20 Questions Tag

It’s time for another book tag! Today’s tag is courtesy of Ally at Ally Writes Things, as she tagged me to do this earlier this month. Be sure to check out her post here.

1. How many books is too many books in a series?

I think three or four is a great number for a series. Once you get past that, the series starts to get too intimidating to start, or it gets dragged out over too many years if you’ve been reading it since the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good long series, but I think three or four is the sweet spot.

2. How do you feel about cliffhangers?

I hate them with a burning passion. I have literally no patience and hate when I have to wait a year or more to find out what happened. Thank God I read Red Rising by Pierce Brown after the entire trilogy was published, because I might have thrown Golden Son across the room if I couldn’t have immediately picked up Morning Star!

3. Hardcover or paperback?

I love the details that go in to a nice hardcover, like the color of the naked hardback and the endpapers and any pretty designs hidden under the slip cover, but I’m 100 percent a paperback kind of reader.

4. Favorite book?

What a rude question. OF COURSE I can’t pick just one. But I will say that Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice are some of my all-time favorites, which is why I collect multiple copies of them, plus you can check out my favorite reads of 2017 here and here.

5. Least favorite book?

I mean, if I’m really not enjoying a book, I’ll DNF it long before I get to the point that I’d call it my least favorite book. So I’m not really sure I have one? Though I will say the fastest I DNFed a book was The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. I got maybe 10 pages in and noped right out of that book, and from what I gathered at my book club, I didn’t miss anything.

6. Love triangles, yes or no?

This is another trope I am absolutely not a fan of. Sure, some of them are done well, but overall I think it’s a lot of angst over nothing and I hate the indecisiveness involved in picking between the two of them. Love triangles are pretty much guaranteed to significantly decrease my interest in a book.

7. The most recent book you just couldn’t finish?

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton. It’s such a great premise (King Lear meets Game of Thrones), but I kept having to force myself to read it and just wasn’t enjoying it. I worry that I didn’t give this one enough of a chance because I’m really not sure how far I made it in before I DNFed it since it was technically a sample of the book and not the full book, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

8. A book you’re currently reading?

I’m slowly working on Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. The first chapter was all about the history of black people in England, and I like learning more about a part of history I know nothing about, but it’s also heartbreaking to read. And it’s interesting to see how other countries view race in comparison to the U.S. I’m about a third of the way through now, and I can tell it’s shaping up to be a really important read.

I’m also reading After the Wedding by Courtney Milan, and I expect I’ll finish it today. It’s really good, but also so heartbreaking. These two characters really need a happily ever after.

9. Last book you recommended to someone?

Oh man, I can’t remember! I know my sister was here a few weeks ago and I pulled out a whole stack for her that I think she should read. They included Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, and Redefining Realness by Janet Mock, but I can’t remember what else was in there. It was a big stack!

10. Oldest book you’ve read?

I majored in English in college and took a few books on Greek mythology, so I’ve read some old texts. The Iliad and The Odyssey are probably the oldest, plus I’ve read Oedipus Rex and Antigone, which are also Greek. I haven’t read the Bible in its entirety, but I’ve read a number of excerpts, and I know a lot of that is pretty old. Metamorphoses by Ovid is definitely newer since it’s Latin, but is still a very old text, plus I’ve studied a fair amount of medieval literature, including Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Canterbury Tales. (Sorry, I should have just picked the oldest book and moved on, but I had fun looking up how old some of these texts are and wanted to list them all!)

As for the oldest book I’ve picked up for fun? Goodreads tells me its Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811), while the oldest book I’ve read so far in 2018 is Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, which was published in 1817.

11. Newest book you’ve read?

I just read Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, which came out last month. I actually didn’t love it as much as everyone else seems to, but you can read more about why in my April Wrap Up Part 1 post.

12. Favorite author?

I mean, I can’t pick just one. Some of my favorites include Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo, Erik Larsen, Ron Chernow, Lisa Kleypas, Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, and, of course, Jane Austen. But this is a very, very incomplete list.

13. Buying books or borrowing books?

This goes in streaks. Lately I’ve been buying a lot of books, but I actually want to get to a zero TBR and then start borrowing a lot more. I have such a great library that I want to take more advantage of!

14. A book you dislike that everyone else seems to love?

Oh man, I feel like there are lots I could pick for this one. Honestly, Children of Blood and Bone is probably the first one that comes to mind for me. I wouldn’t say I disliked it when I finished reading it, but the more I’ve thought about it, the less impressed I am by the book and the less I like it. This book has been wildly popular and I’m thrilled to see a fantasy by a woman of color do so well, but I just don’t think it had good character development, and sometimes the world building was pretty lackluster, too; it’s just another subpar YA fantasy. Everyone else seems to love it though, so I must be missing something!

15. Bookmarks or dog ears?

Bookmarks for sure. If you haven’t seen my post yet about my travel bookmark collection, you should definitely check it out! I really enjoy my bookmark collection and had fun sharing it. Also, dog ears are blasphemous and I would never do that to a book.

16. A book you can always reread?

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I think it’s an infinitely rereadable book.

17. Can you read while hearing music?

Not really. I don’t mind reading in public and hearing background noise, but I couldn’t read if I had headphones in or if my husband was listening to music. I have a hard time tuning the TV out too even if I’m not remotely interested in the show, though sometimes I get so absorbed in a book that I can do it.

18. One POV or multiple POVs?

I really like both! Some of my favorite fantasy books are multiple POVs while others are single, and while I generally prefer two POVs in romance novels, The Hating Game by Sally Thorne was only a single point of view and I still loved it. So I really can’t pick.

19. Do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days?

I would love to read more books in one sitting, and I actually do that at least once a month on the weekends, but I think reading a book over two or three days is the norm for me.

The Sun Is Also A Star20. One book you read because of the cover?

I’ve definitely picked up books for the cover in the past, though I’m not seeing any on my shelves yet for 2018. I would say the first book that comes to mind for this is The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, which has such a gorgeous cover.

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Alright, that’s it for this book tag! Consider yourself tagged if you’re interested in answering these questions, and leave a link to your post in the comments. Or let me know in the comments what book you can always reread!

9 thoughts on “20 Questions Tag

  1. Pingback: 20 Questions Tag – Reading With Dani

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