T5W: Characters You Wouldn’t Want to Trade Places With

Let’s not talk about this past month, please and thank you. Let’s begin, shall we?

5. Any of John Green’s girls. Or boys. Or anyone.

4. John Watson from Sherlock Holmes. I’d make a shitty sidekick; I’d rather be Sherlock.

3. John the Savage from Brave New World. First of all, I hated this book so I wouldn’t want to be any of its characters. Also, poor boy.

2. Charlie from Flowers for Algernon. A mentally disabled man becomes a lab rat for people who can increase his IQ, which works— for a while. As far as classics go, this is one of my favorites, BUT.

1. Liesel Meminger from The Book Thief. Don’t know what to say without spoiling the whole book, but— Germany, WWII, just. Nope.

T5W: Rainy Day Reads

This is actually one of last April’s topics, but I never did it, and also today’s one (favorite first sentences) is not something I’m particularly interested in doing, since I’ve read most of the books in Russian, and besides, the only first sentence that stands out to me is “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”, because I’m THAT cliché. Also the weather here is crap. It’s my blog, after all, so Imma do what I want! (But please leave links to your posts with today’s actual topic below, I would love to check them all out!)

Please don’t try to make sense of my associative chains. There is none. I’m a Gemini.

5. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. I read this book two years ago, so all I can remember is that they were always wet. I’m not kidding.

4. The Elegance of the Hedgehog. First of all, look at that beautiful title. Do you really need to know anything else about it to read it? Because I didn’t. And I just read it. And it was lovely. And sad, which is why it’s a rainy book.

3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It’s dark blue. It’s about water (sort of). It’s slightly creepy.

2. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I could go with any of Murakami novels (or non-fictions, I think Underground is a really good rainy read), but this is one of my favorites, and also the one I would probably recommend to someone who wants to start reading Murakami and is not afraid of a little challenge (and if you want to play it safe – go for Norwegian Wood).

1. The Book Thief. Because if the rain is loud enough, there’s a good chance no one will hear you cry.

T5W: Authors You Are Waiting on Another Book From

Life is crazy. Life is so crazy I don’t have the time to stop and relax, and when I do I just crash. I want to do a collective summer wrap-up at the end of the month, and probably a tag or something before that, I just don’t have the strength to do anything else. I demand another summer after this one so that I’ll be able to finally have some rest. Ugh. Anyways! T5W!

5. John Green – I don’t even know why I want another book by him. I absolutely love John as a person, he’s great, but I’ve read all of his novels and my favorite is Zombicorns. Really. The rest vary from ‘okay’ to ‘wtf was that’. I guess I’m masochistic like that.

4. Jenny Lawson – I’ve read both her books this year, and both of them were great. I know that she’s releasing a coloring-but-also-more book in less than a year, but I would really love to read an actual book by her.

3. Richard Siken – ‘Crush’ has influenced me in so many ways, and I got the title for this blog from one of his poems. Considering he has two poetry books published within 10 years of each other, I’m in for a long wait.

2. Neil Gaiman – I still have quite a few of his novels to read, as well as short story collections, but really, you can’t have too much of a good thing, amirite?

1. Haruki Murakami is up there with Terry Pratchett on the list of my favorite authors — and since sir Terry will not write another book anymore, Murakami is an obvious choice. I have read all of his novels and pretty much most everything he’s written.

T5W: favorite character names

Here’s a tip for you all: don’t start a blog right before the start of your finals, especially when said finals last from early May and up to the very end of June. I hate life so much right now, I really just need to write something so I stop feeling like a disappointment. I’ve also opened a bookish instagram, but it’s not like I have time to post there (and not like I read anything).

Anyways! Favorite character names! I should probably start this by saying that if I could, this list would consist entirely of the names of Terry Pratchett’s characters, and technically I can, but like yay, diversity.

5. Adrian Ivashkov. And I suppose Dorian Gray, since they sorta go together in my head, and let’s pray I never have twin boys, because they will hate my guts for naming one of them after an alcoholic (true story: Adrian is my biggest book-crush, like, ever, at least in the VA series, because in Bloodlines he totally sucks), and the other after, well, Dorian effin’ Gray.

4. Shadow Moon. I know it’s not his real name, but it’s the one he uses and it’s really cool.

3. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius aka Celaena Sardothien. Don’t ask me to pronounce it if you don’t want me to kick you in the teeth, but, like. So cool. Aelin is a gorgeous name. Celaena would also be pretty cool if it weren’t, y’know, just Selena on drugs.

2. Tiffany Aching. First of all, all the Aching puns. Second of all, she is the reason I want to name my future daughter Tiffany, and I live in a Russian-speaking country so it’s probably not the wisest of choices. Whatever. A great character with a great (and simple, which makes it even better) name, I don’t know what else you might need.

1. Moist Von Lipwig. I don’t understand the problem that the English-speaking world has with the world ‘moist’, especially when they have no problem using ‘loofah’, which, in my opinion, is a bajillion times worse. Also, Moist is a great character, so. Bonus: his girlfriend Adora Belle Dearheart, who is absolutely badass.

 

 

T5W: Favorite Mothers

April 27th topic is Favorite Mothers/Maternal Figures!

The thing about mothers is that authors really, really, really love to kill them off. I’m being absolutely serious here. I went through my entire list of read books on Goodreads, and most of the time mothers were either dead or really messed up. So here’s a teeny-tiny list I came up with and at first the fifth place was totally a joke until I realized that he is actually a better mother than, like, 99% of book mothers. There must be a metaphor somewhere in there. (P.S. This is not proofread whatsoever, because ain’t nobody got time for that, sorry).

1. Molly Weasley – Harry Potter. No comment. Really. I mean, really. Come on.
2. Miss Peregrine – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Miss Peregrine basically created a whole new world to keep the children safe, and if that doesn’t define a great mother, then I don’t know what does.
3. Granny Weatherwax – Discworld. Granny Weatherwax is an independent woman who don’t need no man. She’s smart, she’s sharp, she’s strict – she’s also very, very caring. In my mind she’s Discworld’s ultimate mother. While Miss Peregrine creates a world to protect her children, the child that Granny protects is the world. It made more sense in my head. Oops.
4. Miss Honey – Matilda. Miss Honey is extremely nice and sweet and she cares for Matilda more than Matilda’s own parent ever did. She basically saves Matilda’s life, and isn’t that what real mothers do?
5. Benjamin Malaussène – Au bonheur des ogres. He takes care of his five younger siblings, and he does a great job of it, considering everything he goes through in the book (and in the series, but I’ve only read the first book because the series is so good I don’t want it to end so I don’t read it– yeah). The book is brilliant, by the way, have I mentioned that? Because it is. Also: watch the movie. It’s not even half as good as the book, but. Two words: Raphaël Personnaz.