The Julie and the Phantoms Book Tag! | ft. lots of throwbacks and some diverse anticipated reads

Helloooo!

I was supposed to post this three days ago so I’d have made four posts in January but that didn’t happen 👀 Anyway, I’m really grateful for the support everyone has given me for my previous post, and I’m ready to finally post another book tag after a very long time.

This tag is special, because it’s an original tag from my friend Lais, who’s an amazing blogger whose work you need to check out ASAP! If you want to do this tag, please credit her and link back to her post!!

Julie is the main character in JATP and her style and singing voice are both unbelievably amazing. On a similar note, another recent character that I’ve loved reading about is Liz from You Should See Me in a Crown, a short and sweet contemporary that I read a couple weeks ago.

They actually remind me of each other a lot, with their spunk, caring for their families a lot, and musical talent.

I love both of these characters! I also related to both of them a lot, and it was so fun to follow their stories. Speaking of which, I NEED a season 2 of JATP!

I’m going to have to steal Lais’s answer for this one because it’s honestly perfect for the prompt. Lais, are you sure you didn’t write this question with Magnus in mind?

Anyway, it’s not much of a spoiler, but Magnus dies in the first book, within the first five pages. That’s basically the set up for the rest of the book, so it’s not a big deal to mention it here (I think).

This series, like all other Rick Riordan series, owns my heart and I thoroughly love it.

This isn’t fair! PJO basically introduced me to reading too 😭 but what actually introduced me to contemporary YA novels was:

Everything Everything was one of the first contemporaries I read before I started blogging, and to be honest, I really liked it.

I have a feeling that if I reread it I won’t like it as much. Just a feeling, but it’s because I’ve outgrown this sort of novel. It just doesn’t appeal to me anymore, I guess.

I remember getting the DVD from our library and making everyone go upstairs while I watched it on our TV because I didn’t want my parents there 😂

Gosh, I love this book so much! I hope that when you think of me you think of the Kyoshi duology and I also hope you go and read it ASAP 👀

These books are SO good and I could talk about it forever but instead I’m going to link you to my September wrap-up, where I ranted about this series a little bit more in depth. Enjoy!

I hope that people know me as that girl who loves Avatar: The Last Airbender and in extension that girl who loves Avatar Kyoshi!

I swear to God, Percy fits in EVERY category!! Lais, you’re making this too hard for me to choose something other than Percy Jackson!

The House in the Cerulean Sea is a very feel-good, heartwarming book and this book is pretty much my emotional support BOOK.

All the characters are so sweet and the found family trope is the best I’ve read recently. I love the way the book made me smile AND cry, and tbh Linus and Arthur are my emotional support couple.

Also, Lucy is my emotional support child and Zoe is my emotional support big sister.

This question is way too fun, but I’m going to have trouble finding a book to match it lol.

I haven’t read this book but just based on the cover of These Violent Delights, THIS would be my villain aesthetic.

I want to be a very cool, romantic and tragic villain who gave up everything for love and followed the path to murder (?) all because of a love lost to unjust “heroes”. I’ll be sophisticated and scary, and basically Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Azula may not be a morally “good” character (although I would argue that she was just mislead), but she sure is written amazingly.

P.S. I really want to read TVD! Remind me to read it!

THIS BOOK!!! Remember when everyone was crazy about it? I read it a couple months after the hype but it definitely measured up. It was laugh out loud hilarious and I loved Alex and Henry’s banter.

Despite it involving politics, it surprisingly wasn’t bad on that aspect either! In fact, it had a lot of really great commentary especially because it’s in an alternate timeline where instead of Trump being our president in 2020, it was President Claremont, Alex’s mother.

In the words of beloved Reggie from JATP: tell your friends!!

Okay, that was the perfect segway to the next prompt!!

To be honest, I have no idea if people have been talking about Rise To The Sun a lot or very little- but I do know that I haven’t seen much talk about it despite the fact that You Should See Me in a Crown was wildly popular and this is by the same author!

Also, look at the cover!! It’s gorgeous!

I’m really excited that it’s about two Black LGBT+ girls and, like YSSMIAC, it involves music as a subtheme, which I am really excited for!! It’s supposed to come out in the summer.

I’m having a tough time thinking of a book that fits this prompt- I’m going to settle on Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, which is about two sisters separated by distance and a lot of secrets who find each other after a long time.

I don’t want to give away the plot, but I’m also not sure if this counts as a twist on the long-lost family trope, but the author didn’t write it the same way as I’m used to. Probably because it’s in prose and it’s about two Black Latina girls, which obviously makes the experience different.

 

Firstly, The Song of Achilles is a BEAUTIFUL book and it made me sob- a lot. Don’t read it without an expectation that you will cry. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to fall in love with beautiful writing and a tragically unfair love story.

Secondly, Achilles and Patroclus sure took their sweet time getting together 😂 they met as young teens and became best friends. It took years and years until they accepted their feelings for each other.

Does it count if I say Liz from YSSMIAC and Julie from JATP? I already mentioned them and JATP isn’t even a book…

   

Carmen from We Set the Dark on Fire and Minal from Star Daughter would probably get along wonderfully- they’re both spunky queer women of color with a great sense of humor and wonderful sarcasm.

It’s kind of funny because the prompt is “a book you didn’t think you’d be able to finish” and my answer is a book that I actually didn’t finish. Finale is the, well, finale of Caraval, and while I really enjoyed the first two books (I don’t know if I would like them now, though) I didn’t really care for this book. Maybe I was busy and forgot to finish it, but it didn’t capture my interest like the first two books did.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like the series very much if I reread it- thinking back, the love interest of the MC, Julian, was very much a “bad boy” and would annoy me to no end now.

Thank you so much Lais for tagging me!! I’m not tagging anybody but feel free to do it if you’ve watched the show or if you just like the prompts.

Have a wonderful day, y’all!

5 South-Asian Books on my TBR | including beautiful upcoming 2021 releases!

Hello everyone!

I wanted my second post of 2020 to be something that I’m excited for and proud of- so I thought what better than sharing some of the amazing South-Asian books that I want to read?

As most of you know, I’m Indian-American and I’m passionate about uplifting Asian authors. In 2020 I realized that I barely read *any* books by South Asian authors, and one of my 2021 goals is to change that.

So here are some amazing books by South Asian authors that you should definitely read!

A Time To Dance by Padma Venkataraman

My friend Vaishnavi recommended this book to me- it’s about a South Indian girl named Veda who is a classical dancer losing the ability to dance because of an injury. It’s told in verse and sounds beautiful and poignant. I do Indian Classical music and love it so much (I used to do dance as well but I stopped this year actually) so I feel like I’ll resonate a lot with this book.

Matching Books To Each Song in the ‘Evermore’ Album by Taylor Swift | the evermore book tag

Hi loves!

I’m back so soon, yes! And today I’ll be doing a book tag created by the very lovely Ahaana @ Windows to Worlds. Please go check out her blog because her posts are so nice and her personality is even more lovely!

Rules:

• Link back to the original creator’s post: Ahaana’s at Windows to Worlds
• Tag at least 5 people
• Thank the person who tagged you and link back to their post!!
• Feel free to use the graphics in this post , but please credit back because they took a lot of time and effort to make (:

Let’s get into it!

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4 Underrated BIPOC Fantasy Novels For You to Add To Your TBR | ft. a return to blogging & great YA novels

Hi everyone!

As I’ve sat down to write this post, I’ve been interrupted over five times.

Maybe it’s a sign for me to not write this post?

Anyways, I finally pushed my parents and brother away and I’m ready to finally, finally write a blog post. First of all, I missed you all so much! I miss being a part of the blogging community, waking up to so many notifications, and reading all of my friends’ posts. I missed that a lot and I can’t wait to jump back in the flow of it.

Now, why have I been so MIA lately? Well, firstly, a lot has been going on in my life. I’ve had to start prioritizing what I want to do and what I don’t have time for. Obviously, blogging took a bit of a backseat on this. I don’t really regret it- it allowed me to do so much more- but I want to come back and learn how to manage my time, but with blogging this time.

That’s the gist of it, basically. I’m planning to do a longer post about myself at the end of year (speaking of which- can you believe it’s December? because I absolutely cannot) but for now, I want to give you all the sort of content that you’ve been missing!!

I know a lot of people who don’t know a lot of fantasies written by BIPOC authors.

If you’re not sure what BIPOC stands for, it means Black, Indigenous, People of Color. It’s a similar acronym to POC (people of color), but it specifically highlights the separate experiences that Black and Indigenous folks experience. I say it like bye-pock and if you don’t know me, I’m BIPOC as well!

That’s a pity, because there are so many amazing fantasies written by authors of color that people really are sleeping on. Originally when I started this post, I had it as 7 books- then I realized that it might be even more valuable to narrow it down to the most underrated of the books, in my opinion at least. Most of the books on my list I had screamed about on my blog already (Children of Blood and Bone? We Set The Dark on Fire? Girls of Paper and Fire? Ring any bells?) so I wanted to try out screaming about books that I don’t talk about as much.

So let’s get into it!

guessing books’ summaries from the cover part 2 | ft. backlist fantasy novels

Hi loves!

It’s been way too long since I’ve sat down and actually written a blog post or read a book, so I forced myself to finally write something (with the encouragement of Beck), and here I am!

A few months ago, back in June, I published this post, where I guessed books’ summaries from their covers (yes. I judged the books by their covers, quite literally). The theme then was LGBT+ books because it was pride month, but this time I want to do something a little bit different- backlist fantasy novels!

1. “Sky In The Deep” by Adrienne Young (2018)

I’ve heard of Adrienne Young, but I’ve never read anything by her and I don’t know what her books are about, so I think this is a good choice!

My guess for the synopsis:

Jayla (or insert other generic fantasy girl name) is a spy and a maid in the castle of the local kingdom, who was raised as a warrior. She is part of a secret underground rebellion of warriors like her, and her task is to infiltrate the castle. But then she falls in love with the prince of the kingdom, who is the opposite of everything she was taught about.

The actual synopsis:

Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield—her brother, fighting with the enemy—the brother she watched die five years ago.

Faced with her brother’s betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.

She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating.

The only parts I got right were the warrior part, living with the enemy, and a reluctant enemies-to-lovers. But the kingdom part was way off. I think my synopsis was more of a basic YA fantasy plotline, with the whole spy and falling in love with the enemy prince thing. I’m truthfully not very intrigued by the actual synopsis though, if I’m being completely honest.

1. “The Black Witch” by Laurie Forest (2017)

My guess for the synopsis:

Eve Hitcher grew up knowing she was a witch. She knew that she had to keep her secret at all costs, so she diligently kept her powers hidden from the villagers that she lived with. The only people who knew were her mother and best friend. But as she approaches 17 years old, Eve finds it harder and harder to control her powers, until one day she can’t control it any more, and she accidentally hurts her mom, rendering her into a coma. Stricken with grief and fear, Eve and her best friend flee the village and try to find the cure for Eve’s mom, while simultaneously running away from the angry villagers who are trying to capture her. The only problem? The last ingredient to the potion that will cure Eve’s mother is in the most dangerous place for Eve, where witchhunters regularly kill and torture any witches that they find.

The actual synopsis:

Elloren Gardner is the granddaughter of the last prophesied Black Witch, Carnissa Gardner, who drove back the enemy forces and saved the Gardnerian people during the Realm War. But while she is the absolute spitting image of her famous grandmother, Elloren is utterly devoid of power in a society that prizes magical ability above all else.

When she is granted the opportunity to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an apothecary, Elloren joins her brothers at the prestigious Verpax University to embrace a destiny of her own, free from the shadow of her grandmother’s legacy. But she soon realizes that the university, which admits all manner of people—including the fire-wielding, winged Icarals, the sworn enemies of all Gardnerians—is a treacherous place for the granddaughter of the Black Witch.

As evil looms on the horizon and the pressure to live up to her heritage builds, everything Elloren thought she knew will be challenged and torn away. Her best hope of survival may be among the most unlikely band of rebels…if only she can find the courage to trust those she’s been taught to fear.

Okay… I got basically nothing right. The only thing that was correct was the fact that there’s something to do with a witch, which is pretty obvious (given the fact that the title is literally The Black Witch). Oops? I guess? I was honestly thinking more along the lines of The School for Good and Evil in terms of setting, which is very different from the more high fantasy setting of The Black Witch.

1. “Rebel of the Sands” by Alwyn Hamilton (2016)

My guess for the synopsis:

Imara is a peasant living with her mother and younger brother in the outskirts of the wealthy capitol city of their country, Kezuj. Life is a day-to-day struggle, and things are looking grim because the winter season is approaching and Imara‘s mother has fallen sick. Things get even scarier when a rebel group that deals with the trade of illegal magical items and animals is tied to Imara through her job. Magic is outlawed in Kezuj, and to engage in any sorts of magical activity could mean a death sentence. But Imara is determined to learn more about magic, especially since it could be the only thing that will save her mother.

The actual synopsis:

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mythical beasts still roam the wild and remote areas, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinn still perform their magic.  For humans, it’s an unforgiving place, especially if you’re poor, orphaned, or female.

Amani Al’Hiza is all three.  She’s a gifted gunslinger with perfect aim, but she can’t shoot her way out of Dustwalk, the back-country town where she’s destined to wind up wed or dead.

Then she meets Jin, a rakish foreigner, in a shooting contest, and sees him as the perfect escape route. But though she’s spent years dreaming of leaving Dustwalk, she never imagined she’d gallop away on mythical horse—or that it would take a foreign fugitive to show her the heart of the desert she thought she knew.

Okay, I was way off. I got the magic and the Middle Eastern-inspired setting correct (I looked at the drawing of the castle on the front and could immediately tell) but I had no idea that it would be about gunslingers or mythical beasts. There’s also no mother mentioned, and no rebel group. That sucks, because depending on the type of magic that my synopsis intended to have, it could have actually been a cool book. Funny enough, the one thing that I got scarily close was the name- Amani and Imara? That’s actually super close, and what’s funny is that I rewrote the name half a dozen times and one of them was actually Amari or Amani. Gosh, can’t writers be more creative?

Sort of related, but why is a white woman writing a fantasy based off of a middle eastern setting? This is why her name’s so stereotypical. 😭

Once again, I’m not very interested in any of these books. However, I do quite like my third synopsis idea, if anyone wants to write that as their NaNoWriMo story! 😉

I’m going to try and publish posts more frequently, but school has gotten very busy which makes it harder for me to juggle everything :((

Have you read any of these books? Which of my synopses did you like? What did you think when you saw the covers?

The 40 Most Popular YA Books: have I read them? | part 2

The only thing I could think about when I wrote this: Bob the Builder- Have I read this? Bob the Builder- YES I have!

In other news, hello!

How is everyone doing? I’m NOT doing great, and my mental state is currently ~chaos~. After RBG passed away, I’ve just been worrying nonstop and hearing anything (I mean anything) about the presidential election makes my heart race and makes me hyper-worried. Seriously not fun.

Thankfully, I’ve been keeping myself super busy with school, a music performance coming up (if you’re an OG you remember the times when I was always giving concerts- sadly COVID and school paused that but I’ve started to take more virtual opportunities!), and activism- especially focusing on local elections I can help with.

I promise to put out at least one more post this month!! I’m not gone, I promise!

Two posts ago I posted part one of this series where I see if I’ve read the forty most popular recent YA books (here’s Goodreads’ official list!). I got the idea from Elli @ AceReader!

      

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Nope, ❎ the only book I’ve read by Marissa Meyer is Cinder and I never ended up finishing the series. I think this is a superhero book? So it might be interesting to read!

Sadie by Courtney Summers

Nope again ❎ this is like the peak of middle school YA for me- I used to read ONLY books like this. It was a rough time and I thought I was Not Like Other Girls.

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Nope ❎- I looked through this list and I have read a lot less than I thought tbh. I haven’t heard of this as much as some of the other books on here but at first glance the cover looks really nice!