Sunshine Blogger Award

Thank you so much to Acqua for tagging me! If you’re not already, please go follow her, she’s one of my favorite bloggers.

Rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to their blogging site. 
2. Answer the questions.
3. Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
4. Notify the nominees about it by commenting on one of their blog posts.
5. List the rules and display the sunshine blogger award logo on your site or on your post.

Acqua’s questions:

1. What was the last book you rated three stars, and why?
   The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. I know!!! I was anticipating not giving it less than four stars , but something just didn’t click with the audiobook and the book itself. Read my full review to find out more I guess!
2. Do you read short fiction?
   I do! Not always, and it’s not something I usually reach for unless I’ve heard great things from other bloggers and reviewers.
3. A book you’re anticipating that isn’t getting much hype?
   A Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics and Going Off Script.
4. Have you ever felt like a book/its writing was manipulative?
   I don’t know if I understand/interpret the question correctly, but to me a book is manipulative when it doesn’t leave much room for the reader to make up their own mind about what’s going on. When it feels like the writer doesn’t trust the reader to use their brain to put together two and two. They should have faith that readers will be able to pick up subtle things even if they don’t just dump everything on the page *coughs*SJM*cough*. 
5. A trope you don’t like?
   In romances, a big age gap.
6. Is there anything (like a trope, a setting, or a specific subgenre) that recurs often in your favorite books?
   I read across different tropes/genres/settings and my favorite books tend to reflect that but one thing that’s definitely always there the character that seems unfeeling and cold but is only like that because of trauma and once they open up they’re actually very soft but only in specific situations/with specific people.
7. Two random non-bookish facts about you?
   – I can cook pretty well but I’m not a good baker and I don’t enjoy doing it
   – I never attended religion hour in school (it’s optional in Italy)
8. A book whose premise was better than the actual content?
   I had to look through all my shelves for this so here are two: Odd One Out, Flame in the Mist. There are more but the authors turned out to be trash so I don’t even want to mention them.
9. What’s the weirdest book you’ve ever read?
   I’ve read some pretty weird ones in my life before becoming a reviewer but I can’t remember them because my memory is pretty shit, but of the ones I read recently off the top of my head I’d say In Other Lands. It’s the exact type or weird that clicks so much with my tastes and sense of humor that I don’t even find it weird (but I know it is).
10. Supposing that plot and characters are both well-written, which do you value more in fantasy: atmosphere or a well-defined magic system?
    I know this is a total cop-out of an answer, but I feel like it really depends on the book! Sometimes books are very atmospheric but you just don’t care about that particular atmosphere. On the other hand a well-defined magic system can make things interesting while you read but it’s probably not the first thing you think about when you remember the book after months or years of reading it, whereas the atmosphere might stay with you longer.
11. Is there anything you wish was talked about more in the book community?
    Looots of things! One topic that I’ve encountered a lot lately is the author/reviewer relationship and how both authors and readers don’t seem to understand their boundaries: authors comment on reviews they’re not tagged in and reviewers tag authors in negative reviews. I feel like this is going to be something we’ll talk about for the whole year, but I haven’t seen much of this topic outside of book twitter.

 

My questions:

1. What’s one book you don’t often talk about, but it was important to you at one point of your life?

2. If given the chance to live only one day in the setting of one of your favorite books, where would you go?

3. What’s one thing you’d change about your favorite book?

4. Is there any kind of adaptation for your favorite book, like a movie or a series? If not, what kind of adaptation would you want it to have, if any?

5. Is there one book you read even though it was definitely outside of your comfort zone and became one of your favorite books?

6. Do you listen to audiobooks? If not, why?

7. Who is your favorite villain?

8. You can only keep one genre: fantasy or contemporary?

9. Describe one random book exclusively in emojis/gifs/memes without naming it.

10. Do you listen to music while you read?

11. Think of your most favorite character from a book: in what relationship would you want to be with them? Are they your love interest, your best friend, your best friend, your child?

I tag (but feel free to ignore!):

Laura | Sakhile | Marie | Steffy | Dorka | Ash | Nick | Chaima | Kate | May | Julianna