I’ve got about twenty different book tag posts I want to posts on the blog and I feel like my drafts have just been slowly building up with them. This time I’ve managed to finish one, though. Tania over at The Lovely Secret tagged me in this one and I was so excited to start it because we all know I adore Harry Potter and if you don’t know that are we even really friends (joking, of course, we are). It was actually a lot of fun trying to think of answers for these without just using books I read like a week ago because I always mention recent reads and forget about older ones. Hopefully you enjoy.
EXPECTO PATRONUM: A childhood book connected to good memories?
I want to say Harry Potter like Tania did but it feels like cheating. It does remind me of happy times. My nan bought the first two books for my brother to read, she was constantly buying books for the two of us because she wanted us to enjoy reading as much as she did. She was especially concerned my brother wasn’t reading enough so always bought him books. I obviously stole those book when he finished reading. I was probably about 8 and I was fully obsessed with the Harry Potter world ever since.
But if we’re doing something different I’ll say The Mediator series by Meg Cabot. It was actually something that helped bring me and my best friend together. I don’t even remember how we got on to it but we both learnt we loved that series and then she was ordering the books in and lending them to me as they weren’t getting released straight away here. We used to walk back from school just obsessing. I even remember a conversation about fanfiction in relation to these books! I mean, I seriously want to reread that whole series just talking about it.
EXPELLIARMUS: A book that took you by surprise?
Are we talking good surprise or bad? I want to go good surprise, everyone prefers a happy surprise, don’t they? I think I’m going to say Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews. I can’t remember who it was who told me to read them now but it was a blogger who said the cover was awful and the book was good. The cover was hideous (but I’ve grown to appreciate the glorious abs on the book covers). I had seriously low expectations and become fully obsessed very fast.
PRIOR INCANTATO: The last book you read?
I’ve been struggling pretty bad with finding a book to read the past few days but I did finish The Rest of The Story on Sunday and it was a very good read. A return to form for Sarah Dessen, not to say her past couple of releases have been bad, I just enjoyed this one so much more than her past couple of books.
ALOHAMORA: A book that introduced you to a genre you'd never considered before?
That’s a good one and I wish I had a really good answer! I suppose I’ve got to say Sarah MacLean and Tessa Dare! I read Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake and Romancing the Duke and realised I had been way too judgey about historical romance. I was reading mostly YA and a couple of contemporary romance books alongside various fantasy reads but hadn’t labelled myself a romance reader. I then saw a blogger doing a reading outside of their comfort zone post and these books featured and I decided I was going to read them. I am so glad I did, I now love historical romance and very much label myself a romance reader. And thinking on it now I would love the chance to read outside of my comfort zone more. I might need you guys to suggest things to read. Or maybe I need to find a good reading challenge?
RIDDIKULUS: A funny book you've read?
I mean, I read a lot of books which involve humour. Tessa Dare’s latest, The Wallflower Wager, had me laughing at some of the animal antics. And there are plenty of other romances putting a smile on my face. But I feel like I want to mention a book which is actually meant to be funny. Well, funny and thought proviking. I haven’t read loads of Caitlin Moran stuff, but I’ve read some and she writes some good books I actually enjoy. I have another couple of her books sat at home which I have yet to read, but she is a writer I will always check out. And not just because she’s from Wolverhampton so feels like a local to me.
SONORUS: A book you think everyone should know about?
All of the books!
Ok, that’s a lie, not all books deserve extra attention. They get more than enough. Instead I want to highlight a book (or five) which has far too few ratings on Goodreads and deserves a little love. I’m talking less than 1000 ratings here and that just isn’t right. Yes, this is a romance heavy list (do you expect anything less from me?) but these books deserve your love and attention.
OBLIVIATE: A book or spoiler you would like to forget you ever read?
None? Honestly, I’m pretty good at avoiding spoilers for books and they don’t tend to ruin things for me. Or maybe I should say all spoilers beyond books 2 for the Throne of Glass books because they pretty much made me give up on that whole series. I’m sorry but that was meant to be shorter series and then it became like six books and it became totally unrecognisable in terms of the first part of the series. I may eventually read that series… but it won’t be any time soon. So yeah, maybe I wish I hadn’t read spoilers for that because I might have kept reading otherwise. Maybe if I crave an angsty fantasy read that gets all kind of crazy I’ll binge that series.
IMPERIO: A book you had to read for school?
Does it have to be a book I had to read for school and enjoyed because this would be a very short list. I mean, I see some folks have this giant reading list of books for school and I really feel like the UK education scammed me because I have like 6 books I had to read for my GCSEs and A Levels and I hated most of them.
I did read King Lear as part of my English A-Levels and I liked that. I also read The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoyed that. But the rest? Hated. I hated Wuthering Heights. I hated Lord of the Flies. Don’t even speak to me about Great Expectations. I liked reading and I really feel like English lessons at school worked really hard to try and make me hate it. I originally hoped to study English at university and school destroyed all desire for me to do that because I didn’t want to hate reading.
CRUCIO: A book that was painful to read?
Damn, I want to find a really good book for this one… but I can’t. I mean, I suppose I could choose one of the books I hated from school?
No… I’ve got it. Jane Eyre! I’ve tried to read that book so many times it’s ridiculous and it’s my best friend’s favourite book (yep, same friend who I bonded with over Meg Cabot) so I always feel I should read it… but it’s too much to get through. I genuinely think I might hate it for how difficult I find it to get through. maybe I should try an audiobook version and see if it’s any easier?
AVADA KEDAVRA: A book that could kill (interpret as you will)?
I was going to choose a book which killed my feelings (The Simple Wild) but I then thought maybe I should take this question a bit more literally and find the biggest book in my read list and say one which probably kill someone if you smacked around the head with it… or threw it at them… or just accidentally dropped it out of the window and it hit someone.
My pick for this? Well, I was going to say Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell because that book was looooong but turns out in my list of read books Outlander is, in fact, longer (and I have the paperback TV series tie in edition and I can attest to it being huge) so maybe I’ll just say both. And if you can get them in a hardback version even better, adds more weight to it.
What do you think of my answers? And are you a big Harry Potter nerd like me or do we need to have a talk? Don’t worry, I won’t actually shout if you haven’t read it I just always find it interesting to hear how you’ve managed to avoid it.
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