3 Bookish Things; Like a Charm

3 BOOKISH THINGS TAG

3 FAVORITE AUTHORS

1. Marissa Meyer

I absolutely adore Marissa Meyer. She’s basically one of the biggest inspirations of my life after having written such an amazing book series. I’ve been pretty much in love with her work ever since I found it. Which is ultimately why I was so devastated when I didn’t really love her newest book, Renegades, when it came out. I haven’t read its sequel yet, though I’m hoping it’ll be a little bit better than the first. Regardless, she’s still my favorite author.

2. Christopher Paolini

Christopher Paolini was basically my first important role model. The fact that he’d written such an amazing and long novel so young was so thoroughly inspiring to me when I was younger and still kind of is. Of course, I never managed to accomplish what he did, but that doesn’t change that his books and existence as an author really meant a lot to me when I was growing up.

3. Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown

They wrote the same books, so I figure I can include them both and it still counts. These two are just some of my all time favorite authors. They’ve managed to write a retelling of Peter Pan that I actually deeply enjoyed–the first, actually, out of all the ones I’ve read. I’m really impressed with how they’ve handled Wendy and Peter, especially in that it’s believable and doesn’t tarnish his original story.

3 WEIRDEST THINGS USED AS A BOOKMARK

1. Napkin/Tissue

Don’t worry, I never use ones that have been used for something else unless that use was me writing something–usually a piece of a story–on it. I would never condone it otherwise. But, when there’s nothing else around, I have been known to slip one in briefly to hold my spot.

2. Finger

Honestly, this is my most common bookmark. I usually just hold my place with my finger for a few moments before getting back to my spot in the book. Ironically, I’m pretty good at remembering where I left off in a book, so I don’t typically use bookmarks, but on those occasions where I have to briefly do something else, it’s the finger I use.

3. Countertop, Shelftop, etc.

I am the sort of person that places her books open, face down on top of something to hold her place when necessary. This often ends up being one of my primary bookmarks because they hold my space really well. I don’t do it super often, of course, as I usually just recall the page number I left off on, but sometimes this does end up being how I hold my spot.

3 BINGED SERIES’

1. Gone Series

This is primarily because the series is so long and, when the final book came out (back then, at least) I saw it as thoroughly necessary to read the entire series together. This basically resulted in me reading all the books from start to finish as quickly as I could. And I felt exhausted afterward.

2. Inheritance “Trilogy”

I’ve binged this one on so many occasions I can’t even fully remember how many times. It began when I was pretty young, I think fourth grade? And I’ve just never really stopped. I binge read this one every couple of years now, but there was a while where I was binging it at least once or twice a year.

3. Fullmetal Alchemist Manga

I binged this recently! It was such a good series and I really love reading it. I don’t typically read comics or mangas super often, but I definitely would make an exception to reread and binge this one because it’s just that good. Frankly, I really need to just by myself the boxed set, but I can’t quite bring myself to spend $120-$150 on it. Maybe some day.

3 CHARACTERS YOU LOVE

1. Captain Carswell Thorne from The Lunar Chronicles

You all knew, I’m sure you all knew that Carswell Thorne would be my number one here. I feel like I’ll never stop raving about him, really, and I’m sure it’s gotten somewhat repetitive at this point. But really, he is the one character in the entire world that I’ve fallen so utterly in love with that I’ll never be able to let him go. And the fact that I feel such a strong connection with Cress’ character as far as our personalities go just makes me love him even more.

2. Crescent Darnell from The Lunar Chronicles

I just love her so much. Not quite as much as I love Thorne, obviously, because that would get into some weird things about loving myself and if truth be told I’m actually not so good at that. But really, Cress reminds me so much of myself that it’s insane. I’ve never really had a character that I felt this connected to in regards to similar personalities. And the growth she went through matches mine so well, also. So, really, how could I not adore this character?

3. Dexter Jones from This Lullaby

I totally pulled him randomly out of my favorite character list and by no means does this mean he’s actually number three on my list, but I do really adore Dexter. He’s just so cute and sweet and amusingly dorky that I just…kind of swoon a bit when I read his story. It’s probably why This Lullaby was my favorite of Sarah Dessen’s novels up until recently, but only because Ambrose is really perfection.

3 UNPOPULAR BOOKISH OPINIONS

1. It’s A.R.C. not “ark.”

I literally only just learned that this was a thing recently, but I honestly thought that I was in the majority. Come to find out that most people are weird and actually pronounce the acronym rather than spelling it out. Though, I guess, in this sense I’m probably the weird one. But I dunno, I don’t get it. It’s not like we say “izben” for ISBN or “imduhbuh” for IMDB or “otup” for OTP and I’m still cringing over all the cretins who think “lul” instead of L.O.L. is okay. So…idk why someone decided to turn ARC into my worst nightmare, but here we are.

2. Negative reviews are extremely important.

Honestly, idk how it became an unpopular opinion to want to write negative reviews, but I guess it’s better to have a group full of people who don’t want to be mean than ones who do. And, to be fair, I’m not entirely sure how unpopular this opinion is, I just know that it came up a lot in book controversies. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, negative reviews are important. They can help protect readers from things that are immensely problematic or educate others who might not have known better. And while it’s always wonderful to be nice, I’d take honesty over that whenever I can. And honesty doesn’t have to be mean, either, even if it is negative.

3. I’m not totally opposed to writing in one’s books.

Okay, sacrilege, I know. But it really doesn’t bother me…so long as it’s in pencil. I’m very against writing in pen because if you change your mind about anything there’s literally nothing you can do about it. If you mess up, well, you’re stuck with it. But pencil? You can erase pencil. And so, ultimately, I write in my books on occasion with pencil. And I don’t see a problem with it.

3 POPULAR BOOKISH OPINIONS

1. Dog-earing pages is a travesty.

Ugh, creases and bends and hurts and cringe. I can’t.

2. People who don’t return borrowed books are awful.

I still remember the few times this has happened to me and I’m still somewhat bitter about the loss of said books, one of which was and still is my favorite. I’ve replaced that one, at least, since, but even so it was still thoroughly frustrating to have this happen. And, I dunno…I kind of hold it against them all.

3. Physical books are by far the best, even if they’re not the most convenient.

Who can’t agree with this? I mean, honestly. I call blasphemy if you don’t agree with the first bit and you’re in denial if you don’t agree with the second. I tried to deny it for a long, long time but after a while I was just forced to accept that ebooks really are far more convenient than physical books. At least, until technology dies, but that’s more of a fiction notion as far as I’m concerned.

3 FAVORITE BOOK COVERS

1. The Divide

I don’t think I will ever find a book cover that I love more than this one. Truthfully, this cover is the only one on this list currently that actually does count as my all time, absolute favorite book cover. The other two are here because I really like them and I wasn’t going to spend a crazy amount of time ranking all the book covers I love to find the top three that I like the most. But The Divide has an extra special place in my heart and has always really existed as the book cover that I find the most appealing. It’s thoroughly unique and while it might not be the most gorgeous cover out there, the fact that the book opens and closes like that really destroys any possibility of it not being my favorite. I mean…just look at it!

2. The Train to Impossible Places

I really love this cover. There’s a lot to it that immediately grabs your eye–so much so that I actually missed the girl on the train until this literal moment–and you just find yourself thinking, this book looks really fun. And I love that about covers, when they can take you in and tell you that you’re going to enjoy the book that they’re dressing. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way which is why we’re not supposed to judge based on covers. Buuuuuut, sometimes you just can’t help it.

3. The Prince and the Dressmaker

I love this cover, I love the artwork for the whole book in general. And if you’d read it, you would, too. Jen Wang wove such a masterfully emotional story that I literally couldn’t put it down when I finally got my hands on a copy. I adore this book and I think more people should read it. And so it’s place on this list is sort of a prelude to the fact that it is a graphic novel with loads more absolutely amazing images pressed within its pages for your eyes to feast upon. Believe me when I say you wont ever regret buying and reading this one.

3 BOOK GOALS FOR THE YEAR

1. Finish all the reviews for the books I’ve read this year.

I’ll admit, the chances of this happening are somewhat slim. I’m very far behind. But, at the same time, this is really something that’s kind of important to me. It’s also something I’ve never done, so I kind of really want to do it for once. I think it would be really amazing to finally feel like I’m on top of all the reviews I need to write, as though I don’t always have one that needs to be completed. But now that I think about it, this probably wont ever happen.

2. Finish 200 books.

This is actually, surprisingly enough, a real possibility. I don’t know if I’ve ever read that many books in a year before, but I do know that it’ll be the first time I’ve done it while tracking on Goodreads. And I’m only 23 books away from it!

3. Get the 80% badge on NetGalley.

Hahahaha, good luck, right? Well, I’m pretty close, actually. I think my counting must be off in terms of which books were “requested” because from what I can see I should be there already…but maybe it takes some time to get added or I really didn’t count all the books correctly. I don’t like the fact that it only counts the books you’ve been approved for and not the Read Nows, but hopefully I’ll have this by the end of the year. I want it so badly.

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