Real Neat Blog Award

2015 is an awesome year. I received so many awards for my blog and I appreciate every one of them because it shows that my efforts to blog and interact more on here paid off.

In November, I was nominated for the Real Neat Blog Award by Olga at Reading Between Oceans and Amanda at The Literary Counsellor. Thank you both!! 😀

Though the awards Olga and Amanda posted have different logos, the rules are same:

1. Thank and link the person who nominated you.
2. Answer the 7 questions your nominator has provided.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers and create 7 questions for them.

I’ll start with Amanda’s questions:

1. What was the last (work safe) picture you took with your phone/camera? Share it?
   • It is this picture that I recently posted on Instagram.
   • 
2. Do you have a favourite book that no one else seems to know about?
   • I have a few, actually, but I’ll go with Island Song by Alex Wheatle. It focuses on sisters Hortense and Jenny growing up in Jamaica during the 20th century. I read it so long ago that I find it hard to summarize now. I only recall bits and pieces. Definitely need to revisit it.
3. If you were to get any quote tattooed on your body, what would it be?
   • Hmm…hard to say. I don’t think there’s a quote I like so much that I would have a tattoo of it. I change my mind so often that I would quickly tire of such a tattoo and would want to change it.
4. What is something you’ve always wanted to try but have been too scared to?
   • Well, I’ve already did that something, which was to go skydiving. I guess the next one would be to go surfing or parasailing or to snowboard. Yea, one of those.
5. Who is a character from a book that you’ve always resonated with?
   • I can’t say always but recently I read Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor and some of the issues regarding identity and feeling displaced that the protagonist Sunny deals with resonated with me.
6. If you could master one skill you don’t have right now, what would it be?
   • The skill to easily remember things. Is that a skill or an ability a person is born with? I’d love to have that skill.
7. If you could time travel, would you go to the past or the future? Why?
   • Hard question. I’d love to go to the future to see what becomes of me, my friends, and my family, and to see if my theory is true that there will one day be a zombie apocalypse. But I’d also love to revisit the sweet moments in my past that I’ve either forgotten or are slowly fading from memory. I can’t choose.

Next up, Olga’s questions:

1. Drink or snack you enjoy while reading.
   • Tea or hot chocolate, especially on a cold, wintery day. It makes me feel cozy.
2. Ebook, hardcopy, or audiobook?
   • Hard copy, preferably trade paperback.
3. Worst book you’ve read this year.
   • Talon by Julie Kagawa. I gave it two stars to be nice but I didn’t like it and didn’t finish it either.
4. 3 Book to movie/t.v. adaptations you’ve watched this year.
   • None. I don’t think I saw any. My plan to watch Me and Earl and the Dying Girl fell through.
5. Famous author you can’t get into.
   • John Green but I’ve only read one book by him so far. To be fair, I shall give him another chance.
6. Recommend a book from your least favourite genre and one from your favourite genre.
   • Tricky, tricky. Let’s see…from my favorite genre, fantasy, I recommend Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe. It’s the bind up of the Rat Queens comics. From my least favorite genre, science fiction, I recommend Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne.
7. Oldies and newbies. Recommend 2 books published in 1990s and 2 books published in 2000s.
   • Haha! Let’s see…For books published in the 1990s, I recommend Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree. I classify it as a young-adult, contemporary novel, according to today’s standards. Also from the 1990s, I recommend Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo. It’s a wonderful story set in the Caribbean that I need to revisit. It was so hard to find books from the 1990s.  For a book published in the 2000s, I recommend Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley. It’s a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. And also, Rasputin’s Daughter by Robert Alexander. It a historical novel that recounts Rasputin’s life.

I nominate these 7 lovely bloggers:

African Book Addict

Brown Girl Reading

Book Snacks

The Cyborg Knight

Embuhlee liest

Life of a Female Bibliophile

Untamed Shrews

No need to do a post and all that if you don’t want to. However, if you choose to do a post, here are my questions:

1. Do you read horror novels? If so, which one do you recommend?
2. Ever had a vivid dream based on a book you read? Which book was it? Was it one you enjoyed?
3. Which literary novel do you recommend the most?
4. Do you read many mysteries? If you do, do you read the ending and spoil yourself because you can’t stand the suspense?
5. Who’s your favorite writer and why?
6. Who’s your favorite storyteller and why?
7. Do you get angry at all the characters when hungry, even the nice ones?

Congrats to all the nominees! 🙂