#i am editing a fantasy trilogy and lemme tell ya

[littlelasagne]

How's life going for you love?

Hiii

Busy and tired! Honestly, I'm working hard to keep up at work, eat 3 meals a day and sleep 7 hours. That's going well, but takes up a lot of energy and editing all day at work doesn't leave enough brainpower for editing at home :(

But right now, I am finding an hour every other night to edit the next BMO chap and I soooooo desperately want to update it soon. Nearly there!

Thanks for the ask!

[starless-chasm]

Year-end Book (and Book Blogging) Survey


It's the last day of December! Before I go all dramatic and revisit my IELTS-ful year, I mean not-so-eventful offline memory lane, I’ll just do some “book business” and answer this year-end literary survey. I’ve seen this posted in my tumblr dash so I guess I’ll answer it. Apologies in advance…I may be publishing a lot of entries today. I'm trying to be productive, but hey, thanks for understanding! :)) 
1. The Best Book You Read In 2017? 
This question is probably one of the pet peeves I will never ever be able to avoid. It never fails to render me speechless every time—not in a good way, obviously—it feels like you're being asked who your favorite son/daughter amongst your kids...no, you can't just do that - so many to choose from! Haha. That said, I have a lot of favorites in different genre. 
•The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
•A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
•Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo 
2. The Most Disappointing Book or a Book You Wish You Loved More Than You Did? 
The Gentleman's Guide To Vice And Virtue by Mackenzi Lee. I really wish I could like it more just like what people in the internet are saying. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it, I just don't like it. Runner-up’s Renee Ahdieh’s The Rose and the Dagger. This is the sequel to The Wrath And The Dawn which I truly loved as it's a re-telling of my favorite fairytale of all time: One Thousand And One Nights. I was smitten with Ahdieh's oh-so-surreal work on the first book, but this one’s an exception. There’s just something…off about it. 
3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2017? 
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. I first picked up this book last year and only got to read its first chapter. I really don't know why I did it. Haha. Then early this year, I wouldn’t have picked this book back if it solely brandished a regular soulmate formula, but the nerd factor involved in its blurb (and its title, duh!) convinced me to try it one last time. It was amazing, and not just in a geeky kind of way. Also in a flabbergasted oh-my-god-it-shattered-my-heart-but-still-made-me-smile-at-the-end kind of way.
Runners-up are: the YA book Turtles All The Way Down by John Green, and The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon. 
4. Book you recommended to people most in 2017? 
I will never stop recommending The Hate You Give. In fact, I can almost see myself still recommending it in 2018. Also, on top of my list is the poetry book The Princess Saves Herself On This One by Amanda Lovelace and The Wrinkle In Time by Madeliene L'Engle. Oh, and also Sally Thorne's The Hating Game! Because they’re awesome, okay? Just spreading the love, ‘ya know. Same with all of John Green’s. Yeah, I roll like that. 
5. Best series you discovered in 2017?
Right, I’m going to cheat again because there’s a lot of good series in different genres I discovered this year: 
• A Court Of Thorns and Roses trilogy by Sarah J Maas (young adult fantasy, science fiction).
•Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo (young adult fantasy, science fiction).
•To All The Boys I Loved Before trilogy by Jenny Han (young adult fiction) 
6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2017? 
Markus Zusak, Sarah J Maas, Leigh Bardugo, Becky Albertalli, Nicola Yoon, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Khaleed Hosseini, Rupi Kaur and Madeleine L'Engle. 
7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? Actually, I have a problem with going out of my comfort zone in terms of reading ever since I can remember. But let's see, I'd like to try reading a lot of biographies next year, then I'll get back to this question. 
8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2017? 
Hmm, in terms of unputdownability (gads, I love the word), I guess the award’s going to Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows series and Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall (yep, I liked Oliver’s debut novel more than her famed dystopian book). They’re just so gripping! 
9. Book you most anticipated in 2018?
Puddin' by Julie Murphy. Come on—Murphy's writing another YA story after her debut novel Side Effects May Vary? Who can’t NOT get excited by that? I hope I can get through next year.
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2017? 
Unfortunately, this is not the version I own. I have the American edition, the one with the dominoes on the cover. The Book Thief has a total of 35 editions and I specially adore the UK Adult Edition. I mean, how can you not love this edition? There’s just something about it that really appeals to me. Dancing with Death, even in illustrations, look so morbidly beautiful and poetic. I'm still hoping I can find the UK Edition though.
11. Most memorable character in 2017?
Unfair! Just one? If this survey is going to continue having questions like this one, I have no choice but to cheat. Just lemme do it, mkay? 
• Kaz Brekker from Six of Crows Duology by Leigh Bardugo.
• Feyre Acheron and Rhysand from A Court Of Thorns And Roses Trilogy by Sarah J Maas. Well, I specially love Feyre—just the fact that she may be my fictional alter ego if I were to be chucked in the pages of a young-adult fantasy book. She’s feisty, and she believes she can forge her own destiny. She reminds me of myself in so many ways.
• Simon Spier from Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2017? 
The Wrath and the Dawn (need I say more?),The Book Thief until I got my hands on this I’ve never enjoyed reading a Death anthropomorph narrating a story that ever exceeded the one in Gaiman’s The Sandman graphic novels). 
13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2017? 
You wouldn’t be mad if I say it’s one of the books above, right? Haha. 
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2017 to finally read? 
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I should have read this a long time ago! 
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2017? 
from Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall: “Most of the time—99 percent of the time—you just don’t know how and why the threads are looped together, and that’s okay. Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens. Do nothing and everything explodes. And very, very rarely—by some miracle of chance and coincidence, butterflies beating their wings just so and all the threads hanging together for a minute—you get the chance to do the right thing.” 
from Markus Zusak, The Book Thief: "I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant."
I could add more, but I’ll just leave it at two. 
16. Book That You Read In 2011 That Would Be Most Likely To Reread In 2012? 
Not counting the ones I repeated more than twice above, I guess I’ll reread Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda before I watch the movie adaptation. 
17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It? (a WTF moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc. etc.) 
Haha! To be honest? Six of Crows duology. There’s a reason why it's my favorite this year. :p I’m always gushing about this duology—sending messages to my friends, fangirling about it online (even joining a contest where I declared my love for one them). 
18. One Book You Didn’t Get To Read In 2017 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2018? 
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, The God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy, 1Q84 + a bunch of other books by Murakami. There. 
19. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2018? 
Please refer to question no.9. 
20. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging In 2018? 
Just read more, learn more, inspire more, and blog more.