Contradictions Book Tag

Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog! 

Today's post is completely inspired by the "Books Unbound" Podcast. This week's episode was the Contradictions Book Tag and I found it so fun, I decided to do the tag myself. You can check out the original tag here. 

Okay, without any further ado, let's get started! 

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1. I love this genre, but I didn't like this book

We all know that I love fantasy, but I well and truly disliked Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Of course, that's mainly due to the fact that I just don't vibe with Neil Gaiman's writing style, since everything I've read by him I've disliked, but that's just semantics. It took me forever (by my standards) to finish Good Omens, and even then I was really struggling with myself to actually pick it up and read. It was also the book that officially turned me off from Gaiman's writing.

2. I rarely read this genre, but I loved this book

For this question I chose romance, because I can count on one hand the number of true romance books I've read. I try to avoid the genre as much as possible, and also tend to avoid other books if they are especially romance heavy (looking at you, YA fantasy). But there is an exception to every rule, and for me that is Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I guess I can also add One Last Stop to this as well, but I didn't like that one nearly as much as their first novel. I've reread this book at least four times if not more, and it is one of my favorite books of all time. I love pretty much everything about it, even though its campy and makes me cringe at times.

3. I love this trope, but I didn't like this book

I always enjoy the "Anastasia" trope, or the secret royalty trope. It's one that I always find fascinating, maybe because as a child I always wished that I was a secret princess (let me tell you, when I found out that my family is a very distant relation to the late Princess Diana, I screamed about it for days). So imagine my surprise when I ended up nearly DNF'ing Fireborne by Rosaria Munda. And it wasn't just the secret royalty trope, by all accounts I should have loved this book, it had everything that usually makes a favorite for me: dragons, rebellion, academic setting, etc. But I don't know, it just didn't click with me.

4. I hate this trope, but I loved this book

Most of the tropes I dislike are romance tropes, so I tried to pick something outside of that genre. Something that really frustrates me is the non-permanent death trope. I mean, really, no one can actually come back to life after they are well and truly dead, so why add that in your books? It makes no sense to me. But despite that, I still loved Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas. The entire plot of the book is that Julian is dead, but no, he's not really dead after all! I will admit that that part did rankle me, but not enough to influence my five-star rating at the end of the day.

5. I love this author, but I didn't like this book

I chose the author Sayaka Murata for this question, because I really liked her book Convenience Store Woman but absolutely hated her newest release, Earthlings. There were so many triggering things in this book, plus it got super weird, like even too weird for me, by the end. I sat there for at least twenty minutes after finishing it wondering "what the fuck did I just read?" So yeah, that was really not for me. I'm definitely still going to keep on reading her books, though. 

6. I previously disliked this author, but I loved this book

For this question I chose Samantha Shannon. I had DNF'd The Bone Season by her, but her fantasy standalone The Priory of the Orange Tree ended up being a five-star book for me. And then, just to see if it was a me thing before, I tried reading The Bone Season again, and still ended up DNF'ing it. If she ever ends up writing something in the Priory world again, I'll read it in a heartbeat, but I have no interest in her other works.

7. I love this cover, but I didn't like the book

People From My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami was the first book I read this year, and I really didn't like it. But I mean, look at that cover! This book cover is so aesthetically pleasing to me, from the color pink to the green of the title and the doll-like houses, everything about it screams "this book is for you!" Sadly that was not the case.

8. I hate this cover, but I liked the book

I chose Victoria Schwab's book The Archived for this question, specifically the first cover. It's really just classic 2010s YA and the cover definitely reflects that. Honestly, if I hadn't read most of V.E. Schwab's backlist before picking this up, I don't think I ever would have read it because the cover just doesn't reach out to me. And really that would've been a terrible thing because I truly do love The Archived and its sequel The Unbound, but yeah, this cover just isn't it.

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Okay, that's the end of the tag! I want to know: what book did you fully expect to love/hate, but ended up thinking the opposite? Let me know in the comments or tweet at me @AllyEmReads.

Until next time!