I Dare You Book Tag 📔 an unexpected trip down memory lane!

Hi everyone!

My exams are finally over, and I’m now on a break for a little bit before I start my summer job! The last couple weeks have been quite stressful, which is why I haven’t been posting much, I’m so sorry about that. In that time, I was tagged by the lovely Lauren at twenty-seven letters in the I dare you book tag! Please make sure to check her blog and her answers here, they’re great😊 I’m really excited to answer these questions, so shall we?

The rules are:

• You must be honest.
• You must answer all the questions.
• You must tag at least 4 people.

🌼 What book has been on your shelf the longest?

Alright, so as I’ve said before, I mostly read ebooks because I’ve moved a lot for the past few years. I currently have a tiny shelf of physical books in my flat, as I’ve left most of them at my parents’ house. So out of this small number, the books on my shelf I’ve owned the longest are Last Flight by Liane Merciel & The Masked Empire by Patrick Weekes which are both Dragon Age books. Dragon Age is one of my favourite video game series of all time. Once, I was in a bookstore and I saw these novels and I just had to get them. 😍 However, I have yet to read them…

🌼 What is your current read, your last read, and the book you’ll read next?

I’m currently reading The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala, which I’m really enjoying so far! My last read was Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, a reread from a few years ago. I didn’t read the sequel, even though I wanted to. That’s why I decided to reread it now so I can continue with the series. The next book I’ll read though … That’s a good question. I rarely decide what I’ll read next before I finish my current read, so I couldn’t tell you right now.

🌼 What book did everyone like, but you hated?

I didn’t hate it, more like disliked it, even though it has quite a high average on goodreads. It even won a Goodreads Choice Award in 2014, and that’s Red Rising by Pierce Brown. It just didn’t work for me, and I rated it 2 stars.

🌼 What book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

Truth or Beard by Penny Reid, because contemporary is not my favourite genre even if I feel like I might read a couple contemporary novels soon. I’ve had this one for a while, and heard great things about it. But everytime I think I’ll read it, I haven’t and chose another book instead. So I’m not sure I’ll ever get to it.

🌼 What book are you saving for retirement?

None. I’m 25, and when I find a book I want to read, I never tell myself “Oh, I’ll wait to read it until I’m 70”. Never. But now, I do wonder what kind of books I’ll be reading in 50 years though.

🌼 Last page: read it first or wait ’til the end?

When I was younger, I read the last page first. I have absolutely no idea why (why did I ever think this was a good idea?) and I often wished I didn’t because of spoilers, obviously. But that changed when I started reading ebooks, because getting to the last page wasn’t as easy and so I never did. I lost the habit since then, even when reading a physical copy of a book.

🌼 Acknowledgment: waste of paper and ink or interesting aside?

I never used to read the acknowledgments, I just wasn’t interested. For a while now though, I always read them because I think they’re so cute. I know that if I ever published a novel, I would have so many people to thank. I write, and I talk about it with friends, and the support is so important. So I love seeing who the authors thank 💖

🌼 Which book character would you switch places with?

I read a lot of fantasy (with a bit of science-fiction and dystopia), and so characters are often in situations I probably could never handle. But, let’s say I could, then one of the characters I would choose is Zofia from The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. I just love her so much.

🌼 Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (place, time, person)?

I have many books that remind me of something specific in my life. I first thought of City of Bones by Cassandra Clare: I was rereading the series before City of Heavenly Fire came out in 2014, and so I went to university with my book in my bag. I can almost remember this moment perfectly: it was a very sunny day, quite warm. I was with two of my friends, we were seating in the grass outside at university, and I was just reading City of Bones, feeling great. That’s a memory I love so much.

🌼 Name a book that you acquired in an interesting way.

I don’t know what qualifies as interesting, but one novel I bought and read recently that has an interesting story to me is Truthwitch by Susan Dennard. See, the novel had been on my TBR for a couple years, but I never thought about reading it. I wonder if I would have ever gotten to it. And last December, a Dragon Age 4 teaser came out. As I’ve said before in this tag, it’s a video game series I absolutely adore. I was really happy and excited, and I looked for the tag they used with the teaser on Twitter. Guess what happened? Susan Dennard had the tag in her name at the time, and her account came up almost right away. Seeing she had written books, I looked them up and by the end of December, I had bought and started reading Truthwitch. I just needed to read that series, I somehow knew then it was the right book for me. Five months later, The Witchlands series is one of my favourite series of all time 💖💖

🌼 Have you ever given a book away for a special reason/to a special person?

I don’t think I have, no. However, I did buy many books as presents for people I love. For example, I got the Slytherin edition of Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone for my best friend as a Christmas present. We’re both Slytherins, and often mention it so I thought it’d be nice.

🌼 Which book has been with you to the most places?

This is such a difficult question, because as I’ve said, I moved quite a few times in the last 7 years. I think it might be my Harry Potter books though, because they moved with me from my parents’ house to Scotland, then back and now in the current city I live in, in France. So 3 places. But it could also be my first copy of City of Bones, because it was with me in my flat at university and I used to bring it with me to university as well. Then it went with one of my friends to London (she thought she was maybe going to see Cassandra Clare and she wanted to get it signed for me if she did), then to her place, then back with me to my parents’ house.

🌼 Any ‘required reading’ you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad two years later?

Honestly, no. If I disliked them, I didn’t reread them and so I never changed my mind about them.

🌼 Used or brand new?

I mostly read ebooks, so I’d say brand new now (to be honest, when I buy physical copies, which I rarely do, I also buy them brand new). When I was younger however, I had a lot of used books. Two I remember buying used vividly was Twilight & Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer. At the time I didn’t find New Moon used, so I bought it brand new, and Breaking Dawn wasn’t out yet. I really wanted to read them, but they were so expensive (and I was a teenager) so I couldn’t buy them myself, and my mom also thought they were expensive. So I found them used for cheaper and that’s how I was able to get them. That’s a bit of a random story, I know, but that question reminded me so much of that time!

🌼 Have you ever read a Dan Brown book?

I have, actually, more than a decade ago (I’m 25 and I feel old sometimes). I must have been 13 when I read The Da Vinci Code, and I felt so grown up. It seemed so much like an adult book, and I was so proud to be able to read it and understand everything that I told a few teachers at school that I was reading it. 😂 So yes, that’s a thing that happened.

🌼 Have you ever seen a movie you liked more than the book?

I have read many books that were adapted into movies, and I don’t recall liking a movie more than the novel. Maybe I have, but my memory is not the best. To be fair though, it did happen with a TV show. I watched The Musketeers BBC series, and I loved it. I read the book afterwards, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and while I really enjoyed it, I still like the TV series more.

🌼 Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks included?

Not really, no.

🌼 Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

I never always take someone’s book advice. I listen, and sometimes I do read books that were directly recommended to me but I always look up the book before I do read it. I just like to make sure I’m really interested in the novel. Even when I watch Booktube or read a blog post and a novel sounds intriguing, I always have a look at the synopsis and everything before I decide if I’m interesting in reading it.

🌼 Is there a book out of your comfort zone (e.g. outside of your usual reading genre) that you ended up loving?

I don’t read Middle-Grade books often. Barely ever, actually. I know this isn’t a genre, but it’s definitely outside of my reading habits as I mostly read YA and some Adult novels. But in 2015, I decided to read the five books of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series by Rick Riordan. I ended up reading them all between May and July of that year, I loved them. I’m so glad I decided to pick them up, because they were such an amazing reading experience.

There are my answers! Feel free to do this tag if you feel like it, and I specifically tag Sofii at A book A thought, Dominique at Dear Dominique, Jade at The Elder Books and Kate at Reading Through Infinity!

 

Until next time,

Noémie