I didn’t have a book tag planned for today but after seeing this one on Norrie and Kristin‘s blogs, I really wanted to do it. Sometimes book tags can end up feeling all the same but I liked that these questions were a bit different – so here are my answers!
Three Read Once and Loved Authors
There are so many books and authors I could include here. I’ve been really lucky this year so read many fantastic books by new-to-me authors who I fell in love with so picking only 3 was difficult. These 3 are ones I read recently though that really stuck out in my mind and solidified the authors as auto-buy authors for me!
Three Titles I’ve Watched But Haven’t Read
Return of the King – I managed to read all of the other books up until this one but it was a very painful process which I didn’t enjoy and by the time I got to RotK I just couldn’t force myself any further.
I Am Legend – I tried to read the book shortly after the film but it was just so different that I gave up very quickly. A grumpy white man who stomps around grizzling all the time? No thanks.
Les Mis – I think it’s safe to say I have never and will never read Les Mis. Love the film but… I’m not going to subject myself to that long ass book!
Three Characters You Love
Xandri from the Xandri Corelel series – I’ve spoken before about how damn much I love Xandri. An autistic woman who is the head of Xeno-Liaisons and one of the realest depictions of autism I’ve ever seen, plus she is kick ass as hell and I adore everything about her.
AIDAN from The Illuminae Files – There are so many characters I love in this series (yes hello Nik) but I have to choose AIDAN because it’s definitely one of my all time favourite AI’s.
Star from THUG – I mean, who doesn’t love Star?! She is amazing and everything I aspire to be.
Three Series’ Binged
The Tensorate Series – I literally just finished binging this series and it is so good. I finished the last one at 2.30am last night and it was so worth it.
His Dark Materials – I binged these as a teenager because I literally could not put the books down. I adored the world, the characters and was so enraptured by the story. I still love the series now.
Game of Thrones – Oh boy, did I binge this series. I binged it to the point where I became so saturated with GoT’s that I couldn’t read the last books I had at the time (A Dance with Dragons) or have anything to do with the tv show. So, lesson learned – sometimes binging can be very bad.
Three Unpopular Bookish Opinions
Most of the time “unpopular opinions” aren’t very unpopular but we’ll see how it goes :’)
- I hate seeing huge bookshelves in Instagram pictures crammed full of books because I know that, often (not always!), most of those books haven’t actually been read and it makes me very sad to see so many unread books.
- I have a special bitterness reserved for book box rep searches. It really brushes me up the wrong way to see the same people being chosen over and over again – people who are clearly very well off, who have professional cameras, thousands of followers, expensive accessories and hundreds of books already. “Winners won’t be chosen based on followers” my backside.
- I really dislike the way that a lot of #ownvoice authors have been treated lately with “diverse” book bloggers slamming their books because they don’t achieve a perfectly representative book or make a marginal error in the rep of one character. I feel that popular non-#ownvoice authors get so much more support and are allowed to get away with literally not trying in terms of rep!
How did I do? xD
Three Current Favourite Book Covers
These are the three covers that I currently have on display on the bookshelves in our front room and they are all so beautiful.
Three Goals for the Year
- Blogging – upgrade my WordPress account and completely redesign my book to make it look nicer and more professional
- Reading – Read more of the 112 books I currently own and less library books!
- Wellbeing – Make more time for things I enjoy outside of reading, like creative writing, and actually start leaving the house more often. I struggle a lot with low-level agoraphobia that I find very hard to admit and talk about, and its something I want to get help with this year
Red Rocket Panda 
I feel you on Les Mis. I loved the movie and the musical songs, but naaah.
Xandri is so good!!
I’m not even sure I binged any series. I usually take breaks between books because I don’t own the next one.
I’m not sure I agree with huge bookshelves meaning the books weren’t read – I only started “hoarding” books lately, and up until a couple of years ago, every book on my huge shelves had been read by either me or my parents. I agree that hoarding books is a big problem in the bookish community though and we often encourage each other.
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Ah, damn… i so totally agree with your unpopular opinions!
Based on some opinions i saw around online, it seems that some people think one can be diverse only in one way, and that’s just kinda sad and funny at the same time, cuz like have they thought about what diverse even mean? Also, making an error in representing something just sounds strange. Cuz how can you know that exact thing never actually happened to anyone who feels 100% connected with that character. Anyway….
Those rep searches… i always thought they are more like applying for rep, and not like a competition?! I mean, if it’s a competition, then it should be fair. But considering these book box thingies are a business, and they are going business decisions and pick people they feel can show off their stuff to the most amount people, they should just say so and then everyone is clear on this.
I read all available books from GoT and for quite a while i refused to watch the series cuz it went off book quite a bit. Only caved last year, and to be fair i quite liked it, and now i’m just waiting for the next (last?) season. 🙂
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This is a great tag! Funny, though, I’ve read the unabridged Les Mis but haven’t watched the movie!
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This is such a lovely post, I loved reading it so much ❤ I recently read Starfish and I loved it so, so much, it was such a beautiful read (though very heartbreaking, at times as well. But I loved the main character's journey, too, and relatable and ahhh, I really enjoyed it). I can't wait to read more from the author! ❤
I'm so happy to see His Dark Materials here just as well – such a good series, one of my favorites of all times for sure ❤
I am not participating in book box rep searches, because they only seem interested in bookstagrammers (and I am not on bookstagram and that seems unfair, too, that they focus on bookstagram? anyway that's another topic altogether) – but I agree with you about this, I feel like always the same kind of people are picked out and it makes me so sad 😦
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I love this post! I think I’m going to do it.
I’ve never participated in book box rep searches but I do agree, I feel like it is always the same people picked. I never enter them because I don’t have enough props, lightening, and a fancy camera so I don’t even bother.
Redesigning my blog is something I really want to do but I can’t decide how I want to design it.
I hope you are doing well! I’m sorry I’ve been a bad partner lately.
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Haha, Les Mis is SO long. I have actually read it, but I have to admit I skimmed or even skipped some of the super descriptive digressions where Victor Hugo went off on a tangent. Some of it’s worth the effort! Some of it… isn’t.
I don’t disagree with all of your unpopular opinions, but I do disagree with your bookshelves comment! I can’t speak for everyone, but I have around 550+ books crammed into my shelves and I can count on my fingers the number of them I haven’t read. (Okay, the number goes higher when you count the non-fiction, but that’s on a different shelf anyway.) I read a lot, and I very rarely buy books I haven’t already read and enjoyed. I’m sure there are some people with huge shelves of unread books, but it’s definitely not universal 🙂
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lmao 100% agree with your issue on reps!!
i uh i have to disagree and hang my head in shame as i own a lot of unread books – but i did even before becoming a book blogger, doing so just kinda grew that collection even more so.
i do regularly go through and see what no longer interests me to find them new homes
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I am so stoked that I was able to finally get Starfish. I can’t wait to read it. I love the Lord of the Rings movies, but I have never read the books before. It would be interesting reading them at some point.
I really need to work on reading books I already own. I’ve been so bad with getting books from the library this year instead, ugh. Can’t wait to see your redesigned blog!
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Thanks! I’ve been planning to redesign it since earlier this year but I kept putting it off haha. I can’t wait to see what you think of Starfish as well.
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