The Thanksgiving Book Tag
Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog!
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers out there! Growing up, Thanksgiving was one of my favorite holidays because it was one of three times a year that my entire family (my mom's side, anyway) gathered together and ate good food (the others were Easter and Christmas, naturally). Once I stopped eating meat Thanksgiving became less of a favorite simply because I couldn't eat as many things, but I still always enjoyed what was available. Thanksgiving dinner with my family was always very traditional: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. It was usually a full day event, with games for the kids and the Macy's parade playing in the background.
Nowadays Thanksgiving is much more subdued. Since my grandparents passed and my parents and I moved away, it became a bit of an interim holiday. I believe this year, we are having lasagna (which I won't ever protest, because I love my mom's lasagna and she always makes it vegetarian for me).
So in order to put myself in the holiday mood (something I desperately need this year) I thought I would do a tag! This is the Thanksgiving Book Tag, which is actually two tags sort of mashed together. I pulled questions from this tag by Fangirlscity from 10 years ago, and this tag from Anna's Book Nook from 5 years ago.
Let's just get into it!
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1. Friends and Family: a book with characters that feel like family
2. Fallen Leaves: a book that fell flat
Let's go with a recent read: The Age of Magic by Ben Okri. This was honestly so disappointing! I read this for the World Tour Book Club over on Fable, and I'm not the only one who felt this way. It started off really strong, but then just went absolutely nowhere. Very upsetting.
3. Thanksgiving Dinner: a book that you want to read every year during this season
I don't know if I have a specific book, but I do know that the fall into winter months are prime high fantasy reading time. Winter especially feels like a time where I just want to curl up with a ginormous epic fantasy, like the Stormlight Archive or The Name of the Wind. Of course, I don't really get a proper winter in Phoenix, but it's the thought that counts.
4. Turkey: a book that made you fall asleep
Is it bad if I talk about my current read? Because I'm struggling to finish The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. This is doubly sad because I absolutely loved The Name of the Wind which is book one in this series, and The Wise Man's Fear is book two. I just think the story has been spread too wide, so there are parts that I found very boring. I will be finishing this book, I only have 200 pages left, but this won't be anything higher than a 4 star, I think.
5. Dinner Rolls: a book that melted your heart and made you feel warm
I'm not really a cozy reader, unfortunately. I get very bored with low-stakes stories, something that is just fluff. The closest book I can think of for this question is Heartstopper by Alice Oseman. There are a lot of serious topics in this graphic novel series, but these characters just make me feel so seen and safe.
6. Mashed Potatoes: a book that looked good but then wasn't
This question makes me laugh so hard because I'm so used to a "mashed potato" book being a book you want to read so badly that you end up putting it off while waiting for the right time, as per the Books Unbound definition. My most recent mashed potato book was probably The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu. It wasn't bad by any means, but I went in with high expectations and they just weren't met. I feel like everyone who has read this has nothing but praise for this book and this series, but I found it very mid.
7. Gravy: a book that made the whole series worth it
I'm sorry if you guys are tired of me talking about the Stormlight Archive, but I'm going to talk about the Stormlight Archive again. Words of Radiance is, hands down, the best book in the series (so far). I know this is a really intimidating series for a lot of people since each book is over 1,000 pages, but when I tell you that Words of Radiance makes you want to blow through this series, I mean it. The character development alone makes this whole series worth it, but also the worldbuilding, the lore developments, and the plot twists all make this book (and this series) one of the best written stories I have ever read.
8. Green Beans: a long book that needed to be shortened
We all know I'm a fan of big books, so it isn't very often that I think a book should have been shortened. Most of the time I'm lamenting that a book needed to be longer. However, there is an exception to every rule, and for me that is absolutely 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I know that I DNF'd this book, but the sentiment still stands. This book did not need all of those useless chapters and descriptions. I feel like this book could have easily cut 300 pages and still have gotten the story across. Very big oof.
9. Pumpkin Pie: a book that got you out of a reading slump
The most recent book that pulled me out of a slump or the downward spiral leading to a slump was probably I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I wasn't in a slump per say, but I did just come off of reading Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan and I did not enjoy my time with it. I knew that if I didn't read something that I would absolutely love after reading this, I would fall into a slump. It was a bit of a gamble picking up I Who Have Never Known Men since I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it, but it paid off in full since this ended up being one of my favorites of the year.
10. Black Friday: the top five books on your "want to buy" list
Oh boy...okay let's just list them real quick. There are a couple books that I'm just waiting for the paperback to come out to buy it, so I won't mention those, and I also won't mention anticipated releases since I'm not able to purchase them yet.
Frankenstein: the 1818 Text by Mary Shelley. I have a copy of Frankenstein but it's not my favorite edition, and so I really want to get the 1818 text specifically. I want to reread and annotate this book soon.
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar. This is a nonfiction about the Roman emperor Hadrian, who famously made it all the way to the UK during his reign. We all know that I'm a Greco-Roman girlie and I love learning new things in that history.
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas. This is a Norwegian classic that I've been wanting to read since I heard Emma talk about it. Despite being Norwegian (and proud of it!) I haven't read any books from Norway, and I consider that a personal failure.
The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. This is Hargrave's YA novel, and normally I wouldn't want to buy a YA book before reading it since I've been finding myself falling away from YA the past few years, but I'm making an exception for this book since I've read both of this author's adult works and I know I really love her writing. However, this book is nowhere to be found!
Prometheus Unbound by Percy Shelley. Bookending this list with the Shelleys, how perfect! This is a retelling of Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, which I read earlier this year. This is (again) an Emma recommendation, and honestly I trust her pretty much wholeheartedly, especially when it comes to classics.
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And that's all for this tag! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and are ready for the final month of the year. I know that I'm slightly panicking that there are only a few weeks left of 2024, there are still so many things that I need to get done before the year is over. December is going to be wild!
Until next time!
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