The Aussie Book Tag

G'day mates! And now it's time for me to apologise to literally everyone in Australia. Cass @ Words on Paper very kindly tagged me in the Aussie Book Tag and, as you know, I'm always up for  a tag. You can find Cass's answers here and the original, created by Ngoc @ Happy Comes First and Julia @ Picnic Reads, here!

I've never been to Australia but I'd love to go (the only thing that really puts me off are the spiders because I am severely arachnophobic) and the more I thought about it the more I realised I've read barely any Australian writers; Markus Zusak, Garth Nix, Geraldine Brooks and Hannah Kent are the only ones who immediately spring to mind. You don't have to talk about Australian books and authors for this tag, but doing this has definitely made me realise it's a country that I seem to neglect in my reading. That's something for me to rectify.

If anyone has any recommendations, particularly about/written by Australia's indigenous population, please let me know!

That has to be Maia from Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor, not only is it one of my favourite novels of all time, but Maia is one of my favourite fictional characters, too. He's such a good egg and I adore him. You can check out my review of The Goblin Emperor here!

This is a tricky one because I'm usually the grumpy one who hates what everyone else loves, but for this I'm going to go with Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë. I don't think everyone hates it by any means, but I do think Anne is forgotten next to her sisters and she shouldn't be. Of her two novels Agnes Grey is probably the lesser known, but I really enjoyed it when I read it and I'd love to see more people reading Anne's work.

I can't possible talk about a fictional squad without talking about Harry Potter. If I wanted to be part of any gang, it'd definitely be Dumbledore's Army because I am all for students standing up to bad teachers.

Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, which I reviewed here. I can't wait to read whatever Adébáyọ̀ brings out next and I highly, highly recommend this debut!

It'd be pretty easy to mention Harry Potter again here but I think Harry Potter gets enough love as it is, so instead I'm going to go with Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman which is one of my favourite books from my early teens. It's the first book I can remember crying over and it's still very special to me and so worth reading if you haven't already.

Isabel Greenberg's The One Hundred Nights of Hero (reviewed here) is a gorgeous graphic novel but it's so huge which means it can be quite difficult to read comfortably - it's worth it, though!

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is super depressing but it's such an iconic work of dystopian fiction and it's definitely worth checking out if it's on your radar. Is it the best piece of dystopian fiction out there? No, not necessarily, but it's a really interesting novel and I think it's worth a bit of your time.

I know I keep saying it, but no novel has surprised me more than Sarah Waters' Fingersmith (reviewed here). It's one of the twistiest, turniest novels I've ever read and it's so much fun - if you haven't read any of Waters' work, Fingersmith is a great place to start!

I adored Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (reviewed here), especially because I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did, and Becky Albertalli has quickly become my favourite YA author following her equally excellent sophomore novel, The Upside of Unrequited (reviewed here). Yet again, I recommend reading her if you haven't already!

I'm a big mood reader so the books I reach out for when I'm feeling slumpy usually change depending what I'm in the mood to read - sometimes it's YA, sometimes it's a thriller, but it's usually something I don't tend to read a lot of - but this year I find myself turning more and more towards Fantasy of Manners books when I'm feeling slumpy, particularly Gail Carriger's work. It's so fun!

Thanks so much for tagging me, Cass! I'm going to go ahead and tag some people below, so:

Natalie @ Orchestrating a Sea Change

Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight

Mallory @ The Local Muse

Micheline @ Lunar Rainbows Reviews

Deanna @ Deanna Reads Books

Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Lynn @ Lynn's Film & Book Review

Catherine @ We'll Meet it When it Does

Vena @ Vena Isabella

consider yourselves tagged!

Pokemon Go Book Tag

I have to be honest, I was always more of a Digimon girl than a Pokemon girl, but I was certainly in on the hype when Pokemon first became big in the UK. I think Pokemon Go's such a clever idea and, yes, I do have it on my phone, too - it's surprisingly fun!

This tag was created by Aentee @ Read at Midnight, and after seeing Deanna @ Deanna Writes do it I couldn't resist giving it a go myself.

That's such a hard question. I've always been surrounded by books; my parents read to me every night from a very young age, particularly my dad, so I don't think I could single out one book that made me love reading. Some of my earliest memories, however, are of having The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Rainbow Fish and Fantastic Mr. Fox read to me, so I suppose it'd be any one of those!

It has to be Harry Potter. I grew up as part of the Harry Potter Generation, and the series will forever be very dear to me.

Probably The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. I have a copy and I'd really like to read it at some point, but everyone loves this series so I'm both worried that I'll be the one person in the world who doesn't like it while also feeling like it can wait longer for my attention than other books on my shelves that aren't as well known.

Lauren Oliver's Delirium falls into the YA dystopian category, but it does it well. When The Hunger Games set dystopian fiction as the next trend in YA quite a lot of rubbish was published, but Delirium's great!

I've heard such good things about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but it's so huge it even has footnotes! It intimidates the hell out of me, but I'm determined to read it one day...

The last book I can remember sacrificing sleep for is Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I just had to know what happened.

Quite a few. Cinder and Kai from The Lunar Chronicles; Meche and Sebastian from Signal to Noise; Saba and Jack from Blood Red Road; Sue and Maud from Fingersmith; Sephy and Callum from Noughts & Crosses; Sabriel and Touchstone from The Old Kingdom; Maia and Csethiro from The Goblin Emperor... Like I said, quite a few.

I have to go with Moira Young's Blood Red Road, which was just so much fun to read. I started reading it one night a couple of years ago when I couldn't sleep, and ended up staying up until four in the morning. Oops.

I don't have an answer for this one because I think everything has to come to an end eventually. I know that's a really boring answer, but I'd much rather see something end brilliantly than drag on until it becomes crap.

I had to read Louis Sachar's Holes in school, and when we were first given it my thought was 'how is reading a book about a bunch of guys digging holes going to be interesting?' but Holes is so much more than that. By this point I'd say that Holes is pretty much a modern classic within children's fiction and I loved every second of reading it.

Probably Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, which I guess is a lot less hyped now. I've been meaning to read it for years and still haven't got to it, but I love Greece and Greek mythology and I'd like to at least read the first book and see if I'm interested in the rest of the series soon.

I love beautiful books, but I'm not usually one for collector's editions. That being said, I do think this exclusive edition of The BFG is beautiful.

I'm really looking forward to Audrey Coulthurt's debut, Of Fire and Stars, about a princess who's betrothed to another kingdom's prince and ends up falling in love with his sister.

I will buy pretty much anything that has Silvia Moreno-Garcia's name on it. I adored her debut, Signal to Noise, and loved her second novel Certain Dark Things. Whatever she brings out next, I'll be buying it.

I've been impatiently anticipating Becky Chambers' A Closed and Common Orbit for months and months. I loved The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet so much and I can't wait to get my hands on Chambers' second novel.

If you'd like to give this a try then consider yourself tagged!

Olympic Book Tag

The 2016 Olympic Games begin this Friday, which is bizarre; it feels like only yesterday I was watching the 2012 opening ceremony and Rio seemed so far away. How time flies.

Despite not being sporty in the slightest I do enjoy watching bits of the Olympics and luckily, for unfit bookworms such as myself, the lovely Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight has created an Olympic Book Tag so people like me can get involved with the celebrations without breaking out into a sweat, tears or any other kind of bodily fluid.

So, without further ado, let's do the Olympic Book Tag!

I actually found this really difficult to answer, because it's very rarely that I love a book from the very first page. Some of my favourite books in the world I wasn't sure about when I first started reading them, and some books I hate I thought I was going to enjoy when I read the first page. In the end I decided to go with My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland, because it was just what I needed when I read it and, from the very first page, I was invested, interested and entertained.

Technically it's more of a space trip than a road trip, but the title says it all: Becky Chambers' gorgeous debut really is about the long way to a small, angry planet. I love this book, and I can't wait to read A Closed and Common Orbit!

I really don't like love triangles, so I can't answer this one. I'm sure there are some brilliantly written ones somewhere but they're not something I enjoy reading at all.

I enjoyed Transformations, I love poetry that's inspired by fairy tales, but I'm still learning how to understand poetry; I read fiction and non-fiction way more than I read poetry, something I'm trying to rectify, so when I do read poetry I don't always understand it the first time around...

You can't get more summery than a summer-themed anthology! Honestly this anthology is a lot gloomier than I expected it to be considering how cutesy the cover is, so I'd recommend My True Love Gave to Me over this one.

There's a lot more violence in Dark Places than I was expecting, but it suits what's essentially a violent story. I wasn't keen on Gillian Flynn's debut, Sharp Objects, but this book is brilliant.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fingersmith is the twistiest, turniest book I've ever read, and it's fantastic. Check out Sarah Waters if you haven't already!

I'm still not over it.

One of my favourite novels of all time, The Goblin Emperor's like a rich, delicious bar of chocolate you have to savour to enjoy. To be honest whenever I read this book I speed through it because I love it so much, but it's certainly slower than a lot of the more action-packed fantasy books out there.

I adored The Rainbow Fish when I was a little girl - it's one of the first books I can remember reading, or having read to me, along with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I think I actually liked this one more than The Very Hungry Caterpillar...

If you didn't know already I love guinea pigs, so what could be more perfect than A Guinea Pig Pride & Prejudice?

I know it's basically SFF blasphemy, but I really didn't enjoy Among Others and I had to force myself to finish it. Check out my review here if you'd like to know more about my thoughts on it!

Whose friendship could possibly be better than Harry, Ron and Hermione's? I love these three dorks, and this series, a hell of a lot.

All three of these books are on my TBR! Dark Mermaids is a crime thriller that features Olympic swimmers who, rather topically, were doped by their government; The Fair Fight is all about 18th century female boxers; and Eat Sweat Play is a non-fiction book about the role of sport in women's lives.

Thanks to Shannon for creating a great tag, and if you want to do it then do it! I'd love to see your answers.