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!

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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Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag 2020| ft. all the books I didn’t read…

Hello, everybody!

Yes, it’s me again- the same person who promised to post once a week and hasn’t posted in over ten days. 

My excuse is that I’m in a summer camp which actually takes up my whole day. I finally am writing a post because I finished my work an hour early. And also because I’m sick of ignoring my notifications and not posting anything.

It definitely feels good to write a post again. I feel like with the world changing around us so quickly, time is just flying by and even though I posted ten days ago, it feels like a month. Honestly, there are so many things I wanted to do that I didn’t get a chance to and so many things that I never even thought I would have done that all happened in the first half of 2020.

Aside from the quick identity crisis, this tag is actually going to be focused on books. Part of me wants to write a long post explaining why we should defund the police but I also just want to read a fluffy contemporary novel even though I’m sort of in a reading slump right now.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to satisfy myself in this post!

This tag was originally created by IsThatChami and EarlGreyBooks. I don’t know if I was tagged (like I said, I haven’t actually checked notifs in… weeks) but I want to do this tag anyways!

TAG WEEK: Awesome Blogger Award

hey loves! x

how are y’all doing? welcome to day four of tag week!!

today I’m doing the awesome blogger award, and it’s fitting that I was tagged by the VERY awesome Emma!! thank you Emma, love you!

let’s get on with the post 😉

Rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you (thank you, Emma!!!)
• Credit the creator- Maggie @ Dreaming Of Guatemala
• Tag this post with #AwesomeBlogger Award
• Answer all the questions given to you
• Nominate some people
• Write 10 questions for them to answer

⭐What is your favorite Disney movie?⭐

Ooh, we’re starting off with a tough one! I love so many Disney movies, but I’ll list my top five because I’m indecisive: Mulan, Moana, Princess and the Frog, and Aladdin. I can’t choose a fifth-place- I’m stuck between Frozen I and The Lion King but I think I’ll go with Lion King.

⭐Do you have a least favorite book character?⭐

Hmm, I really hate Snape (here’s a great Pin that explains why, please please read it if you even reMOTELY sympathize with Snape) but I’m going to give a new answer. This is probably cheating but I’m going to choose Edward from Twilight. It’s cheating because, well, I’ve never read the books.

i’m going to be attacked by twilight fans aren’t i oh god

He’s just disgusting and a stalker and rapey and *shudders*. I watched the first three movies with El- I think we both hate him XD.

⭐Bedtime- a reasonable hour or some early hour of the morning?⭐

I’m proud to say I actually (usually) go to sleep before midnight haha. Weird, right? I try to go to bed a reasonable hour. Because of quarantine- school starts at 10 AM, I wake up at 8- I’ve pushed that time back to get-ready-for-bed-at-11-PM.

⭐Fluffy blankets or heaps of cushions?⭐

Um, what sort of question even is this?! XD just kidding- not. Definitely fluffy blankets. My feet are ALWAYS cold (I mean it when I saw ‘always’. My brother hates me for putting it on them) so blankets are the way to go 😉

⭐Do you still have any plush toys? ( I do, it’s a whale and his name is Ghoeqphfe, pronounced ‘Jeff’)⭐

OF COURSE I DO! To be fair, my brother is still nine so obviously I have more than if I didn’t have a little sibling, but I kid you not, we own DOZENS of stuffed toys. Just the ones in my room- Polly (the polar bear, so original), Lavender (an owl), Cookie (a dog), Cherry Lime (a frog with sentimental value), and there are many others.

Also, Emma’s such a mood all the time. Ghoeqphfe is the best name for a whale XD

⭐Do you enjoy DIY and arts + crafts activities⭐

Do I enjoy them?

Yes.

Am I any good at them?

Well… that wasn’t the question so you can guess for yourself 😉 I had an obsessive phrase a summer or two ago when I had to do EVERY single DIY there ever was. My room was such a mess, smh.

⭐How do you plan your blog posts?⭐

Hahaha, you PLAN your blog posts?!?? Such a nerd.

I don’t plan them, like a cool person.

(B99 reference!)

But actually, I sometimes do! This one is planned for a week ahead because of Tag Week. I don’t have much of a method- I just type them? And schedule them? The only conscious decisions I make are scheduling them for at least several days after the previous post and trying to vary what posts I curate. For example, I try not to do multiple reviews back to back (haha, I never do reviews anymore) and I don’t post two tags at once.

Unless, of course, it’s tag week.

As you can see, we like breaking our own rules around here.

⭐Christmas or Halloween?⭐

Halloween for sure! I don’t celebrate Christmas (not just bc I’m not Christian but bc my family specifically doesn’t do much) and it’s a festive-but-boring time because it’s just like every other day, except everyone’s having fun.

Halloween though? I GORGE MYSELF ON CANDY. Also, I get to Trick-Or-Treat with friends so why wouldn’t I like that??

⭐Mugs or Candles?⭐

I’m going to have to go with mugs. As aesthetic as candles are, I actually use mugs, and they can also be aesthetic too.

⭐Do you like the How To Train Your Dragon franchise?⭐

I do! I remember watching HTTYD3 in theatres when it came out and being so nostalgic.

I Tag:

Anyone who wants to do it! I’m not going to tag anyone for the rest of the week just because I know how it feels to be overwhelmed with tags (shh… let’s pretend I didn’t run away from my tags and awards for ten months…)

My Questions:

• what’s your favorite fictional ship? as in, relationship from a tv show or book.
• current favorite color? (can be for your current mood this hour, today, this week, this month, honestly whatever makes the most sense to you)
• opinion on fast fashion vs slow fashion?
• last 5-star book you read?
• favorite blog post you’ve read in the past few days? link, please!
• how often do you wash your hair?
• have you ever thought about going vegan or vegetarian?
• favorite ice cream flavor?
• audiobooks or ebooks?
• when was the last time you looked around and felt grateful to live in your neighborhood and why did you feel like that?

I hope you guys enjoyed this! Feel free to do this tag- y’all are amazing 🙂

Do you enjoy Disney movies? Do you have tips to plan your blog posts? Night owl or early bird or in between?

TAG WEEK: Disney Parks Book Tag

Hey, lovelies!

Welcome to day two of tag week! Today I’m doing the Disney Parks Book Tag that I was tagged for by the wonderful Emma! Thanks so much, Emma- y’all bETTER go follow her; this girl is so wonderful and her blog is the best 🙂 I’d also like to apologize in advance for the very wonky formatting!!

The Rules:

• Mention the creator of the tag and link back to original post [Alexandra @ Reading by Starlight]
• Thank the blogger who tagged you
• Answer the 10 questions below using any genre
• Tag 5+ friends
• Feel free to copy the heading graphics

For this one, I don’t know what I would choose! I can’t remember any books that I’ve read that were set along a river; I seriously need to step up my adventure game! The only one I can think of is House of Hades, which is technically a river of fire in the Underworld 😉

 

 

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It looks like I’m still struggling to find a book- I know if I think about I’ll get it but I’ve read so many books that I can’t remember XD. The one that I’m thinking of right now is about an adventure overseas so I hope this counts, although it’s not necessarily high seas. And it’s another Riordan book because apparently, I don’t read anything else. The Blood of Olympus was basically the Seven traveling to Athens via the Argo II so I think it counts!

 

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I read The Women of Dauphine as an ARC (you can find my review here) almost a year ago and definitely found this creepy or eerie! I think it fits the prompt well.

It was a sapphic paranormal YA novel which is awfully unique, too!

 

 

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Kingdom of Ash fits this prompt extremely well ;). It was the end of a very thrilling, very enrapturing fantasy series and I could not put it down! Every bit of it kept me hooked. I remember finishing this monstrosity (1000 pages) in four days because I wouldn’t stop reading. My school backpack was also really heavy for those couple of days 😀

 

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This beautiful book is set in El Paso, Texas, and I think that counts as the deep South 😉 I highly highly recommend this story- it’s beautiful, intriguing and poetic and the writing is simply magical!

 

 

 

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I was honestly tempted to go with a Harry Potter book just for the sake of it, but the first book that occurred to me was A Curse So Dark And Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. I read this sometime last year and really liked it (I still haven’t read the sequel, though) and the entire story basically takes place on the grounds of a castle!

 

 

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This answer seems pretty standard, but Caraval is one of the most whimsical books I’ve ever read! The setting is lush and magical, it’s fantastical although it also feels like you stepped back two hundred years in history, and the entire atmosphere of the book is very mysterious and flowery. This is also Alexandra’s answer so I don’t know if it’s cheating but it was the first thing that came to mind!

 

 

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So I’m going to amend the prompt a little bit since I can’t think of any books with a snowy trek through the mountains (once again, I need to up my adventure game! I need book recs!). However, The Raven Boys has a really prominent setting which is a mountain/hill (oh, whatever- just give me this one, okay?!). Cabeswater is definitely a hilly landscape so I’m just going to count TRB for this prompt!

 

 

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For once, I finally got a good answer to this prompt! Children of Blood and Bone is definitely a perfect novel inspired by another culture. The magic and setting are based on West African cultures and I found myself immersed and obsessed with the worldbuilding!

The sequel came out a couple months ago- I really need to check it out!

Also, it’s a small world is now stuck in my head, if anyone wanted to know.

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ONCE MORE, I AM STUMPED. I basically have read no Scifi so I’m going to have to pick Tarnished Are The Stars (here’s my review) because it’s probably the only book that I remember reading (keyword: REMEMBER) that had a space setting. I wouldn’t necessarily call it fast-paced or an opera but at least we got the space part?! Oh, well.

 

 

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So that’s that! This post is surprisingly under a thousand words, yay! But it has also taught me that I need to seriously step up my adventure and Scifi game!

Do you have any recommendations for adventure or Scifi YA books? (other than Illuminae and The Lunar Chronicles please) What books set by the river have you read?

The Sunshine Blogger Award // very very very very late

Hey, angels!

It’s been a really (REALLY) long time (I was tagged in 2019!) since I’ve done a tag or award and I’ve been planning to do a ‘tag week’ for some time now (AKA a way for me to justify my procrastination).

For some reason, all my saved posts disappeared and this is one of the only tags I have saved! From now on I’m going to save them to a document for sure lol.

Anyways, from now on, you guys can start tagging me for tags and awards again! 😉 I know that so many people stopped tagging me because, obviously, I wasn’t doing them (I think it’s been 10 months since I’ve done one, gosh!), and honestly, thank you for doing that, friends!

I’m going to start posting tags and awards more often so if you did tag me for anything in the past, please please please drop the links below so I can actually do the tags in a ‘tag week’ of sorts.

I was tagged by Charlotte @ Bewitching Books, Ravenous Reads who is currently on hiatus but is a positively wonderful blogger whose blog content I adore! Go check out her blog and follow it right now 🙂

What book, if any, would you most love to see a prequel of?

Honestly, I feel like I have no right answer to this one! I’d really love to see a Six of Crows prequel but I still obviously want more from Rick Riordan (my favorite author ever) so I’m not sure.

We are getting a Hunger Games sequel though, so I will read it although it’s not my favorite series or anything.

Just any prequel other than for Harry Potter, please. JKR is going to find a way to be even more controversial (Dudley Dursley is a trans Latino boy with autism? I WOULDN’T PUT IT PAST HER). Anything other than Harry Potter.

What were/are your favourite and least favourite subjects at school?

My favorite subject is Language Arts although I’m generally interested in many subjects, and my least favorite subject is probably PE? I just hate physical activity, to be honest. A true bookdragon at heart.

What’s your favourite film that was released in 2019?

Hmm, that’s a great question! I, of course, loved watching Avengers: Endgame and Spiderverse (I think? Or was that 2018?! Quarantine has made everything else feel like the same!) or whatever Spiderman movie came out in 2019. I actually can’t really remember any other movies, oops, but Aladdin and Lion King were rad too (is that 2020? HELP).

What fairytale character would you be willing to trade places with?

If I’m going off of Disney, I might want to trade places with Kida, the princess of Atlantis from Disney’s film about Atlantis. She gets to be a princess of an amazing underwater kingdom?! Yes please! Where can I sign up? 😉

But other than Disney, I probably would choose the ORIGINAL story of Fa Mulan where she’s a badass warrior who DOES save her country but not with Shang and the other elements Disney threw in. Speaking of which, I’m excited about the live-action coming later this year!

What inspired you to start blogging?

One of my best friends, Vaishnavi, was a blogger and I was inspired to start a blog because of how much I loved her’s ❤ I’m so glad I made that decision!

What’s one piece of advice that you think all new bloggers should know?

This may be controversial, but this is what I think will help you grow your blog the most:
what’s more important than posting two or three times a week and then disappearing for three weeks without any posts is posting consistently and regularly, even if it isn’t the most often.

Also, hot take, but posting multiple times a day when you normally space out your posts a lot more isn’t really a good idea! It’s best to schedule that post for around a week later so you don’t feel burned out.

Believe me, all my old posts were incredibly sporadic.

If you could meet anyone, past or present, who would it be and why?

This question always makes me pause.  I really want to meet AOC- Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez- (she’s in Congress in the USA) because she’s in a field that I’m really interested in going- public policy and humanities- and she fights relentlessly for things I believe in like a Green New Deal, stopping climate change, and gender equality. She’s one of my role models and I want to be able to make a wide-spread change in the country/world like she has been!!

What’s your favourite lesser-known, or talked about, book?

Ooh, so I highly recommend Every Other Weekend, a book that came out in February 2020 that is definitely less talked about. The romance is the cutest thing ever and it made me cry, too. ❤ My review is linked above!

Which fictional character do you most admire?

Just one?! If I have to just choose one, I’m going to choose Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano from the Riordanverse.

She was written as a totally badass character who never experienced love and comfort but slowly learned to trust others and I love her so much!!

What generally beloved character gets under your skin?

Maybe this is cheating, but I hate Snape. Yes, I know, a lot of others do too, but I used to be a Snape sympathizer and I know many people still are so this should count. He’s a horrible, abusive person.

What are your goals for 2020?

Jokes aside, I really want to have a productive year.

This sounds extremely vague, and it is, but I know I’ll know if I had it or not.

Also, I want to continue being vegan for the rest of the year! I went vegan after being vegetarian for all of my life last week, and I’m hoping I can stick to it (it helps that everyone in my fam is vegetarian and has always been).

My questions:

How have you been passing time during quarantine?

Do you have any family recipes?

What widely-beloved author’s work do you hate?

Do you have any unpopular opinions?

Do you bullet journal?

If you had one wish from a genie and it had to be selfish (no solving world peace, sadly) what would you choose?

How would you rate your 2020 from 1 to 10, and why?

Have you accomplished any of your goals for 2020?

I tag:

Lucy @ Oh Lucy Style

***** @ Bludgers And Broomsticks (sorry I couldn’t resist XD)

Arshia @ Words From Adaria

Ash @ Starlight Strands

Beck @ Smellfoy Reads

El @ Elated Books 

Amber @ Amber’s Reads Online

I hope you guys enjoyed this (once again, I am unable to write a post below a thousand words, cheers to that) and if I tagged you, don’t feel pressured to do it! Don’t forget to drop down links to posts that you tagged me in down below. Feel free to tag me in future tags/awards if you want to 😉

Also, if you’re an Asian/Pacific Islander blogger who is reading this post, please comment down below and reach out to me via my contact page! I’m planning something super cool for this AAPI month but it’ll only work if ALL of you who identify as AAPI and are reading this reach out to me!