#not because its one of Evelyns stereotypes HaHa

[theprinceandthewitch]

Honestly, if you were to tell me a year ago that Hunter's and Willow's arcs would have ended with them holding pinkies with each other I would have called you crazy bc that shit makes no sense for either of them.

[princeoftheroses]

16 17 18 19

16) how many books have you read this year?

so much 8, which is pretty low for me at this time of year. last year at least point i had already ready over twenty books haha... i'm not any more busy than i was last year (in fact i am less busy than i was less year) but i've just been more depressed/having more trouble starting books.

THAT SAID i am reading less books but i will say i have been reading a lot more good books. last year i feel like a lot of the books i had were bad or lackluster. and while not every book i have read this year is good, most of them are!!!

17) top 5 children's books?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

the chronicles of prydain series by lloyd alexander (i know this is 5 books but i'm counting it as one), ella enchanted by gail carson levine, and saffy's angel casson family by are pretty good. saffy's angel also has some sequels because it's a part of the casson family series, but i have mixed feelings on some of them so i'll just leave it at the first one. p.s. longer letter later & its sequel snail mail no more is also pretty good (epistolary novel my love). and OF COURSE. my ULTIMATE favorite children's novel.... anne of green gables by l.m. montgomery .... my childhood comfort book, one of my favorites... just a cute little autistic girl in late 19th century canada finding a family for the first time..........

also i know i already mentioned 5 novels but the giver quartet by lois lowry is pretty solid. well. the first two books in the quartet are, the third is all build up and no good pay-off and the finale is literally one of the worst novels i've ever read, but the first two are solid !!!!!

18) do you like historical books? which time period?

yeah sure i like historical books. i don't have any specific time period i like, i would read anything set in any time period and country as long as it's good. i'm kind of sick of victorian england, tho, but if a book was really good i would forgive it for it.

19) most disliked popular books.

oh god, where do i begin?

recently i read the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor reid and it was literally so disappointing. everybody kept saying how good it was but it really was not. it was so obvious that the author was white. while it was a page-turner, the plot was pretty bad and none of the characters felt real, they were all so badly written. i thought the main love interest was such a horrible, insecure, obnoxious person, but the narrator KEPT fucking tell me how good she was when she really was not. i also thought it played into a lot of stereotypes of bisexual and lesbian people, whether evelyn "refuted" it or not.

everybody who knows me knows how much i hated the shades of magic trilogy by v.e. schwab when i read it. granted, i read it back in 11th grade, but it really made an impression on me. the plot/pacing was so, SO atrocious, wasting so much time on nonsense yet rushing the important bits. a waste of potential on all interesting concepts and characters (heck, the whole main plot concept of multiple londons was a wasted potential that never got to do anything) and the main protagonist lila was so so annoying. i don't usually the terms "mary sue" and "not like other girls" bc i feel like they're overused terms and there are more productive criticisms you can make, but "mary sue" and "not like other girls" is literally ALL lila is and she is so, SO, SOOOOOO fucking annoying and also so white!!! the "diversity" felt like the white author wanted to get points for being so woke or whatever. i think there are more books in this series now but i am still sick of it.

simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda by becky albertalli (the book love simon was based off of) was also really bad. the narrator is such a white asshole. i do understand and feel bad for his struggles as being closed and being forced out of the closet when he wasn't ready for it, but he is just so obnoxious white. he acts like nobody in the world can be more oppressed than him. and even when people go out of their way to support and help him, he still treats them like shit. he treated almost everybody in his life awfully, from his best friend leah to his sister. he is also causally biphobic at a point in the book. his best friend leah was also a fujoshi i believe - or at least, she said she really likes yaoi multiples times and that was really uncomfortable. the ending tries to make it like "wow we shouldn't assume everybody is white" when i'm like "idk i didn't assume everybody was white simon, that was all you, you're kind of assuming the whole audience is white" and it made him even more unlikable.

honorable mentions for bad popular books - the gilded wolves by roshani chokshi, the bone witch by rin chupeco, artistotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe by benjamin alire saenz