Book Tag: The Lunar New Year Book Tag

To everyone who is celebrating

I am happy to be celebrating with The Lunar New Year Book Tag, which was created by Tiff@Mostly YA Lit and  Joey @ Thoughts and Afterthoughts.

There are so many books being released by authors I love, but since I am forced to pick one, I would pick Fall Boys & Dizzy in Paradise by Jandy Nelson. Both of Nelson's previous works, I'll Give You the Sun and The Sky is Everywhere, were exquisite, and I cannot wait to read more from her.

Confession: I am not a re-reader. I don't re-watch TV shows or movies, and I do not re-read. So, I am going to go with an author who's books always give me comfort. I have a short of list of authors who fit this bill, but I am going to say Kasie West and I am really excited because KWest has two new books coming out this year. Yeah!

For me, it would be attending a bookish event. Back in 2015, we just could not get enough of cons and book festivals. On a whim, I decided to go to YALLFest. The actual festival is free, and the ticketed events were very cheap, but the airfare and the hotel were $$$$$$. I am so glad I went, because it is a fantastic event. Charleston is beautiful, the crowd was awesome, the panels were fantastic, and I even brought back some amazing ARCs. All in all, an amazing experience.

This is such a hard question. One author, who's work I really enjoyed and I heard she will soon give us the third book in her series, is Shana Abe. Her writing is gorgeous and her storytelling is amazing. I totally love all her books.

I am a big fan of Rae Carson, because she writes these phenomenal female characters. I loved Lee Westfall from The Gold Seer Trilogy. She was strong, resilient, and self sacrificing. Another kick ass heroine to add to the list. 

I am going WAAAAY back for this one, and selecting Go Ask Alice.  I read this book almost 30 years ago, and can still remember how gritty, real, and powerful the book was. **When I was looking this up on GoodReads I just had my mind blown by finding out it was actually written by a therapist and NOT an actual teen diary. 

Gosh. I love sweet romances, and have read tons of them. One author I can count on for an adorable romance is Jennifer E Smith. One of my favorites is This is What Happy Looks Like. I just looked at my original review, and it was simply: "I did not want it to end. I want more of G and E!", and then JES went and gave me a follow-up novella, which was touch and go, but ended up making me warm and fuzzy in the end.

I love books with royalty, and one of my recent faves was My Lady Jane. This book was so witty and fun. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. 

The Thousandth Floor was filled with manipulative characters. This book had that soapy appeal with characters that you love to hate, but a stand out in this book was Leda. She was so damaged. I am looking forward to the next book in this series. 

Three of my top five 2016 books were standalones, but since I can only choose one, I will pick one that I want to get more love - We Are Still Tornadoes. This book hit all the right notes for me. It made me laugh, cry, and sigh. It was just a beautiful story of love and friendship and I want everyone to experience it. 

This is the true struggle for me, because I am such a cover-ho. I unabashedly judge books by their covers, and am totally attracted to beautiful ones. There are A LOT of lovely covered books on my TBR, but I shall select one I read, and I select the entire Starbound series. Every one of these covers is a veritable feast for the eyes, and the series was incredible as well. 

This is not even a recent character, but one that stands out nonetheless. I loved Hassan from An Abundance of Katherines. He was so funny and stole every scene he was in. 

This was a challenge and a lot of fun to do. Yay! I completed my first book tag, and if you are reading this, I invite you to participate in this wonderful book tag.