Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Associate with Oddly Specific Locations

Okay, so, this post may be very weird and unrelatable to everyone else but me, but I do this thing where I (mostly unintentionally) associate books or songs or movies, any type of media really, with locations or times in my life. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it is bad, but nonetheless it is a thing that I do. It does affect my experience with that content, because whenever someone mentions City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare I don’t think immediately of the epic battle at the end or even any of my favorite parts, I automatically get pulled back to November of my senior year of high school, getting ready to play the prologue in my car.

Anyways, I hope that this will at least somewhat make sense to other people or you know, everyone can just collectively be like Arin wtf. Either is fine.

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

• Book One: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
• Location One: Our old camper, as it was parked at Buggs Island campground in the summer of ’09
• Explanation One: (is it just me or does this format remind anyone else of like, a super secret FBI case file? this can also be an Arin wtf moment, its fine) There is actually a bit of a story behind this one. Basically, before we were leaving to go camping I made my mom put a hold on both this and Half-Blood Prince. Once she picked them up, she told me I could only bring one because there was no way I could read them both while we were gone. I argued otherwise and brought them both, but she told me I had better read both of them. Therefore, nine year old Arin sat on the couch of the camper for most of vacation just reading away. I ended up finishing this one the day we left to head back home.

• Book Two: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
• Location Two: My grandmother’s 2005 PT Cruiser on the way home from Buggs Island in the summer of ’09
• Explanation Two: As I said, I finished Order of the Phoenix the day we were leaving but I refused to let my mom be right, so I decided I was going to read as much as I could on the ride home. I opted to ride home with my grandmother because a) less stressful than in the camper where you have to make sure stuff doesn’t just fall while its moving and b) candy. Given that, whenever I think of the first five chapters of this book I am like transported back to the passenger seat of the cruiser in the summer of 2009.

• Book Three: Sacrifice by Brigid Kemmerer
• Location Three: My bed at just after midnight, but only when I am laying upside down (ie, my head at the foot of the bed) and my heavy, homemade winter quilt is on it
• Explanation Three: Okay, so, I love this series a whole lot (who would’ve guessed), so reading this book for the first time knowing it would likely be the last book was a lot for me to handle. However, one night when I couldn’t sleep I just decided I was going to go for it. I laid down at the foot of my bed so I could be closer to the light and I just read, and sobbed, and had lots of emotions. I think I finished it around 2:30ish. It was an experience, let me tell you.

• Book Four: The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
• Location Four: My senior year psychology class, but only when I was sitting at the desk closest to my teacher and while I was glueing pieces of construction paper to my mosaic
• Explanation Four: This was one of the first ever audiobooks that I just picked up off of a whim just because it was available from my library and I don’t remember anything about the plot, just where I was when I finished it. We were doing a project where we had to make a mosaic that represented our personalities and we could listen to music while doing so and instead of listening to music, I finished up my audio.

• Book Five: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
• Location Five: My high school parking lot on an oddly warm November day
• Explanation Five: Despite the fact that I have read this book upwards of seven times, I still associate it with the first time I read it. I had essentially wasted my free period at the end of the day by typing up quizlets I would never actually use so that I could finish by audio of City of Bones. I did, just as the dismissal tone rang, so for once I actually left on time and didn’t hang around in random classrooms. Instead, I went straight to my car and hooked up the next audio through my aux cord. I have a very clear memory of sitting waiting for a chance to get out of my space and going “oh shit” at the end of the prologue.

• Book Six: Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
• Location Six: My Latin class senior year in the seat by the window as the lower levels are playing fly swatter with stage 29 vocab words (how do I remember the stage what)
• Explanation Six: I didn’t actually start this book in my Latin class, which is weird, but I had just managed to grab a physical copy to follow along with my audiobook from the library before school started, so at the end of class while I was doing nothing I found where I was in the physical book and now whenever I think of Gemina I think of Latin. I guess it is fitting given that the title is somewhat latin-y.

• Book Seven: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
• Location Seven: The baseball stadium where I work, specifically the parking lot and the walk up the hill to the concession stand
• Explanation Seven: I know that only the first book of this is really set in the summer, and even then it is at the end of summer, but these books will forever be associated with summer in my mind because that is when I read them for the first time. I remember how I was like two chapters into my audio and was listening to it as I drove to work. Even this year, despite the fact that I haven’t touched these books all year, when I pull into the parking lot sometimes I will go, “oh no, Mark and Tavvy!!”

 

Okay, so, I know this is only seven and not ten but these are the only books and associations that strike me as very odd and specific. But enough from me, what about you guys? Do you do this too? Let’s chat in the comments!