachment to these fictional new family members), my laissez‑faire attitude vanishes like a prophecy the second someone tries to read it out loud. My patience and goodwill toward the author’s “intended destiny” go straight out the window. If the author disappoints me at that point? If they kill off someone I adore, or pair the main character with the wrong love interest (SEE: Tamlin, ACOTAR because I couldn’t *stand* that man halfway through book one; the book was mid, my hatred was deep, sue me [and yes I know they are only together in book one]), I will become incandescently furious. And, in all honesty, that kind of anger is likely to summon a minor deity, or at the VERY least some sort of self-righteous psycho therapist, and who has time for a grippy sock vacation.

So, because I am not a self-hating lunatic, the *second* an author piques my interest, I am SPRINTING for the internet like a fae heroine sprinting for an oracle who knows their fate (and by “oracle,” I obviously mean Goodreads).

Often, in a truly stunning display of personal betrayal, I will aso end up googling a book whenever I realize that my imagination has once again clocked out early and (whether from exhaustion or sheer creative bankruptcy, who is to say) failed to render the oh so UNIQUE visage of our MMC (SEE: definitely not the same generic hot guy who somehow stars in every single one of my books no matter HOW the author describes them). Once my brain has decided to tragically fail to live up to its potential, I take comfort in knowing the internet, and it's many talented artists, have already conjured him for me in all his glory (and lets be homest, rule 34’d him six ways to Sunday. What can I say? I am a SMUT reader not a nun).

Not once has the internet failed me in its smutty creativity or its obsessive fandom energy. And while cognitively I have been aware that surely not EVERY book can have a wiki or fan page(s), the internet has never failed me even once…until now. And not only that, it has somehow managed to do so TWICE in just as many days. Twice, I have searched the internet and found nothing. Like a boyfriend who insists they are reliable yet somehow forgets my birthday, anniversary, and middle name, the internet and its sluttiness have betrayed me entirely. One book I searched was because I needed to know if the two leads ended up together. The other, my defective brain failed to conjure a minor side character, and I took that personally. The result? Absolute silence. No horny fan art. No unhinged Tumblr posts. No wiki. Not even a sad little plot summary. The only thing I found were complaints about how terrible the books were. And sure, the second one was terrible, but the first wasn’t that bad.

Despite my best efforts, I could not spoil that first book for myself. It was as if I were the only person in human history to have ever read it.

It’s a strange, almost eerie feeling, trying your absolute hardest to ruin a book for yourself and discovering that you simply cannot. Isn't that odd…?