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Brianna of GusherBooks started a BookTube tag based on Beyoncé’s music. Eight prompts based on chart toppers by Queen Bee herself await books as answers. If you’d rather read my answers, continue on. If you’d rather watch, here’s my YouTube video:
Q1 Halo: A book that inspired you.
The Martian by Andy Weir
This is one of those one in a million success stories where a self-published author garnered the attention (and hefty advances) of traditional publishing houses, gained film contracts, and international recognition for the author. Whether you like the book or not (I love it!), most of us self-publishing authors wish we could follow in his footsteps.
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Q2 Single Ladies: A book with a strong, independent heroine.
Green Rider by Kristen Britain
An ordinary merchant’s daughter with goals to attend the university, Karrigan wasn’t meant to be a green rider, but fate had other ideas. Karrigan comes across a dying rider, and agrees to take his horse and his message to finish his mission. It turns out Karrigan has magic after all, and a green rider is exactly what she’s meant to be. Oh, and did I mention she unravels a treasonous international politics mess?
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Q3 Irreplaceable: A book that can never be replaced.
The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
My copy of Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore was decommissioned from a high school library. The library clearly had an interesting practice in place of turning all books in its possession into a hardcover. This book used to be a paperback, but the cover was separated from the spine so that the book could be re-bound in a black white hardback, then the original paper cover was laminated onto the hardcover. I bought it from a used book seller who listed it as an original hardback printing, which I knew it wasn’t from the listing, but I bought it anyway because it looked so interesting. I’m not sure The Farthest Shore ever had a hardback run to begin with, but if it did, it certainly didn’t look like this. (Psst, this is the book I’m holding in the banner image at the top.)
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Q4 Diva: A book with your favourite sassy character.
The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne
Oberon is the sassiest character I’ve ever read, and I love it! This series features a 2,000+ year old Irish druid, and not only has he found a way to be functionally immortal, he’s shared that discovery with his wolfhound Oberon. With so much time on his hands, and the ability to join his mind to animals, he’s taught Oberon to talk to him. Wow, does he talk! Since Oberon knows only those with the correct magic and knowledge to link with his mind can hear him, he doesn’t hold back.
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Q5 Upgrade U: A book that you think could have been better.
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Hunger Games trilogy (and the new prequel – review coming!) but this book left me angry when I first read it. About half way through there’s a huge 180 shift, which is awesome, but the pacing changes with it, and it’s always felt to me like the second half was too rushed. It feels like Collins realized she should have committed to a four-book series rather than a trilogy, but it was too late, and this had to be the last book. Then there’s the epilogue. Sure, we all were wondering what became of Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch, but did we need sloppy 1-2 sentence write-offs for absolutely everyone else? I understand and agree that not everyone would have a happy life after so much trauma, but I don’t buy it that everyone left who loved these characters would move away forever. I wish I never read the epilogue!
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Q6 Crazy in Love: A book you can’t help but love.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
A pair of magicians have been competing for decades. They train apprentices, then release them into a battle to the death in which neither know who their opponent is, or even when the game has begun. The venue this time, the game itself, is Le Cirque des Reves. It arrives at night. It’s only open at night. By morning, it’s gone. One apprentice is performing in the travelling circus as an illusionist, while the other is managing the show remotely from their home base in London.
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Q7 Sweat Dreams: A book that you thought about a lot after finishing.
The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey
I wanted to say The Night Circus again, but that would be cheating. The Fire Rose is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and the start of the Elemental Masters series. It’s much truer to the typical Beauty and the Beast than Lackey’s Beauty and the Werewolf, except this Beauty is being kept company in her solitude by salamanders and other fire elementals, rather than enchanted furniture. When I finished my first read through this one, I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I couldn’t bring myself to start a new book for a few days!
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Q8 Ego: A book you think didn’t deserve the hype.
The Cursed Child by Thorne, Tiffany, and Rowling
This reads like a bad fan fiction that laughs in the face of so many canon elements of the original world and cast. It’s full of plot holes, too! Scorpius is the only redeeming feature of this book/play, in my opinion. I wouldn’t mind so much if it hadn’t been sold as the official eighth Harry Potter book. What about you?
No, I’m not linking this. I don’t want to help Rowling sell anything!
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