book cake tag

Here's a fun little tag for you, because who doesn't love cake and books? The main idea of this tag is to pick a book that fits each ingredient for delicious, wonderful cake. Like this: 

I don't know who this tag was started by, and I don't have any intention of tagging anyone else, so we're just gonna answer the questions and get back to our merry lives. Sound good?

1) Flour - A book that was a little bit slow to start off but that really picked up as it went along. 

Throne of Glass! For some reason, I could not get into it for the first hundred pages or so. But damn - once I was hooked, there was no looking back. 

2) Margarine - A book that had a really rich and great plot. 

The entire Harry Potter series. Hidden eggs everywhere, just perfect.

3) Eggs - A book that you thought was going to be bad but actually turned out quite enjoyable. 

I'll probably have to go with Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway. It's not that I thought it was going to be bad, it's just that I loved Audrey, Wait! so much and didn't really hear a ton about it from other people. So when I picked it up, I was kind of scared that Audrey, Wait! was a fluke and I would be disappointed. 

4) Sugar - A sugary/sweet book. 

Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler. Mostly because the title just fits so well, but also because it actually was such a nice, sweet book. (And also because it made me crave cupcakes like nobody's business, but let's not dwell on that.)

5) Icing - A book that covered every single element that you enjoy about a book (funny moments, action moments, sad moments, etc.). 

The first one that comes to mind is Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman. It was one of my first ventures into the world of graphic novels, and I absolutely adored it. By the way - Tracy, if you're reading this, which I know you are: READ IT NOW! 

6) Sprinkles - A book series that you can kind of turn to for a little pick me up when you're feeling down. 

Again, Harry Potter. It will forever be my favourite. 

7) The cherry on top - Your favorite book this year so far. 

It's an extremely close toss-up between Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. Both of them were absolute, sheer perfection. 

Well, I'm hungry now and have a sudden urge to bake until my hands fall off. 

unpopular opinions

So I was browsing around the world of BookTube (as one does at 2:56 in the morning) and I came across a wonderful unicorn called the Unpopular Opinions Book Tag. It stuck out to me and I immediately wanted to do my own variation on it! If you'd like to watch the original video, as created by TheBookArcher, you can do so here.

1. A popular book or series that you didn't like. 

For this one, I have to go with To Kill a Mockingbird. And I'd like to clarify - it's not that I particularly didn't like the book, I just didn't feel as deep a connection to it as I know a lot of people did. I am planning to reread it in the future, so maybe that'll change my opinion. 

2. A popular book or series that everyone seems to hate but you love.

I actually couldn't think of a book that everyone hates that I love, but to me, Audrey, Wait! is severely underrated. Granted, it does have a 3.81 rating on Goodreads, but I gave it a 5 and I feel like it's not as popular as it deserves to be. 

3. A love triangle where the main character ended up with the person you didn't want them to end up with or an OTP you don't like.

Harry and Ginny. I just didn't feel the connection and thought they were better as friends. But I honestly can't think of a substitute, I think I like Harry alone for some reason. I kind of just picture him, Ron, and Hermione all living in a house together and Harry being the cool, single uncle. 

4. A popular book genre you hardly reach for. 

Sci-fi! Especially the alien books like The 5th Wave and the Lux series. I just don't seem to gravitate toward them but I wish I could!  I do have a lot of these types of books on my shelf so I'm hopefully going to get to them eventually, and I did really enjoy the first book in the Lux series. It's just not a genre I'm usually drawn to right away.

5. A popular or beloved character that you do not like. 

Augustus Waters annoyed the shit out of me. Don't get me wrong, I loved TFiOS and I totally get that his personality is integral to the plot, but he's just not the kind of guy I would want to be stuck in a room with. I feel really shitty for saying that, to be honest. Is it bad juju to talk shit about a fictional dead guy? 

6. A popular author that you can't seem to get into. 

David Levithan. I've read a couple of his books and did really enjoy them, but he's never been one of those authors that I get excited about. Which is really strange, actually, because I love his writing style and the issues he tackles - something just hasn't clicked between us, I guess.

7. A popular book trope that you're tired of seeing. 

The whole "I'm a mysterious and angsty bad boy but this ONE SPECIAL GIRL will turn me into a respectable gentleman" thing. Like, COME ON. Stop that. What's wrong with nice, normal guys, I ask you? I'm ready for us to all move on from this fad, thanks. 

8. A popular series that you have no interest in reading. 

Pretty much anything with vampires. My Twilight obsession gave me wayyyyy too much exposure to the whole vampire fad and now I've had enough of it to last me a lifetime. Series like the Vampire Academy just don't appeal to me. Over it. 

9. The saying goes, "The book is always better than the movie," but what movie or TV show adaptation did you like more than the book? 

Obviously I can't speak to Part 2 yet, but Mockingjay: Part 1 was fantastic! I don't even know if this counts as an unpopular opinion because it seems like this is pretty widely agreed upon. But still!

the book fangirling blog award

Hello, all! I recently (like, a couple days ago) learned that the lovely Fiona from A Girl Between the Pages had nominated me for the BookFangirling Blog Award! Big hugs going her way for this. 

So, if you haven't heard of this particular award, here's a summary: It was created by Hannah over at BookFangirling (who is absolutely wonderful, I might add). To complete this tag, I have to answer the questions below, then tag 5-10 other bloggers who deserve the award and come up with my own questions for them! All of that information will be below, but first, here are my answers. 

1. What is your favorite thing about blogging?

My absolute favourite thing about it is the sense of community and support that I get from everyone. I'm by no means a popular blogger or anything like that, but people are still so nice to me! I love that this is a place where everyone has similar interests and we're all  just happy to talk about books for hours on end. 

2. Which books or series your book boyfriend/s came from?

Promise you won't judge me? Pinky swear? Because this is an embarrassing one. Did you promise? Okay, here we go. My most significant book boyfriend has to be Edward Cullen from the ever-so-famous Twilight series. We've been broken up for a good few years now, but back in '09 I was absolutely OBSESSED. We're just gonna let that stay in the past, though. 

3. What was the craziest thing you ever did because of fangirling?

See, this is going back to the whole Twilight thing. It's possible that my friend and I, when we were around 12 or 13, madetwilightthemedpuppetsofabunchofthecharacters. Again, in the past. 

4. If you were to choose one book or one series to read for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Harry Potter, duh. Speaking of which, if you missed my last post, I'm going to be doing a re-read of the whole series through August and into September! 

5. When was the last time you had a major book hangover, and what was that book/series?

Ou, this is a tough one. My last book hangover was probably last summer after I read We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. As I'm sure you know, that book is a complete mindfuck and I pretty much just had to hide under a blanket to recover from it. But other than that, I think my last real book hangover was after (you guessed it) Breaking Dawn was released. Promise you still love me? 

Now, it's time for me to nominate bloggers and post my own questions! If you decide to post this for yourself, please leave me a link in the comments so I can read your answers! :) 

Georgina @ Reads and Rambles

Amanda @ Stuck in YA Books 

Erin @ The Hardcover Lover

Sandra @ Sandra the Bookworm 

Jody @ A Spoonful of Happy Endings 

Kay @ It's a Book Life

Lea @ YA Book Queen

Lisa @ I'll Tumble for YA 

Here are your questions, ladies!

 

1. What is your number one, ride-or-die book/series to fangirl over? 

2. If you could pluck any character out of any book and have him or her in your life, who would it be? 

3. What book/series is a guilty pleasure that you secretly love? 

4. Do you listen to music while reading or prefer silence?

5. What was your gateway book into full-on addiction?

Now that you're nominated, here's what you do:

Create a post to accept your award 

Add the blog award button to your blog as a widget 

Answer the above questions

Nominate 5-10 bloggers you feel are deserving of this award 

Come up with 5 questions to ask your nominees (or steal them from someone else, who cares?) 

Comment on this post with a link to yours so I can see your answers! 

inside out book tag

If you haven't heard of Disney/Pixar's Inside Out, I honestly don't know where you've been the last couple of months. And if you've heard of it but haven't seen it, GO SEE IT. 

Kristina Horner , one of my favourite YouTubers, started this tag today that centres all around the five main emotions in the movie. Let's get started! 

Which book brings you the most joy? 
This one has to be Isla and the Happily Ever After. I'm trying to think back to last summer when I read this book, and I can honestly say I pretty much had a perma-smile on my face the whole time I read it. It's just such a fun and heartwarming story - I loved every single word. Isla also has a very special place in my heart since it was one of the first books I featured on this blog!

Which book grossed you out the most? 

The only book that I can think of that really made my stomach turn is The Merciless,  simply because  of how gory it got at times. The violence is quite graphic at times,  and it was one of my first  novels in the horror genre so that was definitely new to me! A couple parts were pretty gross to the unseasoned reader.  

Which book scared you more than anything? 

I don't tend to get super freaked out by books too often, but one that really stuck for me in terms of fear was Life As We Knew It. Some of the scariest things I've encountered in books are natural disaster stories, simply because they seem so realistic and are so incredibly believable. This one pretty much goes into what would happen if the moon somehow got knocked off its orbit (spoiler alert: everything would suck). Don't read this if you tend to worry about the end of the world, because I guarantee you will lose sleep. 

Which book made you cry the hardest?
Hands down, my pick for this one absolutely has to be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I don't think there was a single point in time when I was reading this book where I wasn't sad, and my copy has literal tear stains all over it.  I was pretty much on a steady flow of tears the whole time I read it to the point that it's kind of a miracle I didn't get dehydrated. 

Which book pissed you off?

I actually had a pretty hard time narrowing this one down, but ultimately my decision was Seventeenth Summer. I kind of feel like a cheater because this was a required book for school, but it just pissed me off so much. Angie is quite possibly the stupidest and most annoying protagonist I've come across in my reading career, and I read the Twilight series. So, yeah. Granted, this book was written in the 1940s and things were obviously very different at that time, but damn. I just couldn't take it. Maybe I'm just mad at the '40s. 

Big thank you to Kristina for creating this awesome tag! If any of you do it as well, let me know. :) 

bookshelf scavenger hunt

My creativity is lacking today and I'm still working on a review so here, have a tag! I'm not sure who started this but it was fun and I know it's kind of an older tag but you should do it too.