Reblog: Guest Post // A Fantasy Fan’s Best Characters to go Questing with

Hey y’all!! Something great happened: Dani invited ME to do a guest blog post on her blog Perspective of a Writer!! 😀

As the title of this post indicates, I wrote about fantasy characters who I’d love to go on a quest with. And, unable to help myself, I wrote all about Robin Hobb characters!! Hahahaaa…!! It was such fun brainstorming the characters and thinking of a quest to go on with them.

Go ahead and check out my guest post over on Perspective of a Writer. I hope it’ll get you interested in trying some of Robin Hobb’s books.

BTW, check out this gorgeous portrait of the Fool that Dani found:

“The Fool” by FloorSteinz

The portrait looks almost exactly as I imagined the Fool when he became Lord Golden in the Tawney Man trilogy (my favorite of Hobb’s books).

According to the artist, she used David Bowie as her reference when creating this portrait. It’s spot on. I think she did a great job. Visit her DeviantArt page to see more of FloorSteinz’s Robin Hobb-inspired work.

Advertisement

Halloween Creatures 2.0 Book Tag

Things didn’t go according to plan. The plan was to post Halloween-themed book tags in the last few days leading up to Halloween, on which I’d post this Halloween book tag. But though my Halloween began in a spectacular fashion (which, unfortunately, I can’t share the details of), I was so exhausted the night before that I was unable to draft this post. That exhaustion continued through Halloween, so I spent most of the day sleeping, unable to watch any of the scary movies I’d planned to see.

But the day after Halloween is just as good for this tag, so tuck in for Halloween Creatures 2.0.

---

This tag has been making the rounds lately. It was created by Anthony at Keep Reading Forward. He reworked the Halloween Creatures Book Tag he created last year to make an updated version with “new creatures, better prompts, and more fun.” I was tagged for this by the Orangutan Librarian.

Witch
A Magical Character or Book

Merlin

Trick or Treat Round the Block | Spooky Scary | Halloween Book Tags

And here are two more book tags to celebrate the coming of Halloween. I’m so excited for the holiday though I’m doing nothing special for it and will most likely be working the night away. I just love the vibe of the holiday: the costumes, the candy, the spookiness, the scary movies. When I get a chance, I’ll do a little research into Halloween. I don’t know much about it, but I have heard some stories that make me think it has a dark beginning.

Anyway, I found both of these tags on the Sassy Book Geek.

---

Trick or Treat Round The Block Book Tag

created by booktuber, the Bookish Porcupine

Creepy house on the corner of the street: Book with a creepy cover

Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics

I have no idea what this book is about, but I think it’s YA horror. The cover creeps me out and makes me think it’s about possession. I got it in a YA quarterly book box couple years ago but I gave it away without reading it. It’s not my sort of thing.

Stranger Things Book Tags

We have a few more days to go before Halloween arrives and to celebrate, I decided to do these two Stranger Things book tags I found. Stranger Things is a paranormal TV show on Netflix about a group kids trying to protect their new friend while trying to find out the cause of the weird occurrences in their town. It’s such an intriguing story, and the kids’ friendship and the setting makes me nostalgic for ’90s movies like The Sandlot and Little Rascals.

If you’d like to watch a show that fits the Halloween theme but isn’t scary, I recommend Stranger Things. The atmosphere of the show makes it perfect for Halloween: dark tones, foggy, creepy vibes, escaped patients from covert government facilities…. It also makes me think of X-Files. It’s a good story and will immediately grab your attention.

---

Stranger Things Book Tag

I found this on Life of a Female Bibliophile. It was created by booktuber Sarah Sunbeemz.

Epic Intro: The opening sequence of Stranger Things is amazing and really grabs your attention. Name a book that grabbed your attention from the first page.

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

BuzzFeed Unsolved Book Tag

It’s book tag week here on Zezee with Books in honor of Halloween. Today I’m featuring the BuzzFeed Unsolved Book Tag, which I found on Wonderless Reviews.

This tag was the first I’d heard of BuzzFeed Unsolved, which is a TV show on YouTube that explores things such as the paranormal occurrences and unsolved crime. The tag was created by booktuber Sarah from the YA Room who’s a fan of the show.

Shaniac: A book you don’t think is deserving of its hype

The Stand by Stephen King

Maybe it’s too early for me to say this since I’m only about 300 pages in and the book has over a thousand pages, BUT I’ve yet to see what’s so great about this book and at 300 pages in I expected to be blown away in some way already. Instead I’m trying to be patient as I wade through all the ramblings and tangents. It’s annoying because it seems with each new character POV, and there are many character POVs, the story feels like it’s starting all over again. I don’t feel as if I’m in the groove of the story; I feel as if I’m stuck at the beginning. It’s frustrating.

“Kintu” by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Here’s the reason why I haven’t posted a review in a while: I’ve been procrastinating on Kintu. Not because I hated the book or because it’s bad. It’s because I enjoyed the book so much and got so much out of it that I needed time to process it all.

When I decided to sit and jot down some thoughts on it, I felt overwhelmed and indecisive. I didn’t know what to say, how much to say, or where to start. But I want to stop procrastinating on it and I want to urge everyone to read it, so as best as I can, I’ll just share what comes to mind as I think back on my reading experience with this book (and hope it all makes sense).

Genre:

Historical; literary; magical realism

Pubbed:

2014 in Uganda; 2017 in the U.S.

Goodreads summary:

Uganda’s history reimagined through the cursed bloodline of the Kintu clan in an award-winning debut.

In 1750, Kintu Kidda unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. In this ambitious tale of a clan and of a nation, Makumbi weaves together the stories of Kintu’s descendants as they seek to break from the burden of their shared past and reconcile the inheritance of tradition and the modern world that is their future. 

Old Books Tag

It’s going to be a tag-filled week to make up for the few weeks that’ve gone by without me posting a tag. Today, I’m here with the Old Books Tag, which was created by booktuber Books and Pieces. So settle in to discuss some stuffy, moldy, old books. 😉

Have you ever bought a book that was made before you were born? (the physical book, not the text)

The Wine of Astonishment by Earl Lovelace

“Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice” by Colum McCann

I told myself I wouldn’t buy another book about writing until I actually started to write. I don’t know what it is, if it’s fear or laziness, but I keep preventing myself from writing what I want to write. I’ll sit down with the intention to jot down the story in my head, but I either run away from the empty page, or write a few pages worth of stuff, get anxious, and run away. I don’t know what my problem is.

When I saw McCann’s Letters to a Young Writer in the bookstore, I couldn’t walk away from it. I was pulled toward it. I picked it up. I skipped the intro and read the first essay, I held it away from myself wondering if I should buy it, I walked around the store with it in hand, I paid and left with it. The title harkens to Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which I read off and on one summer in New York, and that made McCann’s book seem promising. He will surely get me writing, I thought.

But McCann is frank about what he can’t do for us and what we can do for ourselves. He mentions in his introduction a statement he includes on his syllabus at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he teaches in the MFA program — that he can’t teach his students anything. He can’t teach us how to write (or make us write), but he can guide us and allow us to do what we most want to do. And in this book, he is sincere, though frank, as he advises us on writing.

“Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood” by Trevor Noah

It’s been such a long time since I’ve done a book review that I feel as if I’ve forgotten how to write one.

“Where most children are proof of their parents’ love, I was the proof of their criminality.”

I picked up Born a Crime in March and read it sporadically until I got hooked and completed it in a few days last month. I don’t often read celebrity bios, but this one caught my attention because there was a lot of buzz about it and it was featured in the New York Times Books section. Plus, Trevor Noah is cute. His winking dimples compelled me to read his book.

Noah is a comedian and the host of the Daily Show, a satirical news talk show that airs on Comedy Central. I hardly watch the show and haven’t seen it since Noah took over from its previous host Jon Stewart, but I’ve heard it’s great. Prior to the Daily Show, I did not know of Trevor Noah. The few times I’ve heard him speak, I assumed he was British. I never would have guessed that he’s from South Africa, which I learned by reading reviews of Born a Crime.

Sunshine Blogger Award, Pt. 3

I’m in a happy mood and since it’s April, meaning rain and overcast weather because of Spring and her waters, I’ve decided to do this award post to brighten my blog. I was nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award by Green Onion, whose blog I love. Take a look at his crazy tea party post, which I’m sure got way outta hand very quickly.

To accept this award, I must:

• Thank the person(s) who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog.
• Answer the 11 questions sent by the person who nominated you
• Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions
• List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or on your blog.

Green’s questions:

Can you describe your ideal man-cave/woman-cave/library, and what kind of things we would find in there?

Hmm… let’s go with my ideal apartment, which I do not have. It would be situated in a city that’s easy to traverse on foot and by public transport (though public transport will sometimes be very crappy because of numerous delayed trains and other BS) and that has lots of museums that I can visit for free. My apartment will be a cozy place swathed in the colors of the sea. It will have books and art everywhere and will have a subtle scent of jasmine in the air. I doubt there will be a TV or many chairs, but there will be a laptop and cushions galore. And no matter the time of day, my apartment will be the best spot to watch the sun set or rise.