The Spring Cleaning Book Tag

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend if you celebrate it here in the US 🙂 Today I’m doing the Spring Cleaning Book Tag and I was tagged by the wonderful Destiny!

1. The struggle to get started: a book or series you struggle to begin because of its size

Whenever I think of this question, it always goes back to The Wheel of Time series for me. My husband and many of his friends and a co-worker of mine really enjoy this series. It’s been around since 1990 and my favorite fantasy author, Brandon Sanderson, finished this series after the author passed away in 2007. Now with Amazon supposedly doing a TV series based on this book series, I should get to it eventually. It’s a hefty 14 book series, but I will attempt it one day.

2. Cleaning out the closet: a book or series you want to unhaul

I bought this on my Kindle a few years ago after hearing great things about it and wanting to try more contemporary more. But since it’s been so long that I’ve had it and since I also didn’t enjoy it, I’ll mentally be unhauling it if I can’t return it on Amazon. But this really wasn’t for me.

3. Opening the window and letting fresh air in: a book that was refreshing

I’m not going to shut up about this book and that’s a fact lol! I read this in the very beginning of April and this Disney inspired theme park about a robot princess who start to feel emotions was so refreshing and different! I had read a story about a murder that happened in an amusement park and that despite its beauty, hides some dark stuff. I read this within 24 hours and I highly recommend to try this book if you’re wanting something different from YA books 🙂

4. Washing out the sheets: a scene you wish you could rewrite

There are QUITE a few scenes I would rewrite in this sequel and this could get controversial for fans of this series. There’s a good chunk of this book where Kvothe interacts with a fae lady and it was BORING! It went on for so long that I genuinely wondered about putting it down. There’s also another scene towards the end where you see a bad guy in the group that Kvothe wants to track down but does he go after said bad guy? NO! I wish I could rewrite so much of this book to get the answers it didn’t give.

5. Throwing out unnecessary knick-knacks: a book in a series you didn’t think was necessary

Two words: CASH GRAB. That’s all this new series installment felt to me when I read it as an ARC. I love the original trilogy of Uglies but this felt like it wasn’t written by the same author. The male love interest was a walking piece of wet cardboard and the female lead PALES in comparison to Tally from the original series. This was a DOA pretty quick for me.

6. Polishing doorknobs: a book that had a clean finish

Oh, this first book in a 4 book series was so satisfying! I loved how Spensa developed, the things she learned about her father and many other things I won’t really talk about since their spoilers. While there’s so much more story to tell, and the sequel coming out this December, this first book satisfies the story it tells and then offers a tantalizing epilogue of what’s possibly to come next. I’m glad this didn’t end on an evil cliffhanger. Instead, we’ve seen growth and major changes, but also get a sneak peek that things really aren’t over yet.

7. Reaching to dust the fan: a book that tried too hard to relay a certain message

I’m on the opposite side of this book like some of you are. (Please don’t hate me) But I think the amount of abuse and darkness in this book was too much that I felt like I was being beaten over the head with a spiked baseball bat. I get that life can be scary and rough and that people can take advantage of you. But this just felt like a really dark and twisted wish fulfillment and it didn’t sit well with me. It felt like this book was saying to match blood lust with blood lust to get what you want, which could’ve worked if it was balanced with other emotions or messages better to make it feel more even.

8. The tiring yet satisfying finish: a series that was tiring but satisfying to get through

This question is a bit hard to answer, since many series I’m reading aren’t finished yet/delayed or haven’t specified if it’s finished yet. I will say the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series is the best answer to use. The reason why is because while I love the fantasy world of Eretz, the themes of war and some of the side characters, this did exhaust me in many ways. To me, the angst in this book felt SO unnecessary, the ending fell completely flat and Akiva is one of the most boring love interests ever. Looking back on it now, I find the romance exhausting since it felt so silly to be apart from each other and never actually talk and have a conversation. So while I’m glad that I read it and could revisit in the future, I feel like its true potential never got reached.

 

I tag the following:

Amanda Toya Rendz Kathy

What would your answers be to this tag? Do you agree with these answers? Let me know in the comments!