#CJ Skuse

[rubypomegranates]

"Even when I’m at home, I’m acting a part. I never know which bits of me are real. I wonder what it’s like to truly feel, to truly ‘be.’ Exhausting, I’d imagine."

C.J. Skuse "Sweetpea"

[cantsayidont]

SWEETPEA Series 1 (2024): Disjointed, unpleasant, racist black comedy, adapted from a C.J. Skuse novel, about a mousy young white woman named Rhiannon (Ella Purnell) whose simmering rage at being ignored and disrespected by everyone in her life takes a dark turn when she realizes that her social near-invisibility will let her get away with murder. Violently expressing herself gives Rhiannon's dead-end life a big boost, but it becomes more complicated when she sets out for revenge on her one-time high school bully Julia Blenkingsopp (Nicôle Lecky), now a bitchy estate agent whom Rhiannon's unsympathetic older sister has commissioned to sell their late father's house, and attracts the attention of detective constable Marina (Leah Harvey), who is a lot like Rhiannon and thus is the only one to see through her.

Much like the thematically similar 1993 movie FALLING DOWN, which starred Michael Douglas as a seemingly ordinary guy who finally snaps one hot day, SWEETPEA leans too hard for too long on the assumption that viewers will find Rhiannon's sense of frustrated entitlement relatable and basically sympathetic — a hard sell if you've ever been on the receiving end of an unhappy white woman taking out her anger on "safe" targets — and it refuses to engage with the obvious racial dimensions of Rhiannon's two worst enemies being the only Black women on the show. (The parallel the story attempts to draw between Rhiannon and Marina only makes sense if you presume there's no racial component to the way Marina is marginalized and disrespected, which there plainly is.)

Paradoxically, it might have worked better as a black comedy if it had pushed Rhiannon's violence to greater extremes (which it apparently is in the book); instead, the show tries unsuccessfully to build sympathy for her (with the first episode a grueling enumeration of all the ways her life is bleak) before turning around and declaring that she's just crazy after all. CONTAINS LESBIANS? No, although there's a definite homoerotic aspect to Rhiannon's conflicts with Julia and Marina that the story doesn't know what to do with. VERDICT: Not absurd enough to be funny, too disingenuously racist to work as satire, and sometimes punishing to watch (be warned that something bad happens to the cute little dog!). Even if you love Purnell, it's just not worth it — watch SERIAL MOM instead.

[sophiekarim]

ELLA PURNELL as RHIANNON LEWIS

Sweetpea (2024)

[latrodectal]

tagged by @loisfreakinglane thank you darling ♥️

1 ) three ships right now: max guevara/alec mcdowell, elektra natchios/matt murdock, and marty mcfly/jennifer parker.

2 ) first ever ship: i think it was kimberly/tommy from mighty morphin power rangers.

3 ) last song: is it over now? by taylor swift

4 ) last movie: lol currently watching bttf2

5 ) currently reading: i haven’t started anything new yet but the last things i finished were a court of silver flames by sarah j maas and the collective by alison gaylin. oh, and i just listened to sweetpea by cj skuse.

6 ) currently watching: i’m guessing this means tv soooo i just started the vampire diaries again and for whatever reason began watching family ties in earnest since i found out it’s on pluto tv? i also wanted to finish wilderness and gen v.

7 ) currently consuming: water and english toffee

8 ) currently craving: chicken katsu and a $8 latte. (not together, just in general.)

9 ) nine people: jesus uhhhh @astromechs @queelez @knowlesian @tarantulabassett @ellivia @shiegra @musewhipped @o6666666 @ladyculebras and/or whoever else likes filling these out ♥️

[omeletsforpepper]

If They Liked This, They Might Also Like...

Over at @reactingtosomething​ we wanted to get into the holidays in a way that was more or less on brand. So in the spirit of a Netflix recommendation algorithm, here are some book suggestions for what to buy friends and family who may have liked some of the same movies I did in 2018.

If they liked Wildlife or Widows: The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness

As I say in my Amazon review, this is the best applied ethics text I was never assigned. In fairness to my professors, attorney-turned-journalist Jill Filipovic hadn’t written it yet when I was a philosophy student. Filipovic is also not a philosopher. But she is a brilliant writer and a rigorous thinker, and The H-Spot is fundamentally and explicitly an Aristotelian ethical project. That is to say, it takes the starting position that political organization should be aimed at the goal of human flourishing (as opposed to, say, economic growth). From there Filipovic builds a case, or maybe it's better to say several cases, for specific ways in which American policy fails women and disproportionately women of color in this aim, and concrete ways in which it could address this failure. She does so largely through first-hand accounts of several women across America, in a wide range of socioeconomic circumstances. Although the institutions and less formal systems in play are complicated, the questions at the heart of all this are simple: What do women want? What do women need?

Filipovic asks these questions without pre-judgment, and without assuming that any answers are too unrealistic to consider. Not that anyone she talks to asks for anything "unrealistic." Partly this is because they often speak from too much experience for the unrealistic to occur to them as something they deserve to ask for, but also, the idea that woman-friendly policy is unrealistic is a Bad Take to begin with. Filipovic doesn't need to be pie-in-the-sky utopian to show how things could be much better for women (and by extension, it should but still doesn't go without saying, for everyone).

I left academic philosophy over five years ago, but I really think each chapter (built around topics like friendship, sex, parenting, and food) is brimming with potential paper topics for grad and undergrad students of ethics and/or political philosophy. Whether you’re philosophically inclined or not, if you think “women should be happy” and “the point of civilization is to make happiness easier for everyone” are uncontroversial claims, The H-Spot is the book for you -- and for your friends who loved the several underestimated women of Widows, or Carey Mulligan’s captivating portrayal in Wildlife of a woman doing the best she could within the restrictions of her era.

If they liked Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet

Though it helps to have some familiarity with the Avengers storylines that led up to Ta-Nehisi motherfucking Coates’s first year on the Black Panther comic -- as well as with the excellent opening arc of Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man -- here’s all that even a new comics reader really needs to know before jumping into Nation: King T’Challa, the Black Panther, was recently unable to prevent several consecutive disasters in Wakanda. Both as a cause and as a result of these disasters, T’Challa worked with the so-called “Illuminati” (Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, and other intellectual and strategic heavyweights) to prevent the end of the multiverse itself. That crisis averted, T’Challa has returned to Wakanda to resume his royal duties.

Coates takes as a starting premise that Wakanda, the most advanced nation on earth, would only still have a hereditary monarchy if the monarch was uniquely suited as a protector of the people. In the wake of the Panther’s failures in this regard, Nation opens with a rebellion against T’Challa’s rule on two fronts: domestic terrorists with an unknown agenda on one hand, and on the other, former officers of the Dora Milaje (the all-female royal bodyguard corps beloved by fans of the movie) rallying Wakandan women who have suffered great injustices unaddressed by the crown. The leaders of the latter, lovers Ayo and Aneka, are nominally antagonists to T’Challa, but to the reader they’re parallel protagonists. You root for both T’Challa and the Dora Milaje, even though their agendas are in tension, not unlike the way one might have rooted for both Tyrion Lannister and Robb Stark in early Game of Thrones. (Shuri’s around too, though she’s quite unlike her movie counterpart.)

When he’s not fighting or investigating, T’Challa does a lot of soul-searching and debating about his responsibilities as king, the ways it conflicts with his career as a globetrotting superhero, and whether and how the government of Wakanda must evolve. Though Wakanda is too small to be considered a superpower, the domestic terror angle, an interrogation of historical injustice, and the struggle between moral idealism and political reality make Wakanda a proxy in some important ways for modern America. (You may have noticed that Ryan Coogler did this too.) Coates’s meditation on leadership and political power made A Nation Under Our Feet not only a great superhero comic but -- this is not an exaggeration or a joke -- my favorite political writing of 2016.

Nation is illustrated mostly by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse, with colors by Laura Martin; some of Stelfreeze’s designs clearly influenced the movie.

If they liked Thoroughbreds: Sweetpea

When a clever, mean-spirited would-be journalist with airhead friends learns that her boyfriend is cheating on her, old traumas bubble to the surface and she becomes a serial killer who targets sex offenders. Darkly, often cruelly hilarious, Sweetpea is what you’d get if American Psycho was set in southwestern England and for some reason starred Amy from Gone Girl. Protagonist Rhiannon is a self-described inhabitant of an Island of Unfinished Sentences, de facto Chief Listener of her “friend” circle, and a maker of lists. Lists of the things her friends talk about (babies, boyfriends, IKEA), signs she’d like to put up at work (please close doors quietly, please do not wear Crocs to work), and oh, the people she wants to kill. Like her boyfriend, at the moment. Or ISIS, when news coverage of a terror attack pre-empts her beloved MasterChef.

Author C.J. Skuse smartly chooses not to have Rhiannon wallow in her traumatic past as many superheroes do. We get glimpses for context, but Rhiannon is committed to moving forward, to escaping her demons rather than being defined by them. It matters that she wants to get better, even if she also hates that she’s bought into society’s definition of “better.” (#relatable)

It’s worth noting that Sweetpea leans seemingly uncritically into a lot of dated gender tropes, in Rhiannon’s assessments of the women around her. (Body positive she is not.) Then again, she’s an unreliable narrator -- one of the best demonstrations of this is a scene in which she’s convinced of her ability to fool the world into believing she’s normal, then overhears her dipshit co-workers talk about how unsettling she is -- so arguably we’re supposed to laugh at how terrible she is without necessarily agreeing with her. This is, I think, a perfectly legitimate approach to a protagonist, even if some find it unfashionable.

The book is not quite as thematically rich as it first appears, at least on the topic of sexual violence; it indulges a “stranger danger” picture of rape that doesn’t feel entirely contemporary. (For a more nuanced treatment of rape culture, see the sadly short-lived but wildly entertaining vigilante dramedy Sweet/Vicious.) But as a portrait of a vibrant, layered, genuinely Nasty-and-you-kinda-love-her-for-it woman -- given Oscar-caliber-portrayal-worthy life by Skuse’s wickedly sharp voice -- Sweetpea is too fun to pass up.

Upgrade or Infinity War: The Wild Storm

Castlevania showrunner Warren Ellis helped redefine superhero comics with 1999’s The Authority, which at DC’s request he's given a Gritty Reboot (along with the WildCATS, whom some of us remember from this extremely 90s cartoon) in The Wild Storm. Ellis has always been interested in The Future, both its potential wondrousness and its probable horror. Fans of Upgrade’s refreshingly unsanitized (and unsanitary) take on human enhancement through body modification will find much to like in Ellis’s spin on the trope of second-skin powered armor. (He semi-famously wrote Extremis, one of the comic arcs that inspired Iron Man 3.)

art by Jon Davis Hunt, from The Wild Storm #1

Angela Spica, a reimagining of Ellis’s old Authority character The Engineer, is a cybernetics expert who stumbles onto a sort of shadow government conspiracy related to her employer, and goes on the run with the armor she’s designed for them. (When not deployed, the armor is stored inside her body.) Angela is quickly targeted by multiple covert organizations, one of which rescues (?) her and brings her in on a secret history of technological arms races and contact with extraterrestrials. The Wild Storm is full of big action and bigger ideas, and for smart, generally curious superhero movie fans who find the decades-long continuities of the DC and Marvel universes intimidating, it’s a great entry -- with a blessedly planned ending -- into sci-fi-comics.

Happy holidays, and have fun shopping! Hop over to the full post for @supersnarker3000’s gift guide.

[danaandthebooks]

The physical ARCs I've been lucky enough to get! It's not a lot compared to other bloggers, but it always makes me happy seeing these on my shelf ���

[yasminwithane]

Book collage for Pretty Bad Things by C.J Skuse

I made this as a present for my tutor, about her debut book, as a leaving present. Thought I’d stick it up here too.

Pretty rad book if anyone wants to take a read (But I recommend The Deviants by her over this)

[ralphwreckedtheinternet]

Over the past week I’ve read Through His Eyes by Emma Dibdin and The Deviants by CJ Skuse. Both were brilliant and I’d recommend both to people.

Through His Eyes took a couple of chapters before it really got going, but I knew that this was to set the scene and was necessary for the story to make sense. Once it did start getting into it, it was intriguing and pulled me in to read more.

I’d decided to read The Deviants as I recently read a couple of other books by CJ Skuse and loved them. This certainly didn’t disappoint and I read it so quickly (especially for me). It had a good amount of suspense in it and kept drip feeding information, keeping me reading. I’m still not over the ending!

[altheaphotography]

Sweet Pea by CJ Skuse

Sweet Pea by CJ Skuse

I had read a synopsis of this book, but I was not prepared for it. 

(more…)

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: Sweet Pea by C.J Skuse

A couple of years ago, I read Monster by CJ Skuse. It was a fast-paced, YA thriller/mystery that kept me guessing until the very end and I really enjoyed it. Sweet Pea is Skuse’s first adult novel and when I read the synopsis I knew I had to pick it up. I have been really craving an exciting psychological thriller recently and Sweet Pea really satisfied.

We follow Rhiannon, a 27-year-old underappreciated editorial assistant at a local gazette near Bristol. When she was a child, she was the sole survivor of a terrible crime which earned her a degree of sympathy and local celebrity with the public. Since then, she has gone on to lead a seemingly normal adult life but Rhiannon has a kill list. How far can she go before everything catches up to her?

The above quote is an example of the kill lists that open up most chapters. As you can see, Skuse injects plenty of humour into an altogether dark, twisted novel. She is great at confusing our feelings towards Rhiannon. Our narrator goes from dishing out the same casual criticism of her friends, colleagues and celebrities that we all do to submerging us in a scene of cold-hearted vicious violence. Several times I was actually concerned about how much I could relate to her or how many times she made me smile. Skuse is incredibly clever at writing narrators who play with our emotions constantly.

Rhiannon is not a random killer. She seems to have a preference for killing men who prey on women and children, which could paint her as some kind of local hero in the eyes of some. She certainly sees it as a duty and that she is doing society a favour. However, we’re then reminded that there are a few cases where we see that she is capable of killing anyone for who she summons enough motive.

‘Do I love him? I haven’t known what love is in a long time. He says he loves me but isn’t that just something that gets said?’

There were points where I could understand Rhiannon and what she was doing. Yes she does terrible things and sometimes her voice chills you to the bone but she also has a past full of loss and grief and fear. She doesn’t have a close-knit loving family. She doesn’t feel that she has anything in common with her friends. She is under-valued at work and her boyfriend is a lying cheat. Not that any of this is grounds for becoming a serial killer but there was so much in both her past and present that I could literally see how her urges had developed. I found myself wanting her to be OK and even championing her so many times that I actually came to the conclusion that anyone could do what she does. Despite her past, she isn’t predisposed to murder because in the right (or wrong) circumstances, anyone could be Rhiannon.

Sweet Pea literally races to its finish. The last 30% or so was jam-packed full of revelations and drama that I was totally caught up in. Then it dropped me hard and fast with an ending that I certainly didn’t see coming at all. I never suspected that Rhiannon would change her ways. It always seemed a little too late for that but the twist really... well, twisted me! In fact, I didn’t really twig what was happening until I was RIGHT THERE, full of a feeling of repulsion and total astonishment. 

I’ve never had so many questions for myself or had so much concern for my own status as a decent person, as I had while reading Sweet Pea. It has been compared to American Psycho but I don’t ever remembering liking Patrick Bateman. I don’t ever remember laughing at a casual bitchy remark that he made or fully understanding his motives or where his feelings really stemmed from. I felt all of that with Rhiannon. I liked her. I saw myself in her. She made me wonder whether I could be her if my past were also full of tragedy coupled with a present full of unfulfilled dreams and people who don’t treat me well. She scared me but mostly because she represented an evil twin that I never knew existed.

[dreamescapeswriting]

i was summoned by Book 👁👄👁 i can speak of Books here? ehehehehehehhehehehe what are some of your recent faves?

\zxcvbnm,./ you can speak books to me whenever you want! I love speaking about books!! Ahhh it depends on what genre we’re speaking, I’m really into thriller/Psychological thrillers at the moment and my current favs are 

“My darling” By Amanda Robson

“The Alibi Girl” By CJ Skuse, I’m having to literally tear myself away from it to write but I am trying to get into some more fantasy type ones as I love being able to get lost in a different world. What are some of your favs?

[rubypomegranates]

"Even though our relationship had soured over the eight years since Priory Gardens, to lose your mother is to be partially unanchored to the Earth. Like there had always been these ropes fixing me in place – Mum and Dad. When Mum went, one of the ropes snapped. When Dad went, I didn’t feel like I was anchored anywhere."

C.J. Skuse "In Bloom"

[cwtchupbooks]

Sweetpea - C.J. Skuse

Sweetpea – C.J. Skuse

A psycho serial killer has never made me laugh out loud so much.  Sweetpea is dark, shocking, witty and absolutely bloody hilarious. I loved it and cannot recommend it enough!  Rhiannon has a boyfriend, a dog and a job she hates. So far so everyone. She also makes a daily list of people she’d like to kill. Slow walkers, the guy in Lidl who bruises her apples, drivers with no manners, you know the…

[bookriot]

As soon as I read the description for this week’s sponsor title above, I knew what this week’s post should take on: angry girls.

So often, girls with anger in YA are written off as “unlikable.” You see it in reviews, both from readers and from trade journals. Anger in girls is unbecoming. It’s unladylike. And it makes us uncomfortable as hell.

But anger is also a real experience and it’s one that we try to suppress, especially in teen girls.

Frankly? That’s bullshit.

Let’s celebrate the angry girls this week. I’ve shared some books below with girls who are fed up, frustrated, and unafraid to be that way. Anger is both a feeling they’re enduring, as well as a method of coping with some of the toughest things going on in their life. For some, anger is the crux of the issue itself.

I’d love to know about more angry girls across the various YA genres, so please, do drop a favorite title or two in the comments. If you can’t get enough of thinking about or reading about angry girls, I recommend checking out CJ Skuse’s article about the topic at The Guardian.

https://bookriot.com/2017/11/08/3-ya-theme-angry-girls/

[jenmedsbookreviews]

It is my great pleasure to be sharing the blog today with Tracy Fenton of Facebook’s TBC and Compulsive Readers book blog to spread a little more #Booklove. I’m sure that to most in the bookish world, Tracy needs no introduction. But it’s my blog and this is what I do so here is more about Tracy.

About Tracy

Tracy Fenton “in her own words” is a compulsive reader and in October 2014 she set up THE Book Club on Facebook, a secret group for readers, authors, publishers and book addicts.  With an international membership of over 7600 readers and 1200 authors THE Book Club (TBC) is now considered one of the most influential online book clubs in the publishing industry.

In December 2016 she started her own website CompulsiveReaders.com reviewing and recommending only the books she loves, interviews with best-selling authors and a new feature with authors reading out their 1 star reviews to camera.

You can find Tracy at her blog and on Twitter and Facebook

Childhood Sweetheart Favourite book from childhood

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.

This is the first book that I read with all my friends in the first year of Secondary school.  It opened up some wonderful discussions and enables us as teenagers to connect to a character and understand what we were feeling and experiencing was normal.

First love The first book you fell in love with

Lace by Shirley Conran.

Oh the drama, the bitchiness, the glamour, the storylines, the characters, the excitement, the scandal.  I remember vividly finishing the book and crying for days.

Biggest book crush The book character you’re totally in love with

I actually have 2 (I’m a book-whore) – the first is Greg from The Memory Book by Rowan Coleman.  To explain why would be to give away the storyline – all I can say is he is a wonderful, patient, loving father and husband who made my heart burst.

The second is Ove from A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.

He’s the perfect definition of a grumpy old man, he is awkward, miserable and moans about everything but once you get into the book, you can’t help by fall head of over in love with his character.

Weirdest book crush Well… duh

Mystery Man by Colin Bateman

He is the Man with No Name and owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast.  Possibly the funniest character I’ve ever read, he is a paranoid hypochondriac with the driest sense of humour and the 4 books in the series are in my opinion utterly brilliant and totally ridiculous. Just thinking about this series makes me smile.

Hardest break up The book you didn’t want to end

Normal by Graeme Cameron.

Talk about being left high and dry… however the good news is that the next book is coming out in 2018.  YAY!

The one that got away The book in your TBR or wish list that you regret not having started yet.

Considering I currently have 546 unread books on my kindle this could be a long list, but I think the books I need to move up and read sooner rather than later would be The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and The Power by Naomi Alderman

Love one, love them all Favourite series or genre

Psychological Thrillers are my favourite genre/

So many series I love … Sarah Hilary’s Marnie Rome, Chris Carter’s Robert Hunter; Angela Marsons’ Kim Stone, MJ Arlidge’s Helen Grace… .I could go on and on and on here!

Your latest squeeze Favourite read of the last 12 months

According to Goodreads I’ve read 98 books since 1st January – and I have 5 books that I would consider my favourites so far:

Sweet Pea – CJ Skuse

Lying in Wait – Liz Nugent

Exquisite – Sarah Stovell

You Don’t Know Me – Imran Mahmood

Lie With Me – Sabine Durrant

Blind date for a friend If you were to set a friend up with a blind date (book) which one would it be?

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Firstly because it is one of the most beautiful books I’ve read in the past 10 years and secondly because anyone who knows me in real life wouldn’t think I read beautiful books!

Greatest love of all Favourite book of all time.

OK – these 2 books are my favourite books not because they are literary works of art or classics, but because they both changed my life for different reasons:

Into the Darkest Corner – Elizabeth Haynes

This was my first psychological thriller and completely changed my reading habits from that point on.  The first ever book to make my heart pound louder, my stomach to churn and my sphincter to contract.  I have yet to read another book that affected me so deeply.

The Wronged Sons (When You Disappeared) by John Marrs

This was originally a self-published book written in 2013.  I read it after hearing about it on a Facebook group and this is before I knew about the importance of leaving reviews on Amazon etc.

I finished the book and was absolutely blown-away by the storyline and couldn’t stop thinking about it and certainly wasn’t able to start a new book. As I was leaving my 5 star rating on Goodreads I saw the author was on there too, so I messaged him telling him how much his book affected me. We struck up an online friendship and it gave me the courage to start leaving reviews and contacting other authors to tell them how much I loved their books, which in turn gave me the confidence to set up THE Book Club on Facebook which now has 7700 members and 1200 authors.

…

Thanks Tracy. Some fabulous and wide ranging choices there. I have to be honest, I am completely taken aback that you are the very first person to mention Lace. I’ve never read the book but I do remember my sister and mother being glued to the TV series. And as for your love one, leve them all choices – yes, yes, yes and yes from me.

What do you reckon guys? Any recommendations for Tracy to add to her already toppling TBR pile? Any key thrillers you think she should read?

Have a fabulously bookish day all and keep spreading the #booklove.

Jen

#BookLove: Tracy Fenton @Tr4cyF3nt0n It is my great pleasure to be sharing the blog today with Tracy Fenton of Facebook's 

[yasminwithane]

questions 1 - 41 if you're feeling it :)

Bless you Denise, you’re the real MVP. 💙 

I’m just gonna answer them all cause that’s what people normally do at 1am, right?

I’ll put it as a read more for people who hate long posts.

1) 📚 approximately how many books have you read

Seriously? There’s no way I’d even be able to guess that. Only apt answer is NOT ENOUGH!

2) 📝 book that everyone has to read

I guess Harry Potter? More to not feel left out than for enjoyment...It’s like a rite of passage, I think.

3) 📕 favourite first book in a series

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

4) 📗 favourite second book in a series

Gah I don’t read many series books. Ummmmm

Never Never Pt 2? Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

5) 📘 favourite third book in a series

Ummmm Isla and the Happily Ever After? But literally just because I really love the name Isla and I can’t think of any other series I’ve read with a good third book.

6) 📖 book you’ve read more than once and how many times

Oh SO MANY. I think I maybe re-read more than I read more books. Since I’ve talked about BIF elsewhere, let’s do another book.

The Fault in Our Stars - maybe 5 times?

7) 🛋 book that keep you up all night

I mean, literally any book. But last one I remember? The Deviants by CJ Skuse

8) 🎁 book that was surprisingly good

I really dislike poetry and books written in verse, but people kept raving about One by Sarah Crossan, so I forced myself to buy it and fell ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE with verse novels and Sarah Crossan and MAN that book was SO DAMN GOOD.

9) 😡 book you expected more of

So I read a lot of Romance, and everyone RAVES about The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay so I picked it up expected amazingness and it was AWFUL.

10) 💰 most expensive book you’ve bought

Um, last P4A I bought a copy of Paper Towns signed by the cast for like $150... (Also a copy of An Imperial Affliction for like $100)

11) 💩 the worst book you’ve read

OH MAN. SO HARD. SO MANY.

My friend and I did a book read swap once. I forget what I made her read, but she made me read The Magpies by Mark Edwards and OH MY GOD. JUST. LITERALLY. WTF. AWFULS.

12) 🏆 the best book you’ve read

Before I Fall - Lauren Oliver ❤️ 

13) 🎥 favourite book to movie/tv show adaptation

Ooooh. I really loved the film adaptation of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews.

14) 🎬 book you want to be a movie/tv show

I just read that they’re making a film adaptation of Every Day by David Levithan and I am SO PSYCHED for that (bonus: the script is being written by Jesse Andrews - who wrote Me and Earl and the Dying Girl!)

15)  🏝 summer book recommendation

We Were Liars - E Lockhart

16) ⛄️ winter book recommendation

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares

17) 🌎 favourite fictional world

I’d kinda love to live in the Every Day world - different body every day? YES PLEASE.

18) 🐲 favourite book creature

Is there a book with a peacock in? Peacocks please.

19) 👯 favourite female friendship

Oooh, so hard! There are some amazing female friendships in books. Top of my head says Jennifer and Beth from Attachments.

20) 👯‍♂️ favourite male friendship

This made me realise how few books featuring make friendships there are/I’ve read... I guess maybe Greg and Earl in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (I feel like I’ve mentioned that book too much in this survey)

21) 💋 favourite kiss

Ohhhhhhhh. Sky and Holder’s first non-kiss in Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

22) 👸 favourite princess/queen

I can’t think of a book I’ve read with either in... I’m very much a contemporary girl.

23) 🤴 favourite prince/king

Same as above.

24) 😈 favourite villain

Any book where the villain isn’t a person but like LIFE or an illness or something.

25) ❤️ favourite ship

Cather and Levi in Fangirl

26) ⛵️ favourite crack ship

I just had to google what this meant. 

Harry and Nagini (?)

27) 😱 best plot twist

I mean, I guess it HAS to be We Were Liars, doesn’t it? I do LOVE a good plot twist. I was gonna name some runners up, but I hate going into a book knowing it has a twist, so I’m not gonna risk spoiling them for others.

28) 🔮 power you’d like to have

To stop time/ travel back in time to change things.

29) 🥊 character you’d punch in the face

Peeta in The Hunger Games

30) 😤 character you loved but now hate

Cause y’know, I’m such a Twilight gal - I used to be Team Jacob....

31) 😻 character you hated but now love

Draco?

32) 😭 death that made you cry the most

I very rarely cry at books but I guess The Deviants by CJ Skuse - although that was because it triggered me haha

33) 😂 the funniest scene

Literally just ALL of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

34) 🤢 the grossest scene

I beta read someone’s novel that was filled with random irrelevant incest once. There was an incestuous threesome....

35) 💔 scene that broke your heart

The whole last half of One by Sarah Crossan.

36) 🏹 favourite fantasy book

YUCK, I HATE FANTASY

37) 🚀 favourite sci fi book

BLEUGH SCI FI IS GROSS

38) 🌹 favourite romance book

AGH SO MANY. I guess ANYTHING by Colleen Hoover (but Hopeless/Slammed/Ugly Love in particular). Also Attachments by Rainbow Rowell.

39) 👻 favourite horror book

I don’t think I’ve ever read a Horror book...

40) 🏰 favourite historical fiction book

BLEUGH. I HATE HISTORICAL FICTION

41) 🔫 favourite dystopian book

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins