Today we are smashing (the patriarchy) and passing (our classes) in the Smash or Pass Book Tag! This was created by Becky’s Book Blog. I’ve been seeing this tag a lot recently and have been very excited to give it a go.
We’re being speedy with this today though because I’ve been at my dads all weekend and haven’t had a chance to watch the newest episodes of Daisy Jones & The Six and I need to catch up asap.
Bookish Tropes
While I’m not a huge fan of romance books being diluted down to just a bunch of tropes and no actual plot, I’m gonna have to smash this one cause there are more than a fair few tropes that I’m a sucker for: grumpy/sunshine, bad boy, billionaire, there’s only one bed, etc.
Today I am feeling accomplished. My room is tidy and my washing is drying. I’ve not only fed myself with an actual meal instead of just eating snacks, I even made a meal plan for the week. I can almost pretend like my life is organised.
Another thing I’ve accomplished is finishing Alice Oseman’s backlist!!! The other day I finally read Radio Silence, the last Oseman book I had left to read. I really enjoyed this book, so much that I read it in one day. Sure I love the Heartstopper graphic novels but Oseman’s novels have been hit or miss for me so I was super chuffed.
To celebrate I come to you today with a tag I’ve been saving especially for this moment: the Osemanverse Book Tag!
I know it’s late Janaury/early February so this tag may be slightly passed it’s metaphorical sell-bye date but I am an absolute sucker for end and beginning of the year content – wrapping up and looking ahead – so we’re just going to pretend like I got around to this a bit earlier than I did.
Not only that, but I was actually tagged by Dini @ DiniPandaReads so of course I had to do it eventually!!
How many books are you planning to read in 2023?
I have set my reading goal for the year to 75 books but my internal goal for myself is to hit 100 books for the third year in a row. I like to low-ball so that it’s still a goal I have to work towards which will motivate me to read more, but won’t suck the joy out of reading for me. So far I’ve read 7 books so I think I’m on a good track at the minute!
Name 5 books you didn’t get to this year but want to make a priority in 2023.
The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas // Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie // The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston // Better Than The Movies by Lynn Painter // Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie
I’ve done my fair share blog posts centering around books I didn’t get to and still want to read whether that be with my 12 books for 12 months TBR or my very long list of 2022 releases I didn’t get to but still want to read. And yet, there’s still even more books that I really want to get to sooner rather than later.
As you can tell by the title of today’s post, I am here to do the Spotify Wrapped Book Tag. I saw Laura @ The Corner of Laura do this tag and it seemed fun so I thought I’d give it a try.
The idea of this challenge is to put your 2022 playlist on shuffle, and for the first five songs, you need to pick a book you read in 2022 that fits that song. It doesn’t have to be a perfect fit. You just have to explain why you chose that book for that song.
Gonna be completely honest with you, my Spotify Wrapped was bad last year. All five of my top songs were by Conan Grey – I’m not ashamed by the artist, I will happily wave the Conan Grey flag, he’s actually pretty underrated, I’m just ashamed that all five of my top five songs were his … with Life is a Highway just missing out with it’s 6th place slot.
And then we have the fact that Spotify literally called me a “basic bitch” by describing my music tastes as “pumpkin-spice”. Now THAT is what I’m most ashamed of. So ashamed in fact that I created a whole new playlist called “Don’t Be a Basic Bitch” so this never happens to me again. I’m nervous to see what songs end up being picked for this tag!
Songs 1: Lately by Forrest. Biskwiq, Ryce
Starting off with a song that possibly makes me look like a complete and utter liar about the whole “basic bitch” thing. This book doesn’t even have a music video out so I don’t think many people know about it which is actually a crime because this is a really fun song. At one point it was my go to shower song and you bet your ass I would sing it at the top of my lungs.
For this song I’m choosing the book … Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl by Joya Goffney
I’m terrible at like actually paying attention to lyrics but the vibe I get from this song is that it’s about a couple that have just recently got together which kinda (eventually) fits the romance in this novel. There’s also specific lyrics that make me think of Monique and Reggie like:
“anytime of day that you wanna play you just say the word and we’ll get away // anything you want, know I got it for you” – which reminds me of Reggie helping Monqiue kind of figure herself out and get away from the things she’s been taught.
“opposites attract // picture perfect, photogenic” – she’s the perfect daughter of a preacher, he’s a supposed bad boy.
“you were the piece I was missin no reason for livin // oh I’m thankful that you’re mine, I’m so blessed you’re by my side” – I can’t remember so much for Reggie’s storyline, but Reggie and Sasha were defintely what Monique was missing in her life beforehand.
After a 24 hour travel day, a flight delay making me miss my connection which meant I had to spend the night in Germany, and then sleeping through my alarms and my parents phone calls the next morning, I am finally home!!
Not only am I home but my dad also got home from work today which means the whole family is back together and it’s officially Christmas!
This calls, of course, for one thing and one thing only: a christmas book tag. Last year I created The Modern Day Christmas Song book tag which is exactly as it sounds – I thought up a couple of prompts to go with my favorite new Christmas songs. I had a lot of fun with this tag last year so here I am to do it again this year.
Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarckson
A book you want to find under the Christmas tree this year.
I have already treated myself to a bunch of new books – pretty new physical copies from Barnes & Nobel and a fair few new ebooks – so I’m actually not expecting to recieve any books under my tree this year.
There’s still a fair few I would love to receive though: Ravensong by T.J Klune because I loved the first book but the sequel is like ÂŁ10 just for the ebook. Also it took all of my willpower not to buy a fifth book from Barnes & Nobel so if The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas found it’s way into my hands I definitely would not complain.
Do I have a lot of school work to do right now? Yes. Am I going to procrastinate by doing a Taylor Swift book tag? You bet ya!
I come to you today with the Midnight Book Tagby Star is All Booked Up. I’ve been seeing this floating around ever since the release of the album all those weeks ago (it could even be months ago, time is a social construct). As always, I’m late to the trend but I’ve really been wanting to do this tag, so here I am.
Of course I have to talk about my thoughts and feelings on this album before we dive in: I love it. To me it feels like the love child of Lover and Reputation which I really enjoy. The whole vibes of it are stellar. My absolute favourite songs are Lavender Haze and Midnight Rain. These make my ears very happy!
Also before we dive in I should plug the fact that I’m on a quest to do every Taylor Swift album tag. I was actually planning on doing Reputation next but the new album of course took precedence. I have done tags for Folklore, Evermore, and Lover though so you should check those out.
Lavender Haze // A book you will always love and defend
There are two very easy answers here for me but I feel like I’ve been talking abot these two series a whole lot in tags recently so I’m going to mention them super quickly and then move on to a new question with hopefully, more unique answers.
All For the Game by Nora Sakovic – these books have a long list of problems but my suggestion is to just sit back, enjoy and then look to the fandom for fix-it materia. The second is anything by Jennifer Lynn Barnes because an argument can be made that her books can get very dramatic, but to that I say so what?
Maroon // A spicy book
I have been reading a fair few spicy books over the last two years. Probably my favourite that I’ve read, at least this year, has got to be The Edens series by Devney Perry. I like this series because it’s so much more than just a spicy book. It’s got solid tropes (grumpy/sunshine, single parent) and also seperate interweaving plotpoints like an entire murder mystery. I’m really excited to continue on with this series in 2023.
I have got a busy few weeks coming up – presentation, DC trip, a video to film and edit, 2 essays due, New York trip, 2 final projects, 3 books left for class to read and at least one more paper or project that the teacher hasn’t even mentioned yet. That’s not to mention the added stress of getting ready to fly back home.
All of this is to say that I’m starting to feel a little stressed. To take away some of that stress I’ve decided to combine catching up on podcast episodes with scheduling some posts to help future me out.
We’re kicking things off with one of my favourite posts of the year – The End of the Year book tag! This is my fourth year in a row doing this tag so you should definitely check out previous years. I think it’s always fun to take a look back and look forward as we come to the end of the year.
Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish?
There are two books that I picked up this year that I put down for a break but have ultimately decided to DNF for good.
I started reading It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey over the summer and put it down because the main character was infuriating – 28 acting like an 8 year old. It just didn’t work for me and I couldn’t forsee myself coming to enjoy it so I ended up putting it down and I think I’ve given up completely.
The other book was one I’m super bummed about but I just wasn’t enjoying Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan. Despite enjoying her previous novel I couldn’t get into this book. It wasn’t moving fast enough for me and I wasn’t totally enthralled by the characters to keep me reading.
If memory serves, these are the only two books I’ve picked up, read a decent chunk of, but haven’t finished and sadly don’t plan to.
I love this time of year. I feel like even if you don’t do anything on Halloween (which, to be honest, I often don’t) it’s still stuch a fun weekend. Seeing everybody’s costumes, themed sweets, an excuse to watch scary movies or Halloween movies from your childhood *cough* HalloweenTown is elite *cough*.
It also means themed book tags which I always love. All month I’ve been racking my brain and keeping an eye out for which tag I want to do, and I’ve chosen the Halloween Book Covers Tag originally created by Metaphors and Moonlight.
Skulls/Skeletons/Bones
I really love these covers for the Kingdom of the Wicked trilogy by Kerri Maniscalco, it was the first book I thought of when I saw the word “skull”. I think the third is probably my favourite just because I love the colours. Sadly, I haven’t read past the first book but that’s gonna be a goal for 2023 – read this entire trilogy in time to recommend it next Halloween.
Jason Gideon // Your favourite fictional teacher or mentor.
I recently went through my annual All For the Game obsession and I’m still riding that high so of course my answer is going to be David Wymack. I love him so much. This man deserves a raise for everything he has to put up with.
Today I went to my first American Football game. We managed to piece together what was happening as the game went on, but for the most part I was clueless.
You may be wondering “what is this relevant?” and to that I say: because today we’re doing a sport related tag in the form of The Racing to Read Book Tag and I need a good segueway into things.
The extent of my work-out routine is walking from my bed to my fridge. Just kidding. I do walk literally everywhere though and that’s enough for me when it comes to exercising. I have too much social anxiety for the gym.
AceReader 