New York Times by the Book Tag

I saw this going around for a while on Booktube, and knowing me, forgot about it. Then the awesome Heather @ the Sassy Book Geek do it and I really wanted to put my two cents in. If there’s any repeats, sorry lol. Let’s get going!

1. What book is on your nightstand right now?

Technically, I don’t have books I’m reading on my nightstand. But here’s the book I’m currently reading and really hope to finish by the time this post is live:

2. What was the last truly great book you read?

This goes to 2 books shown here!

All of these books took me by surprise by either: random read, hype about the series, critical acclaim or mixed reviews. Either way, all of these shown books were amazing for the writing, themes, plot, characters and overall personal feelings I experienced. With these, I felt: motivated to be kinder, actually enjoy the Regency England era, give a series another chance and most importantly, finding more authors to support. I’ve gushed about these books a few times already, but please pick them up. They’re worth it 🙂

3. If you could meet any author (living or dead), who would it be? What would you want to know?

I would honestly say Megan Whalen Turner, the author of the Queen’s Thief series because she is SUPERB at keeping the truth from you and such a great deceiver! I want a master writing class from her on how to be an amazing fantasy writer.

4. What books might we be surprised to see on your shelf?

It’s honestly the original Vampire Diaries books and still owning the Twilight books lol 😛 If you follow my blog, you know that I can be a picky reader and reviewer. But I do have some guilty pleasures from when I was a teen and I still enjoy Vampire Diaries despite how thick the cheese is in those books. With Twilight, I read it when I was young, but like many people I’ll never re-read it…not my thing anymore.

5. How do you organize your personal library?

Well…not much really. My husband and I have a shelf that’s filled our top favorite books and authors. There’s a small section that’s part of my TBR books. Those are not in any order at all. For my favorites shelf, I try to keep series and certain authors together in the stacks. Maybe I’ll try to reorganize them one day, or not lol! We’ll see…

6. What book have you always meant to read but haven’t gotten around to yet?

I have 4 random ones that I picked for this:

These ones have a lot of hype surrounding them, or did at one point. I own three of these and I did start Passenger at one point, but got distracted by life. But these sound fun, imaginative and amazing from the many reviews. I’ve read. I hope to read at least 2 of these before the end of the year.

7. Overrated, disappointing, just not good: what book did you feel you were supposed to like, but didn’t?

This was a recent ARC that I got from NetGalley through the Read Now section and I wanted to like it because of the time travel and finding artifacts, but I didn’t. The writing explains everything to you and leaves no room for showing and letting you establish connections with the characters. The main character was also never challenged and never actually felt smart, even though the author kept telling you that he was. I ended up DNFing it and while I’m disappointed, that’s just how life goes. I will try another Ryan Graudin book although I have no high hopes due to being disappointed.

8. What kind stories are you drawn to?

While I do love many branches of fantasy books, I also read: historical fiction, animal rescue stories, occasional memoirs, middle grade, retellings and just original books. I do love reading books that show how much research that go into books and books that feel real and naturally progress. I’m getting into more genres now, like contemporary books and it’s nice to extend my reading preferences.

9. If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

I haven’t read this book yet, but this young woman is such an amazing role model for facing adversity, standing up for your beliefs while also being kind. There’s so much negativity and violence in the world that makes many of us worry. But books like these show that we can make a big difference by being kind in face of enemies and pursuing goals of education, equality and integrity.

10. What do you plan to read next?

As of right now, this small list of books are ones that I want to finish because of ARC August, library books with people waiting for them and simply the need to jump start my reading again lol.

There you have it! Again, sorry for some books repeating. My reading mood has been flatlining lately and I’m trying to remedy that. I didn’t make the musical I tried out for recently, but it’s all good. So life can just keep going like normal and we shall see what the rest of August has in store. If you want to do this tag, YOU’RE IT! If you do it, let me know so I can see your answers. Have you read any of these? Are you anticipating any of these? Which of these should be a higher priority for me ?