preliminary book mention

I got some books today!
2, to be precise— "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe" by Benjamin Saenz and "Don't Let the Forest in" by C.J. Drews

I've been looking for the latter for a while now, actually
I heard about it in the vein of queer, gory dark academia and I went Y E S i need this

I almost got two other books but they're expensive, it really sucks
"Babel" by R.F. Kuang and "Blackouts" by Justin Torres
Really wish I got them now, though
I can always go back you know

I also went to a craft store, looking for a button press (which I didn't find, no tma pins today I guess-- they knew i'd be too powerful) and ended up finding some candles
which i didn't buy, I'm still sorta looking
I wouldn't mind having them for an altar or something
i also found some pendants, something i was also vaguely looking for
somehow i feel like buying this stuff at just some craft store is disrespectful(?) in a way
well, no, that's not the right word for it
Just... not right, like I'm cheaping out or something
I know I won't be hand making candles anytime soon, but I dunno...

Anyways, that's all to say I may also go back there too

About the books!!
I started Aristotle and Dante as soon as I got back
It's been two or so hours, I think, and I'm halfway through

(I have no clue if that's fast or not-- as a kid, I used to pride myself on being a fast reader, but I think after I stopped reading as much I slowed down, as one would expect
I've also decided to start reading more, I like it and it keeps me busy, plus it beats putting my brain through the meatgrinder that is social media all the time
I used to read a lot, and I have all my old books lying around my room

Most recently, I read House of Leaves, which was an absolute acid trip 
funny story, I did a book talk on it earlier this year, and my teacher told us to choose 'age-appropriate' books
and if you've read it, you know House of Leaves is not exactly that
which is fine, I guess, none of it is important to the story
but on my rubric the teacher wrote "I want to read this!" soooooooo how cooked am I
I also started The Brothers Karamazov but it's just really wordy)

Anyways about the book I started
I read the first 30 or so pages and I went "Oh wait this kind of sucks, it's just info dumping a lot"
I'm a big fan of show don't tell, so it put me off a bit
Another 30 pages after that and it had me crying man
I'm not particularly hard to make cry, especially when it comes to books and television (I'm looking at you Dan Da Dan) but still dude it struck cords just a little too close to home if you know what I mean
I've decided I should start annotating books 
Or at least highlighting stuff I like
I'm big on keeping books like new, but I think it'll be good
that is to say I need to go back and highlight some stuff

I love the prose. It's not hard to read but it feels like real thoughts
I like that style of writing; it sort of reminds me of "They both die in the end" (and dear evan hansen but that's just the genre in general-- I'm not big on realistic fiction to be honest)

what I'm asking is WHO IS THIS GUY ARI AND WHY DOES THIS GUY GET IT

"I want other people to tell me how they feel. But I'm not sure I want to return the favor."

"As I watched him, the thought came into my head that i hated him."

"Dante had this look on his face. He looked like an angel. And all I wanted to do was put my fist through his jaw. I couldn't stand my own cruelty."

There's more but I can find it all rn 
BUT PLEASE
This is me, if you even care ^_^
ggrgrgrgrgrg
this guy gets it

so yeah basically this book's got me in the feels 
maybe cuz of like- the time I'm having right now
life stuff man

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyways i should be doing my stupid Odyssey commonplacing (which I mentioned before-- this is the last time we're doing it, at least)
all i got is connection between Athena and the Web from TMA so we're doing good boys
and I also have to do my latin (which is nowhere near as cool as it sounds. If we were actually learning latin I would be beyond stoked, but no, we're just learning the roots)

i will yap fully about the book once I finsish
byeyeye