Genie Shares: Last Valentine’s Day

 

Genie Shares is a Saturday feature in geniereads, where in Louise (weekly) shares a personal book-related story.

Hi there lovely bloggers!

Oh my is it Saturday already? Seriously?! *sighs* Anyways, Saturday means another story by Louise! If you missed last week’s story which is all about how I became a Potterhead, just click here to read it.

This week’s story happened last February 14, Valentine’s day, where MY HEART LITERALLY FLIPPED!

Once upon a time,

there was this lonely girl. She didn’t have any date this special day. She was very sad but not because of that, the reason behind her sadness was because once again her parents did not give her permission to go somewhere she really, really, really wanted to go.

Which was a spoken word poetry show staring one of her most favorite local artist— Juan Miguel Severo. Everything was settled she was supposed to go with her friends, they got their tickets reserved (which was so hard to accomplish), and they knew how to commute to the event place, it was the perfect Valentine’s Date.

BUT OF COURSE MY PARENTS DID NOT ALLOW ME TO GO. OF COURSE I HAD TO FIND A REPLACEMENT FOR MY TICKET. OF COURSE I WON’T BE ABLE TO SEE SEVERO LIVE. OF COURSE. (I love my parents but sometimes they’re just so strict and they don’t let me go to not-so-far-away places even with my friends.)

So Sunday morning, Valentine’s Day aka the day of the show, I was heartbroken and I definitely need some cheering up so I decided to do the only thing that makes me feel better—READ.

I found the perfect book to re-read, Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen which is a great fluffy and cutesy quick read that would definitely warm me up inside. Because come on, Bryce Loski is just so adorable!

The book definitely worked! I was smiling and feeling so much better. I even tweeted this picture with a caption, “My date for today, Bryce Loski”.

And then halfway through my reading I had to stop because it was Sunday and we had to go to church and have some quality time as a family (this is also one of the reasons why my parents did not let me go, Sunday is family day, they said). So I left my book on the couch in the family room and got ready to go out.

The family time as usual was fun, and my older sister and her family was there. When we got home around five o’clock, I forgot all about my book and did not returned to it. My mind was yet again preoccupied by the fact that my friends are now at the show.

After dinner I finally went to the family room because everyone was there including my two-year old niece. So I quickly looked for my book at the couch, but it wasn’t there. I asked my Father if he saw it and he started reprimanding me about keeping my things out of children’s reach, I was only half listening to him because after he handed me my book I quickly checked it for any damages.

I looked at the edges, because it was a delicate paperback, the inside for any ripped pages and finally, the book cover.

THAT’S WHEN MY HEART LITERALLY FLIPPED. All the happiness was sucked out of me and then because I had zero control over my stupid tear ducts, I started crying so hard! It was ugly crying at its finest. BECAUSE WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BECAUSE TOTALLY CRUSHED MY ALREADY BROKEN HEART.

My lovely two-year old niece thought the cover wasn’t good enough so she added her own artistic touch to it. I love her so much because she is my niece and she’s super cute, and I really don’t hate children but in that moment I just wanted to….but I knew better. She was just a kid and you can’t really get mad at kids, it’s just the rule of the universe. So I just stood there clutching my newly re-designed book and just cried and cried. I freaked out everyone because of my sudden breakdown, and my Father was like, “Stop crying, it’s just a book. I’ll buy you a new one”, which made me feel a little better and I was really embarrassed about breaking-down like that (but I could feel that they weren’t that freaked out because my family is already accustomed to me being a big cry baby) but they did not understand what I was feeling. I was super already sad about the spoken word poetry show (which I later saw that my friends had the chance to  take a picture with various performers) and my ruined book just added to the heartbreak.

I am seriously protective and possessive with my books because I treat them like my babies. I don’t allow and trust any to handle them, hence borrowing books from is a big no-no. My copy of Flipped was actually a Christmas gift from my classmate in our Christmas party where we had this exchange gift tradition complete with wishlists. She really had a hard time finding this book, and I really appreciate her efforts that’s why the cover being ruined was so heartbreaking. But in the end of the day, it was really my fault because Mother’s do not leave their babies unsupervised. I should have kept my book somewhere safe and not on the couch.

Looking at the brighter side of the situation, my copy of Flipped now definitely looks super artsy and thank heavens because it’s still intact with no ripped pages.

Last Valentine’s day left my heartbroken and taught me a valuable lesson which is to keep my books away from children’s reach.

FUN FACTS!

• My friends tried to video the whole show but that wasn’t allowed so they just recorded it. They gave me a copy of the voice recording which was more than an hour long, and it was the only thing that I listened to for an entire week.
• I don’t plastic cover my books (paperbacks) because I like feeling the covers especially the ones with embossed parts.
• Flipped is one of my favorite books AND Movies.

Now that’s all for this post, I still haven’t decided on what story to share next week so it’ll just be a surprise.

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TIME TO SHARE YOUR STORY! Have you experienced something similar? Do you have any physically ruined books? Do you like spoken word poetry? Have read/watch Flipped? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Please do leave any comments, thoughts, messages, reactions, and/or suggestions! Thank you for reading. Until next time,