Scribes & Archers

I’m back with another book tag! I was tagged to do this by Dekreel at The Inky RambleBeast, so a big thank you to her. :)

Apparently this tag doesn’t have any rules, so let’s just jump in!

*Links marked with an asterisk are BookShop affiliate links. This means if you buy through them I earn a commission at no extra cost to you. And BookShop is awesome because it supports independent U.S. bookstores!

1. How many books are too many in a series?

Um… *counts Shannara books* About 20. After that, they started to all feel the same and were more in keeping with modern secular culture and I just slowly lost interest. But if I like your characters, I’ll stick with them for years.

2. How do you feel about cliff-hangers?

As chapter endings, they’re fairly effective. (Just don’t leave us on a cliffhanger and then cut to a different group of characters that I don’t care about for two chapters. Please and thank you.) As book endings… I don’t actually think I’ve read a lot of books that ended on cliffhangers? Or maybe my memory is just totally failing me. So I don’t know.

3. Hardcover or paperback?

Paperback. No contest. They’re way easier to handle, in my opinion, because they’re flexible and you don’t have to deal with a dust jacket sliding around.

4. Favorite book?

May I direct you to my entire shelf of favorites? But I suppose if I had to pick one… *sighs* The Warden and the Wolf King* legitimately surprised me and made me sob (the first is a near-impossible feat and the second had literally never happened prior to this book), so it’s a pretty good contender.

5. Least favorite book?

I’m torn between The Collective by R.S. Williams, which had a cool premise but was atrociously written and contained all the tropes you can possibly think of, to the extent of my covering it in red ink for the second half because I couldn’t just sit and read this royally bad writing; and The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which I was required to read for school, hated everything about until the last couple of chapters when it finally got interesting, and wanted to burn by the time I was done.

(*cough* can you tell I hated these books?)

6. Love triangles, yes or no?

In general, no. However, if they serve an actual purpose and don’t take precedence over an actual plot (who’s actually going to be trying to decide which guy she likes better in a life-or-death situation?) then I might not mind them.

7. The most recent book you couldn’t finish?

This had nothing to do with the books, but I borrowed Rook by Sharon Cameron and The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor from the library and didn’t get around to reading either before they were due… after three renewals.

8. A book you are currently reading?

Again, I can give you a list, although this one is significantly shorter. I guess I’ll focus on Counter Culture by David Platt*, which is a non-fiction book about living in accordance with scripture despite the anti-Christian culture around us. I’m about a quarter of the way through and so far it’s been really good.

9. Last book you recommended to someone?

Looks like The Wingfeather Saga. Because The Warden the the Wolf King wrecked me and I want my friends to feel that same emotional destruction.

10. Oldest book you’ve read? (publication date)

Besides the Bible, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Irving Washington, published in 1819. (I think. I have a set of that and Rip Van Winkle on my Goodreads list and that’s what I’m going off of.)

11. Newest book you’ve read? (publication date)

100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons*. Which was FANTASTIC and I highly recommend.

12. Favorite author?

Probably Andrew Peterson. But Hannah Heath is also fantastic.

13. Buying books or borrowing?

If a book isn’t by an author who I automatically support and buy from (The Phoenix Fiction Writers, Wayne Thomas Batson, or authors I know personally) then I generally prefer to borrow it first to make sure I like it and then buy it later. Generally a lot later, because I usually go a long time before I reread a book. But I like to have books on my shelves (too many of them… they don’t all fit…).

14. A book you dislike that everyone seems to love?

The Maze Runner series. The first book was fine, but The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure? Oof. No thank you. I will not be rereading those ever. Those were just painful to read. I wanted to throw The Scorch Trials at a wall, and The Death Cure served no purpose whatsoever. But the movies were good. The movies resolved most of the issues I had with the books.

15. Bookmarks or dog-ears?

BOOKMARKS.

16. A book you can always reread?

Well, seeing as I’ve reread each series 3-5 times… The Door Within trilogy* and the Dreamtreaders trilogy* by Wayne Thomas Batson. I’ve reread Dreamtreaders the most, simply because the second book in The Door Within series follows a second main character who I don’t like very much and it’s kind of frustrating because I LOVE so many of the side characters, and I love the world, but that main character… just bugs me. But anyway. Moving on. (I’m ranting way too much in this post. XD)

17. Can you read while hearing music?

Ehhh? I probably could if it was solely instrumental, but I don’t especially want to. I feel like if the tone of the music didn’t match the tone of the scene I was reading it would bug me.

18. One POV or multiple POVs?

It depends. Both have their benefits. One risk with multiple POVs, though, is that you’ll end up with chapters in between where the reader just really doesn’t care and wants to get back to the characters they like, whereas in a single-POV book a reader will just stop reading if they don’t like the POV character. It’s kind of frustrating as a reader to love most of a book but then be bored every two or three chapters because you’ve switched POVs. But it’s also really cool to see a story from multiple perspectives. So it depends.

19. Do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days?

It depends. Usually over multiple days, but if the circumstances are right (I’m avoiding sleep, I’ve been challenged by someone, I’m stressed and need to unwind, the book is short, the book is really good and sucking me in, etc.) then I can definitely finish a book in one sitting. One week in May I finished roughly a full Harry Potter book in each sitting because I’d been bet I couldn’t read the whole series by the next weekend.

20. Who do you tag?

Allie at Of Rainy Days and Stardust Veins

Leila at Wildflowers and Cosmic Tea

Eden at The Happy Hedgehog

And anyone else who wants to do it! :)