I was tagged to do the My Life in Books tag by two lovely and awesome people: Ashleigh over at A Frolic Through Fiction and Michelle over at Book Adventures. Thank you both for the tag! Ashleigh and Michelle are two absolutely fantastic book bloggers, so if you haven’t checked out their blogs, be sure to head on over! 🙂
Find a book for each of your initials.
My initials are AJML so…
…I chose A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, Jackaby by William Ritter, More Than This by Patrick Ness, and Legend by Marie Lu.I have a lot of “A” books, but A Monster Calls is one of my favorite books of all time. Jackaby is the only “J” book I own, but it just so happens to be another favorite of mine. More Than This I have not read yet; I am severely lacking in the “M” book department, but it’s by one of my favorite authors (hence my “A” choice!). I am also severely lacking in the “L” book department, but Legend is fantastic.
Count your age along your bookshelf—which book is it?
I’m 21, so the book I got was…
…Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. I had to use my Goodreads bookshelf for this, but I went in alphabetical order by last name, so it will be the same on my physical shelves once I have them set up. This is embarrassing to admit, but I actually don’t currently have any shelves in my room! I am in the process of rearranging things and adding new furniture, so all of my books are in storage boxes at the moment.
Pick a book set in your city/state/country.
Since I very highly doubt that there are any books that take place in my actual city, I chose my top three favorite American novels.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pick a book that represents a destination you would like to travel to.
I decided to choose one real place (Prague) and one fictional place (Narnia).
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor takes place in Prague, a city to which I have already been and have completely fallen in love with. I desperately want to go back for another (and hopefully longer) visit.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis takes you to Narnia, the fictional world that I would like to visit the most out of any I’ve ever read. Also I want to live in England one day, so this could count toward my real place as well.
Pick a book that’s your favorite color.
Even though I love every color and vibrantly colorful things in general, “rainbow” is not technically “a color”. I will now take this moment to address the fact that I am a strange human being (yeah, we knew that already, Ari.) because, having just stated my love of bright, multicolored things, oddly, my favorite color is black…
Once again, I’ve chosen more than one book because Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn has one of my favorite color combinations (pink and black), and Vicious by V.E. Schwab has my other favorite color combination (red and black).
Which book do you have the fondest memories of?
Though I have incredibly fond memories of reading the entire series as I grew up, I have to say, some of my fondest memories are of reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling. This was the first Harry Potter novel I was old enough to read on my own, which made it very special to me, and it also happens to be one of my favorite storylines on top of that. I also have quite a fond memory of going to the midnight release of The Deathly Hallows with my best friend, then staying up all night together and reading it, so that would be a close second!
Which book did you have the most difficulty reading?
I have to admit, it slightly pains me to put this two books next to each other.
1984 by George Orwell I found to be relatively difficult to get though due to the fact that my brain did not click well with Orwell’s writing style, gorgeous as it was. This, however, is an incredible story, one of my favorite novels of all time, and a book that I am very glad I pushed through; it was well worth it in the end!
(Apologies in advance if you like this story. Don’t read on if you did!) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad on the other hand…where do I begin? This is technically considered a novella because of its length, but I just had to throw this in here. To be completely honest, this was the worst and most excruciating eighty or so pages I have ever read in my life. The writing is atrocious and the story was absolutely not worth the effort in my opinion.
Which book in your TBR pile will give you the biggest sense of accomplishment when you finish it?
Let’s whip out those frighteningly massive books shall we!
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
I tend to get a bit intimidated by giant books sometimes, and these are the two largest ones on my shelf. Aside from the feeling of accomplishment I will get by completing about 2,000 total pages between the two, I feel like these are also two books that everyone has read. Three (or five) other novels I will feel a huge sense of accomplishment after finishing are…
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
…again, mainly due to the fact that I should have read them by this point in my reading life. Also, I clearly feel quite accomplished by finishing books with authors who have the initials “R.R.” in their names.
I Tag:
Trisha @ The Bookgasm
Emma @ The Terror of Knowing
Fran @ Nightjar’s Jar of Books
Michelle @ Michelle, Books and Movies Addict
Umbreen @ Read by Umbreen
And if you are reading this and haven’t done it, then I tag YOU! 🙂
Ooh, I’ve had my eye on this tag for a while now; it looks super-fun! Thanks for tagging me! 😀
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No problem! 😀
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Loved reading through your answers 😀
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Absolutely loved the book selection! All those classics! 😀 😀 Great post you’ve done here! ❤
– Lashaan
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I’m a major classics fan; a lot of my all-time favorite novels are classics! 🙂 Thank you so much! 😀
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Great answers Ariana! I can’t recommend “A Game of Thrones” enough but it is very daunting because of its size. I have yet to read “The Name of the Wind” as well though, it’ll happen one of these days. 🙂
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Thank you so much! 🙂 I’m definitely intimidated by its size (and the amount of character names I have to remember! Haha!), but I’m hoping to get to it early on in the new year; I love the show, so I am so excited to read it. The Name of the Wind is another one that I know I’m going to love, but the size is incredibly intimidating. But same here, it’ll happen some day! 😀
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Aww, most peeps who’ve read Heart of Darkness don’t like it but I liked it when I read it and the picture of the dude on the cover above fits how I imagined Kurtz crawling to be worshipped (if I recall correctly).
I read 1984 in high school and it was hard to get through. Though I liked the story’s concept, I thought it was boring. Then again, I was in high school and wasn’t much enthused about such literature at the time.
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I know a couple of people who enjoyed it, but I unfortunately just couldn’t get into it 😦 I tried it again when I was a bit older but I don’t think it’s for me.
I read it in high school as well; his writing style really was pretty hard to get through, even though I enjoyed the plot itself. I definitely want to give more of Orwell’s work a try now that I’m a bit older and see if I find it any easier to get through.
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Fantastic answers! I know exactly what you mean about the size of books being intimidating. I’ve put off most of my “longer” books until the new year for that very reason! I look forward to doing this tag when I get home in a few days. Thank you for tagging me!
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Thank you! 🙂 I’ve done the same thing. I tend to find them particularly intimidating when I’m in a reading slump or just coming out of one because I know a long book, no matter how good it is, is definitely not going to help. Or if I’m trying to catch up on my Goodreads challenge! Haha 😀 You’re very welcome!
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Great post! I’ve yet to read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I know I’ll feel accomplished after reading them as well if I ever work up the gumption haha 😉
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Thank you! 🙂 I’ve (embarrassingly enough) never actually seen any of the movies either, so I think I’m probably going to start there and then read the books as I’m making my way through them. I’m hoping maybe it will help me remember everyone’s names! Haha 😀
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You’re welcome! 🙂 oh that’s a very good idea! I haven’t seen the movies in forever so maybe I’ll do that too 😀 Yea, hopefully it helps lol 😉
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Thanks for the tag! I LOVE Name of the Wind. It’s definitely worth the time it takes to read it, in my opinion. 🙂 I also loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Vicious. A lot of the others you mentioned are some of my favorites, too!
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No problem! 😀 I’m extremely excited to read The Name of the Wind; I know I’m totally going to love it! I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately, but as soon as I’m out of it, that is at the top of my reading list 🙂
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Thanks for tagging me! After a busy week I’m going to get around to this wonderful tag now.
I agree on the sense of accomplishment achieved through finishing Game of Thrones – I felt so much better once I’d finished it, but then stalled on the subsequent books in the series but I WILL finish it one day 😛 The Name of the Wind also makes it onto my list because I got 200 pages in and then gave up and I’m so disappointed in myself for not managing to finish it. It’s just fantasy books, they’re so long, it’s a little intimidating.
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You’re very welcome! 😀
I can’t wait until I’ve caught up on the whole series; that will give me the biggest sense of accomplishment by far! 🙂 I wanted to read The Name of the Wind this year, but I’ve been putting it off because I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump. I know that if I try it now, I won’t be able to get through it. Hopefully next year we’ll both get through it! 😀 Haha I know! They are fantastic but oh so long!
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