Bump in the Night Book TAG!

BUMP IN THE NIGHT TAG
Ok, I know this tag went around last Halloween, so it’s kind of old news now, but I wasn’t blogging last Halloween, so I’m doing it now. 
1) Which are your favorite supernatural/horror/scary characters to read about? (e.g. vampires, werewolves, witches, monsters, serial killers, murderers etc).
Gotta go with vampires. Most of my favorite books have vampires in them. I love the fact that everybody has a different idea of who they are and what they’re like.
I also really enjoy Greek Mythology in general, I love all of Rick Riordan’s Greek Mythology books, and I really enjoyed Jennifer Armentrout’s Covenant series. The subject fascinates me for some reason. However, you could argue that despite all the monsters, it’s not really supernatural.
2) Which scene from any book would be your ultimate nightmare to have been part of?
Re-education from Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead. The primary problem with it isn’t the physical toll, though there certainly is one. It’s the fact that it’s built to screw with your mind. It’s basically a brain-washing facility, and I don’t think I would do very well there. Although I highly doubt it could make me stop loving the Moroi 🙂
3) If you could visit and explore any one scary or evil setting which would you pick and why?
I’m not really one for scary places. And a lot of the books I read don’t have very terrifying places in them. But, since I have to choose, I’m going to go with the Underworld. Not the Percy Jackson Underworld either, because except or Tartarus, I don’t think that Underworld is particularly scary. And even then, it’s not Tartarus itself necessarily that’s scary there. It’s how twisted the monsters there are. No, I want to go to the Underworld from Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series. Even though it’s super freaky, the description of it fascinated me.
4) Which book was so frighteningly terrible that you almost fell asleep for eternity trying to finish it?
I’ve actually “almost fell asleep” with multiple books, but that’s probably because I read a lot at night. Normally for a book that I couldn’t get through I would say Origin, but I’m realizing that my TAGS are getting kind of repetitive in that aspect, so I decided to choose something new. Unfortunately, that’s a lot harder than it sounds. So I’m going to kind of twist the question a little. One book that took me forever  to finish is the first Vampire Academy. Not that I don’t love the series. It is actually one of my absolute favorite series. Ever. But I put down the book multiple times before I actually read it through. And then I picked it up multiple time to re-read it.
5) Name one book you wish you could pull certain pages out of and swap for others to make it better?
Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I really think more people would’ve read this series if it wasn’t for this book. It was so hard to get into. I mean, Lena was just awful, and it was so slow. The only reason I got through it was because I read it for a book group I was in. I enjoyed the other books, and I really liked the end of this book, but I would definitely swap out the first half of it.
6) If you could turn any ‘bad or evil’ character into a good character, who would you pick and why?
Luke Castellan from Percy Jackson. I wish I could have saved him before Kronos gained control. Because I totally get how he turned out the way he did, and I can’t find it in myself to hate him for it. I mean, I’d want to wait to save him until Percabeth happened, because I do not think it would be awesome if Luke ended up with Annabeth. I probably would’ve put him with Thalia. But it doesn’t really matter because he  gets possessed by Kronos and ends up sacrificing himself to save Olympus.
Quick fire round:
1) Favorite vampire character?
Adrian Ivashkov. I have so many to choose from, because I read a lot of vampire books, but it will always be Adrian from Vampire Academy and Bloodlines.
2) Favorite werewolf character?
THIS QUESTION IS PURE EVIL! How the heck am I supposed to pick a favorite? I’m just going to have to cheat on this one and do a top five. In case you’re wondering, these are not in order of favorites.
Remus Lupin from Harry Potter
 Asil from Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
Walter from Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
Isaac from Fair Game by Patricia Briggs (Maybe my number one?)
Sam from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs (Note I said Sam, not Samuel)
3) Favorite witch character?
I have read the Harry Potter series, but for me, it’s a toss-up between Yeva from Vampire Academy and Moira from Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs. (Sorry, Hermione 😦 )
4) Favorite monster character? 
I would say Bob or Tyson from the Percy Jackson series, but I hate to consider them monsters, so I’m going to go with Xemerius from the Ruby Red trilogy because he’s so funny. He’s a gargoyle demon and I love him. (But I can think of him as a monster, because I think he’d be offended if I didn’t.) He’s my favorite character in the series, except for maybe Gwenyth’s little brother.
5) Favorite ghost character?
I’ve only read one book where ghosts were the main focus, so *SPOILER ALERT FOR VAMPIRE ACADEMY* Mason, as a ghost, because I loved him when he was alive, and he was so helpful as a ghost, and I felt so bad for him.
6) Favorite serial killer/murderer character?
I’m going to go with Katsa from Graceling by Kristin Cashore. She starts out as, for lack of better word, a hit man for her uncle, the king. She obviously has some serious character development, which is one of my favorite things about Kristin Cashore’s writing: she writes strong female narrators who develop without losing their strength. As far as I remember, Katsa only kills one person in the book, but she probably killed a lot more for her uncle. This book is kind of underrated, but I would recommend it to just about everybody.

Book Scavenger Hunt

And even more book tags! I originally saw this one on polandbananasBOOKS as well. This tag was created by TheLibraryOfSarah.

1.Find an author’s name or title with the letter Z in it.
The Spiderwick Chronicles by  Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. I haven’t read this series, so I can’t say anything about it.

2.Find a classic.
(Because it’s not like I have a special corner of my bookshelf for classics or anything.) I chose Emma, because I think that’s the classic I’m going to read this summer.

bitterblue3. Find a book with a key on it.sarah's key
My first thought was Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore. I love her books and wish she wrote more than three. But more importantly, Bitterblue has a beautiful cover with three stylized keys. Unfortunately, I don’t have this book, so I chose Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, which I’ve never read, and don’t have any immediate plans to read. I do love the cover though, because I love books with keys on the cover.  (P.S. I didn’t even think of it, but Jeremy Fink and the meaning of life has an awesome cover with a bunch of keys hanging on it. I really hope to read this book soon.)

 

4. Find something on your bookshelf that’s not a book.
A rose lollipop. I got it for Valentine’s Day and it was to pretty to eat.

5. Find the oldest book on your shelf
Publication-wise, probably one of my Nancy Drew books. I had a bit of a Nancy Drew obsession for a little while when I was younger. Otherwise though, probably one of my classics.

fangirl6. Find a book with a girl on the cover
Probably at least half of my books have a girl on the cover. At the very least. I chose Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell because I love it and it has both the word girl and a picture of Cath, the main character. So there.

 

 

7. Find a book that has an animal in itThe_titan's_cursemark of athena
UMMMMM. Do humans count? We’re animals right? I don’t think so. Um. Um. UMMMMMM. It seriously took me like ten minutes to give up and choose a book with a dragon on the cover, and now, typing this up, it takes me three seconds to think of this and realize that at least three of my books have pegasi, or at least a pegasus on them, and that’s basically a horse. Funny how that works. Kind of sad really.

 

8. Find a book with a male protagonist
Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The whole series is in Ethan’s perspective, as he’s the protagonist. I only chose the third one because it’s the only one I currently own.

9. Find a book with only words on it
Fair Game by Patricia Briggs. At one point, it had a picture of Charles and Anna on it, but I lost the dust jacket, so now all it has is the title and author’s name on the side and the author’s initials on the cover.

10. Find a book with illustrations in it
The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. It has a picture at the beginning of every chapter.

11. Find a book with gold lettering
Fire by Kristin Cashore. Like Bitterblue and Graceling, it has a beautiful cover with gold lettering for the title.

12. Find a diary (true or fictional)
Maggie by Ann M. Martin. As a little kid (third/fourth grade) I loved her Main Street series, but she actually writes a lot of teen/YA books. Maggie is the journal/diary of a thirteen year old, although when I read it, I though she was a couple years older.

13.Find a book written by someone with a common name (like Smith)
Took me forever, but mission accomplished. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I’ve heard nothing but glowing reviews, but when I tried to read it, I got a couple chapters in and that was the end of it. I hope to pick it up again sometime, but I don’t really have any immediate plans to do it, so there’s no telling when it will get done.

north of beautiful

14. Find a book that has a closeup of something on it. 

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley has a close-up of Terra’s face, with her hair covering her port-wine Stain, and a close-up of a compass kind of faded on top of it.

15. Find a book on your shelf that takes place in the earliest time period
If medievil time periods count, Steal the Dragon or Fire. Otherwise, one of my classics.

16. Find a hardcover book without a jacket200px-Grimgrotto
My copy of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner doesn’t have a dust jacket because I got rid of it. However, none of my hardcover Lemony Snicket books even came with dust jackets. The cover image is printed on the book itself, and it looks super awesome. The book on the right is the eleventh in the series. I just got the hardcover for my birthday.
the lost hero17. Find a teal/turquoise colored book
The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I love the color on this. A lot of people when they think teal or turquoise think of what I see as sea foam, so I’m not sure if it exactly fits the description, but I think it does and that’s what matters. On this copy of the book, the color is a little more blue, but mine is more teal.

18. Find a book with stars on it

I don’t have a book with stars on the cover, so I settled for The End, which is the thirteenth and final book in Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, because it has stars/asterisk things on the spine.

19. A Non-YA book. (I don’t know if this was on the original, but it was on all the videos I watched)
Children’s: The entire PJO series. I love it so so SO much, and I’m almost positive it’s classified as a children’s book series.

My Life in Books Tag

More book tags! I got my braces yesterday, so today I’m staying home feeling miserable, and I thought it might lift my spirits to do another book tag, because I really enjoy them. Also, all but one of my siblings are elsewhere, and the one that is here is reading a really good book, so it’s pretty quiet. I decided to do the My Life in Books tag. I don’t know who created it, but I saw it on polandbananasBOOKS, my favorite booktube channel ever.

1. Pick a book that starts with each of your initials.
B (Brooke): Bloodlines by Richelle Mead. The first book in the Sydney/Adrian spin-off of Vampire Academy.
L (Lynn): Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. My current favorite contemporary.
M (May): Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. First book in the Mercy Thompson series.
H: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Probably my favorite of the Harry Potter books I’ve read.

2. Count your age starting at the top of your bookshelf. What book do you get?
When I did this (my bookshelf has been rearranged since then) it was Sunshine by Robin McKinley on my standalone shelf. I got this book as a gift forever ago, and I really want to read it, but it’s still sitting there on my TBR list. On my series shelf, I got Twilight. 

3. Find a book that takes place in your city/state country.
A lot of the books I read take place in the U.S. I would say at least a good 90% of them, so I decided to find one that takes place in my state, and for that I got Love and Blueberries by Casey Clark Kelley, which isn’t a really popular book, but I really enjoyed it, and it takes place in the state I live in so. . .

4. Pick a book that represents a place you’d love to travel.
I chose Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series. I don’t want to go to Hades or Tartarus, but I would love to go to Camp Half-Blood if it was a real place. Also, if I wasn’t afraid of flying or traveling across the ocean, I would love to go to Greece or Rome. Or Anna and the French Kiss. I would love to go to SOAP/Paris.

5. Pick a mark of athenabook that has your favorite color on it.house of hades
I, like a lot of other people, do not have a favorite color. So I chose Mark of Athena or House of Hades for this answer, because ithas a lot of colors on it, and I just think that the covers to the Heroes of Olympus series are amazing. I know, I chose this series for
the last answer, but it’s amazing and the covers are amazing, and I love them.

6. Which book do you have the fondest memories of?
So many people say Harry Potter for this, but for me, it’s definitely the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I loved them so much when I was younger, and I still love them. Not that I noticed much as a little kid, but Lemony Snicket is a genius, and there are so many lessons in his books, and great writing techniques, and I just think they’re awesome, even if they are children’s books. (Because to be honest, I still love a lot of children’s books.)

7. What book did you have the most difficulty reading?
The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima. I’ve heard so many good things about this series, but I still haven’t even gotten through the first one, especially because of all the other books on my TBR.

8. Which book on your TBR list will give you the most satisfaction when you read it?
This is a toss-up between a classic and the Harry Potter series. It’ll be awesome that I’ve read a classic, and that I’ll be able to say that, but it’s kind of sad to me that I still haven’t read more than the first four books in the Harry Potter series, and I’ve had them for so long.