The Liebster Award #2

Thank you to londiniumgirlbooks for nominating me for the Liebster Award! It means so much to me.

Here are the rules:

• link back and thank the blogger(s) who nominated you.
• answer the eleven questions they give you
• tag up to eleven bloggers who have 200 or less followers
• ask your nominees eleven questions and let them know you tagged them!

I’m not going to nominate anyone. Everyone that I wanted to nominate has already received the award, so I’m leaving this open to anyone who wants to participate. BreAnn’s questions are really good, so fell free to also answer them and pass this award along to people you feel deserve it. 

1. What is the most overrated book or book series?

Anything by Rick Riordan. Seriously, I liked his first Percy Jackson series, but as soon as he announced that his next series was going to have basically exactly the same premise I lost respect for him. It felt too much like a play for more money (like when movie companies make sequels instead of risking money on creating and marketing a new movie). I know a ton of people are obsessed with the books, but I feel like there are a lot better books out there to read.

2. Do you usually buy your books, borrow them from friends/family, or rent them from the library? 

Buy them. My sister and I pool all of the gift cards we get for Christmas/birthdays and use the money the rest of the year to buy books. I love owning physical books, even if it ends up taking some money out of my pocket (and if I need to get creative on how to store them in my small bedroom).

3. Physical books or eBooks-which do you prefer? Or do you like both?

Physical books, no question. I love the feeling of holding a book, and I have this habit of playing with the pages of a book as I read it–which you can’t do with ebooks. Reading on screens isn’t my thing, and from a practical standpoint, since I do most of my reading at school, ereaders would probably be stolen or not allowed by my more controlling teachers.

4. Weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

Oooh, tough question. I’ve used receipts, scraps of paper, Post-It notes, tissues (unused, of course). Recently, I’ve actually started using a real bookmark that one of my (amazing) friends made me. In a kind of backwards way, I think using a real bookmark for long periods of time is weirder for me than using anything lying around.

5. Favorite book based solely on appearance?

The Knife of Never Letting Go (and the rest of the Chaos Walking trilogy) by Patrick Ness. The covers fit the books to well. They come off very plainspoken and simple, but they fit the books perfectly, and they are gorgeous, in my opinion.

6. Favorite character from any book?

That’s gotta be Eugenides from Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series. Gen is loveable, frustrating, childish, ageless, and brilliant. So much fun to read, and with the perfect amount of character development over the course of the series. You never know what is going on in his head until he slowly reveals his plots and you realize once again that he is a freaking genius. I love him.

7. Where do you do most of your reading?

At school, when I’ve finished my classwork, especially after tests. Or in this wonderful chair in my living room that is exactly the right size to curl up in.

8. Who is the worst (as in the most badly written) character you’ve ever encountered?

I don’t think I can answer this. I tend to get rid of books I hate, so I don’t even know where to start with this.

9. What’s the oldest book you own?

Wow. I don’t know how to answer this one either. I have my mom’s copy of The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe from when she was in elementary school. A lot of the books I bought during my elementary school obsessed-with-ancient-Egypt phase are old as well. I also have a lot of Agatha Christie books that I bought second-hand, so I have no idea how old they are.

10. Name a book you love, but think its cover is despicable. Why do you hate the cover so much?

Such a hard choice! I hate a lot of book covers when they just don’t match a book–they are so obviously marketing ploys to get people to buy the books, even if the intriguing image doesn’t relate at all. Despicable is a strong word, but I’ll go with either the cover of Vampire Academy (#1) or the Throne of Glass series covers.

The VA cover just looks like a badly-taken selfie that’s trying to be sexy–which doesn’t tie into the book very much. Plus, the series lends itself to such amazing covers, and this seems like a waste of potential.

The Throne of Glass covers are pretty but don’t match the book at all–they make it look like a sci-fi-esque series, instead of a fantasy one. Plus, the girl on the cover doesn’t look anything like what Celaena is supposed to look like. Again, this series had so many options for amazing and accurate covers.

Okay, rant over.

11. What is the largest (actual size or page numbers) book you own or have ever read?

Probably The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray. So freaking long. So emotionally tormenting. So amazing.