Hi everyone! Today I am so excited to be doing a new themed book tag! One of
my absolute favorite new comfort shows is Julie and the Phantoms. It's such
a cute, cheesy show that has been a perfect relief to the stress of
finishing my degree. I was so excited when I saw this book tag floating
around and decided I just had to do it! There are a few different tags I
found after researching some more but I decided to go with this one as I
liked how it didn't focus only on characters but also on other elements of
the show! This tag and the prompt graphics were created by The Bookish Skies and are used with permission via their original tag post!
So for this one I am going with
Enne Salta from the Shadow Game trilogy by Amanda Foody. This
is a recent trilogy I've been reading and Enne has just been absolutely
killing it with the character development. By the end of book two, Enne has
undergone so much and changed a lot and it's honestly been such a joy to
read about. I will say that I'm scared to see how she fares in the third
book, though.
The trilogy itself is about Enne, a girl about to start her final year of
finishing school who has to travel to the City of Sin to find her missing
mother. There, she teams up with Levi, a street lord with problems of his
own that might be solved if he can help Enne find her mother. However,
things aren't always as they seem in this city of debauchery and
crime.
Oh man, this is a tough one. I think I'm going to go with the character who died in King of Fools by Amanda Foody. It's not that it's the character death that has hurt me the most out of all the characters that have ever died in a book. However, this is one of my more recent deaths and when I look back on the series as a whole, it does hurt a lot to see this character dead. In fact, I'm tearing up a bit just thinking of how tragic it was.
I'm going to go with the second prompt because I genuinely cannot remember
the book that introduced me to reading all those years ago when I was
seven or eight. So for a book that introduced me to my current favorite
genre I'm going to go with Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas.
I had read fantasy before this book, but it was typically fantasy that
took place in our own world. Throne of Glass was not only one of the books
I credit with getting me back into reading novels again but also the book
that introduced me to high fantasy (specifically young adult high
fantasy).
Throne of Glass follows Celaena Sardothien, an assassin who's been imprisoned in a labor camp who gets pulled out by the Crown Prince in order to compete in a tournament and become the King's Champion (aka become his personal assassin). There's a lot of books and the series definitely expands a lot past this general description, but this first book will always be special to me for how much I loved it and what it's done for me.
This is also a tough one. I would love to one day publish my own novel and
have people remember me for that. But for right now I don't think I have a
specific book in mind. I just want to help people discover books that they
love. Sometimes I'll get messages telling me that they've bought a book
and loved it because I recommended it and those messages make me so happy.
So I guess my answer to this is that I hope people remember me for
introducing them to their favorite books, whatever book that may be.
Oh gosh, I have a ton of emotional support characters. Lately, I haven't
been reading as much but whenever I'm in a slump or not feeling it, I often
pick a reread from a selection of my favorite books. The first one that came
to mind when I thought of that selection was
Willa from the Curse of the Gods series by Jane Washington and
Jaymin Eve.
Willa is such a comedic character that never fails to make me smile. I'm a
big fan of this series in general for being so much fun yet still intriguing
and badass. It's a reverse harem story set in a fantasy world where the
class system is organized around the gods. Willa, what's know as a dweller,
is at the bottom of this class system yet refuses to bow to those above her.
She's such a badass yet clumsy character who I love a lot.
This is another tough one. If I was the villain in the story, there would have to be good reason for it. I would have to have been wronged in very serious ways or believe that I was doing what was right. I guess what I think would be closest to me if I were a villain would be Nova from the Renegades trilogy by Marissa Meyer.
Now, Nova isn't necessarily an evil villain. But she's not the hero. She fights for the "bad" guys but the good guys aren't that great all the time either. I love this trilogy a lot due to how it tackles the different shades or morality and how your idea of it changes based on what perspective you're getting. In that, I think I identify most with Nova's anti-hero status because she's genuinely fighting for something she believes in even if it's not the best way of going about it.
I 100% have to go with Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall for this one. There are tons of other books that have made me laugh (I tend to get quite expressive with my emotions when reading books). However, this was the book that popped into my head immediately once I read this prompt.
This is a mlm adult rom-com set in England. It has some of my favorite tropes: fake dating, rivals-to-lovers, "there's only one bed," and so many more! Not only that, but it there's a complex plot, well-developed characters, and a swoony romance. I listened to the audiobook of this one in just two sittings and had to stop multiple times just to laugh at it. It was such a great experience and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook if you want to read this book!
Maybe it's just because I haven't been online much this year due to how busy school has been, but it seems like most of my anticipated releases for this year aren't talked about very much. For this prompt, though, I think I'm going to go with Illusionary by Zoriada Córdova. This is a book that is coming out this week and I'm so incredibly excited to get my copy.
Incendiary, the first book in this duology, came out in 2020 and was one of my top reads of the entire year. It follows a girl named Renata who is a working as a rebel spy to infiltrate the palace and complete her unit's mission after their commander is taken captive. But returning to the palace means returning to the place she was held captive for years as a child while her magic was exploited. Let me just tell you guys that this book was phenomenal and I ended up reading it in just one sitting! It was such a good book that had so many twists and deceptions and I cannot wait to dive into the sequel soon!
I guess I'm going to go with the Veil Diaries series by B.L. Brunnemer. This is one of my absolute favorite reverse harem series and it's a genre I love a lot. In this series, there are numerous love interests and instead of choosing between them like your typical love triangle, the main character doesn't choose and ends up with more than one of them.
The Veil Diaries is one of my top reverse harem series of all time. I've been following it since the first book released and it's been a great time getting to follow the rise in popularity through the years. The series itself follows a teenager named Alexis who can talk to and interact with ghosts. She moves in with her uncle and starts attending a new school where she meets a group of guys who quickly become her friends. But she can't help keeping them at arm's length due to her ghostly abilities. Like I said, one of my favorite series of all time!
The slow-burn is definitely one that I've encountered many times over the years. I think that I'm going to go with The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. I'm not going to spill who the couple is, but it took the entire trilogy for this to actually happen the way it did. I will say I'm not wholly satisfied with the ending of the trilogy in terms of romances and whatnot, but this is one of the couples that took the longest.
The City of Brass follows Nahri, a con artist from Cairo who one day accidentally summons an ancient djinn warrior. Her life becomes threatened because of this and she has to flee with the warrior to the ancient city of Daevabad where she discovers she's not the normal human she thought she was. Instead, she's the sole heir to a long line of famous healers. But not everyone is happy she's there...
This might be a weird pairing but I think Nova from Renegades and Lou from Serpent & Dove. Both characters sort of rebel against the norm and rules but neither are villains. They're both fiercely independent and driven. I think they'd either absolutely love each other or despise each other. I also think it'd be really interesting to see them put in a room together.
There are so many books in this category. There's also a lot of books that I didn't finish and just put aside because I see no issue with DNF-ing books. However, I think I've narrowed it down to the perfect book: Crave by Tracy Wolff.
This is a pretty popular book in the book community and I absolutely hate it. I wanted to love it so bad but it was such a struggle for me to read and I seriously did not enjoy 95% of it. I pushed through because I wanted to see if it got better and because I was on a blog tour for it. I wish I was one of the people who had enjoyed it but I despised it so much. To date, I still put this as an answer for a lot of tags when it asks about hated books or the like. Anyway, I hated it and I think I'll just leave it there.
