19 books and counting
Just after Loui told me he had romantic feelings for me and just before we started dating, he read most of my book manuscript in one sitting.
A few weeks later, when he still hadn’t finished the last few pages of the book, I asked him if he was going to. “You started kissing me and distracted me,” he said. (I also read much less than usual in the early weeks of our relationship, thanks to spending more time with Loui.)
Earlier this week, we celebrated our two-year anniversary together. While out to dinner, I wondered how many books each of us had read since we started dating. (Despite reading only three books that first September, I read 375 books during our first two years, largely thanks to Loui’s doing most of our household tasks.)
At first we settled on 18 books for Loui, all audiobooks. It wasn’t until a day or so later that he remembered he’d also read my book, partially just before and partially just after we’d started dating.
Some of those other 18 books were ones that Loui had been meaning to read for a while, like the published-so-far Game of Thrones books. But others he read just for me, like The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini; Eragon and its sequels have been among my favorite books for close to 20 years.
My favorite has been when we’ve read and listened to books at the same time, or at least close to it. Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green was highly anticipated in the Vandiver-Ross household; Loui listened to John Green’s narration while I read the print copy within days of its release.
When I read Ursula K. Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea series, Loui decided to listen, too. The huge volume that I read included several short stories and accompanying essays that Loui couldn’t find on audiobook, so I read those aloud to him on a couple of road trips. I can’t read at 3.5 speed, but it was special nonetheless.
Just last week, we both read Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Before Loui started it himself and I had to stop sending him spoilers, I sent him this quote from the book and said, “Updated wedding vows”:
That we want all the same things. That we want what’s best for each other. That we take one another’s ends as our own, and that our ideal outcome is one in which we’re together.
Of course, while reflecting on our two years together, we also had to decide what are the reciprocal stats for me. Unsurprisingly, because I’m married to the most selfless and giving man in the world, I have some catching up to do: I’ve watched one anime and played 11 sessions of Dungeons & Dragons.