Day: April 29, 2019

Tag: Sunshine Blogger Award (Take 11)

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I was recently nominated by Trisha and Alex for The Sunshine Blogger Award. Thank you so much! ❤

If you’re interested, you can see the previous takes of this award here:
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10

Rules of the award:

  • Thank the blogger who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog.
  • Answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you.
  • Nominate (at least) 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions.
  • List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo in your post and/or on your blog.

11 questions from Trisha:

If you could live in any sitcom, which would it be?

I think I’d live in New Girl. Can you even imagine how much fun it would be? I’d love to have Jess as my BFF. Hanging out with Nick, Schmidt, Coach, and Winston wouldn’t be too bad, either. (And Ferguson!!)

If money were no object, where would you be living?

I’d be living in a spectacularly awesome apartment in Brooklyn!

If you could INSTANTLY become an expert in anything, what would it be?

Can I say something like… not letting things get to me? I’m usually pretty good at that, but I’ve had trouble letting little things go recently. I was mad for longer than I’d like to admit last Friday because a man was super rude to me at work.

Which one is the first book you ever bought?

I’m not really sure! Probably something by Tamora Pierce, I’d guess. I was always at the bookstore with my mom when I was little.

Let’s be honest, which is that series of books that you know you will not finish?

Most of them! I’m very bad about finishing series. It’s more rare for me to finish a series than it is for me to stop it.

If the place you lived in could only experience ONE season forever, what season would you choose?

Summer. My favorite season is actually spring, but with everything blooming comes a lot of pollen, and it just leads to me sneezing over and over and over and over and over again for weeks. With summer, I get nice weather without all that nonsense.

How many unread books do you own?

Overall, I’m not sure, but I counted 75 in my bedroom a couple days ago.

Which authors are on your auto-buy list?

Jenn Bennett, Krista & Becca Ritchie, and R.S. Grey. There are a ton of authors that I want to read everything from, but not a ton of authors that I’ll actually purchase each time.

What’s your favourite bookish map?

Another question that I’m not sure on! I don’t mind fantasy, but it’s not really my favorite genre. I can’t think of any bookish maps that I was really into off the top of my head.

Which fictional character do you think best represents you?

Maybe Belle from In Bed With the Beast. It’s basically a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, so Belle is a nerdy bookworm who’s lived a pretty sheltered life, and I relate a lot.

11 questions from Alex:

Which author, living or dead, would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?

Jenn Bennett!

What is the most popular book or series that you have no intention of reading?

Probably A Song of Ice and Fire? I just have no desire whatsoever to read that series.

Have you ever caused irreparable damage to a book?

Yes, I have dropped books in the bath. 😥 I mean, I guess they dried out, but they look weird.

How do you organise your bookshelves?

My shelves aren’t really organized in any real way. They were sort of a rainbow, but then I decided that I didn’t want to separate series, and it turned out that at least half my books have black spines, so it’s just kind of a jumble right now.

How many unread books do you own?

I just counted a couple days ago and I believe it’s 75!

What is your most anticipated release of 2019?

Darkdawn!

What is one backlist book you *must* read this year?

Oh, I did a whole post about this in January. I’m not doing too great on reading my backlist books, but I am trying. I’m going to say Vengeful because I was so excited to pre-order it and now it’s just been sitting on my shelf forever.

What was your favourite childhood book?

I had many favorites, but the one that’s best stood the test of time is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

How do you get yourself out of a reading slump?

A minor reading slump can be fixed by picking up some audiobooks or graphic novels. I was in a pretty major reading slump from the end of February until the beginning of April, though, and nothing really pulled me out of it until I just one day got over it.

Which of your blog posts are you most proud of?

I don’t do discussion posts really often, but I usually end up feeling pretty proud of myself when I do. Here are some discussion posts I’ve really enjoyed writing:

What is your favourite book cover?

I always have the same answer for this question, which I guess makes sense since it’s my favorite…

WHAT IF IT’S US

I’ve tagged a ton of people recently, so I’m going to take a little break for now. If you want to answer these questions, though, please feel free! I’d love to see your responses. ❤ If you could live anywhere, where would you live? Which backlist book are you most excited to read this year? Let’s talk in the comments!

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Book review: Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia

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Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: December 4, 2018
Source: Borrowed

The children of Alexandria are just trying to live like normal teens, and Ben Schiller is no exception. But her relationship with her best friend is changing, her sister is hiding a dark secret, and tragedy looms. Also: where are all of the parents?

Filled with teenage loves and fights and parties, Sacred Heart is part summer vacation, part End Times anticipation, and a landmark coming-of-age graphic novel. The punk-infused, character-driven storytelling and innate cartooning talent heralds Suburbia as a major new voice in comics.

I popped into my library a couple weeks ago to pick up a different book and saw Sacred Heart sitting on the YA graphic novels table. Since I am, in general, pretty into graphic novels these days, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Well, I was wrong.

It hurt a lot to check it out, because this was just… not good.

Let’s start with the most basic of things you need in a book: the characters. So many of the characters looked so similar that I had a hard time telling them apart even by the end of the book. There are also so many characters involved that I had trouble keeping them all straight! Every character was a different “annoying teenager” stereotype.

Moving on to the actual plot, or maybe I should say the lack of plot: I’m not really sure what the goal was here. There are a number of plot threads here. There’s the fact that all of the adults have disappeared. The constant murders happening throughout the town. The typical sex, drugs, and alcohol mindset of the punk rock scene, which is only intensified because of the lack of parental supervision. There’s a friends-to-lovers plot going on that takes up a big chunk in the middle of the book and is then kind of forgotten about. Any of these ideas could have made for an interesting book, but the problem is that they’re all just kind of left hanging. Even at the end of the book, nothing is resolved.

The only other thing I want to address here is whether this book is age-appropriate for YA. I’m definitely not in favor of any kind of censorship, but I do think it’s important to know that this book is definitely upper, upper, upper YA. Like, constant references to alcohol and drugs. A ton of sex, including full nudity. A pretty steady stream of profanity. I’m a little surprised that my library shelved this in the YA section.

I’m really struggling to find something positive to say about this book. The only thing I can come up with is that it was nice that the main character had a dog. I just can’t recommend this graphic novel at all.

Have you read Sacred Heart? What’s the last book that really disappointed you? Let’s talk in the comments!

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