A stack of red and green books. Red and gold paper flowers sit at the bottom of the stack. From top to bottom, the books are Catching Fire, Linger, Vicious, and Insurgent

Fictional Festivities | 12 Days of Christmas Book Tag

December 24, 2019October 22, 2022 Maggie1 Comment

‘Tis the season to curl up in front of a fireplace with a good book and a big mug of hot cocoa. Snowflakes are falling outside of your window, and the only sound you hear is the crackle of the fire and the crinkle of pages being turned. It’s just you and the book, no one else around.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I find it’s a big challenging to get into the “Christmas spirit” when you’re a student. My school wrapped things up particularly late this year, so I didn’t get to go home until December 19. Between research papers on medieval and renaissance literature and politics exams, it was easy to forget that Christmas was right around the corner.

And so I thought, what better way to get ready to celebrate Christmas than crank up my favorite Christmas music and participate in a Christmas-y book tag? This is the 12 Days of Christmas book tag, created by Falling Down The Book Hole, though I learned about it through Paper Fury’s post a few weeks ago. I did my very best to limit my answers to books I read this year, though you’ll see I bent the rules a tad bit…

Without further ado, let’s celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas!

Several books sitting in a white metal cart. The cart is decorated with string lights shaped like stars.

How to Make Me Read Your Book | 6 Story Tropes I Live For

December 3, 2019October 22, 2022 Maggie4 Comments

Let’s say we go to an ice cream parlor. My treat. I order my sundae, which is chocolate ice cream with peanut butter sauce, cookie dough chunks, whipped topping and rainbow sprinkles (no cherry). You open your mouth to order yours, but I cut you off and say, “We’ll both have the same thing.”

“But Maggie,” you protest. “I don’t like chocolate ice cream. And I’m allergic to peanuts! I’d much rather have vanilla ice cream with fudge and oreos on top!”

“Well, you’re wrong. My sundae is the best kind of sundae, so you’ll just have to learn to like it,” I say.

Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? Aside from the fact that my sundae would probably lead to me having a heart attack someday soon, it’s not gross or detestable. Neither is yours. Neither sundae is right or wrong, we just have different tastes in ice cream and its toppings, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes though, I think we get a certain idea about stories – we think that they have to be a certain way, and anything that doesn’t fit that mold is morally reprehensible. Granted, there are a few things that any story should have: your characters should be well-rounded and the plot should be coherent. Just as you wouldn’t put pickles on your strawberry ice cream, you wouldn’t write a story without those important elements.

But from there, who’s to say what the rules are? All audiences have different tastes when it comes to character and story tropes, so it’s just a matter of figuring out which ones work and hoping that the right person finds your story.

I try to keep an open mind when it comes to stories, but if I’m being honest, there are a few tropes that just get me, you know? Like, if I see one of those tropes in a story, and it’s being done well, it’s safe to say I’m hooked. I’ve compiled a list of a few of my favorites today – maybe you’ll agree, maybe you’ll disagree, but hey, that’s the fun of it!

Four stacks of books on a table. The thirst stack from the left is the tallest.

Making the Most of Required Reading | Seven School Books I’ve Actually Enjoyed

September 9, 2019October 22, 2022 MaggieLeave a comment

Most people don’t like required reading. Not even English majors. There’s nothing that kills my motivation more than someone handing me a paperback and then telling me I will be graded on my ability to read, comprehend, and analyze the words inside. I love reading. I wish I could do it more often than I do. It’s just that I have the kind of personality where the instant someone tells me something’s required, even if I will probably enjoy that something, I’m determined to dread it.

Sorry, professors.

Actually, I’m not all that sorry, because in sprite of my bad attitude, I have enjoyed a lot of my required reading. At the very least, I’ve only hated one or two books (and generally with good reason, so I don’t feel all that bad). Since school recently started for a lot of us Americans, I thought I’d take some time to talk about the books that make me love being an English major.

Author Interview with Sarah Henry: “intricacies are just cracks in the wall”

July 8, 2019October 22, 2022 MaggieLeave a comment

black and white photograph of a young woman with short hair and a feather pen tattoo on her collarbone. Sarah Henry. — Sarah Henry, author of *intricacies are just cracks in the wall.* She is also a photographer and videographer.

I am very excited to be sharing a project that is very close to my heart with you today. Sarah Henry, my friend and fellow English major (and now graduate), is publishing her first book, intricacies are just cracks in the wall through an IndieGoGo campaign. The novel tells the story of a young woman and her recovery from an abusive relationship through poetry. It explores experiences of mental health disorders, relational abuse, and the pains of self discovery.

I had the privilege of being a part of this project near the beginning as a member of Sarah’s writing workshop. It’s great to see all of her hard work finally coming to fruition through the published novel and the short film she created based on it!

As part of the launch of intricacies, I interviewed Sarah to talk to her a little bit about her writing process and the creation of both the book and the film. So what are you waiting for? Read on to hear more about intricacies are just cracks in the wall!

UPDATE 7/24/19: Sarah’s IndieGoGo campaign may be over, but you can still by intricacies are just cracks in the wall on Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

Seven Siblings from Stories

April 8, 2019October 22, 2022 Maggie2 Comments

Siblings. Love them or hate them, you’re pretty much stuck with them. They’re always there for you in when you’re knocked down… sometimes to give you a hand, sometimes because they pushed you. Such is life.

In case you don’t know, I have a younger brother (just one – the header image is of me with my brother and my cousin). So as someone who’s experienced having a sibling, I feel like I can be a pretty good judge of when someone writes sibling relationships well… and most of the time, they don’t. They usually fall into one of two extremes: always getting along 24/7, or hating each other’s guts. Going off of my own experience and what I’ve learned from others, sibling relationships usually fall more in the middle.

But anyway, just because most people can’t write siblings to save their life doesn’t mean there aren’t good, well-written sibling relationships in stories. I’ve compiled a list of seven of them, just to prove it. So here we go.

Waves crashing on a beach on a sunny day

The ABCs of Percy Jackson & The Olympians

February 25, 2019October 22, 2022 Maggie4 Comments

Look, I didn’t want to be a blogger… alright who am I kidding, of course I did. But if you’ve ever read the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, that opening line might look familiar.

I recently re-read The Lightning Thief, the first book in the series, and I just saw the musical adaptation of the novel (which you should definitely check out if you have the chance), so I figured now was a good time to present to you the alphabet, according to the Percy Jackson series.

A large mug shaped like a pineapple sits on a bookshelf with several slips of paper sticking out of it. The pineapple is wearing sunglasses

Character Duel Tag

November 19, 2018October 22, 2022 Maggie2 Comments

Full disclosure – I renamed this tag because apparently it was originally called the “You’re Not Good Enough Book Tag.” That title felt a little misleading, because honestly, this is all about characters fighting each other. Figuratively, at least.

This tag was originally created by Booktubers ReadLikeWildfire and Beccathebookreviewer, but the video is no longer available. I actually found it through another blogger, Dreamland Book Blog. The rules are simple: There are 15 questions ~~(well, 14 in my version – I cut one out)~~, you write various character names on slips of paper and draw names for each question. You have to pick between these two characters for each question and decide which one is better for the question.

To be honest, it’s kind of hard to explain, so I’m just gonna get into the questions!

Re-Reading Books: Why it’s Worth Your Time

August 6, 2018October 22, 2022 Maggie9 Comments

Way back when I set my reading goals for 2018, not only did I set an overall goal for the number of books read, but I also gave myself other small challenges I could do along the way. One of these goals was to re-read two of my favorite book series, Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter and The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.

My motivation behind re-readings these books was mostly because it had been a while since I first read them, and I thought it would be fun to take another look at my old favorites. In other words, I wanted to be able to enjoy them again. And I certainly did! Re-reading these two series reminded me of how much I love them, and I still had fun with them the second time around.

As I was re-reading, however, I began to think… is there more to re-reading than just entertainment? If the twists and turns of a story are what make it so entertaining the first time around, then what’s the point of going back and reading it again? You know everything that’s coming, so why bother when there are so many brand-new stories to be read?

There are plenty of good reasons to re-read your favorite books though, and they go beyond entertainment. Of course, movies and TV shows can fall under this umbrella too, but since I re-read books most often, I’ll be using them as my examples today.

Books on a shelf, but turned around so their pages are sticking out instead of the spines.

Underrated Books (And Why You Should Read Them)

July 16, 2018October 22, 2022 Maggie2 Comments

Sometimes, you finish a book and all you want to do is talk about it with someone else. In some cases, it’s pretty easy – books like The Hunger Games or The Lightning Thief are so widely read that pretty much anyone can contribute to a conversation on them. However, there are other times when it’s hard to find a fellow reader. You’ll be lucky to find someone else who’s even heard of the book, let alone read it.

I’ve encountered this problem more times than should be allowed. It can be lonely to read a book that has completely blown your mind and yet have no one to talk to about it. These underrated books deserve recognition though, and today, I’d like to share a few of my “little-known” favorites that you should definitely add to your to-be-read list.

A stack of green books on a green background. From top to bottom, they are: Goliath, Liar, The Maze Runner, and Insurgent.

YA Character Tropes: Scrap or Save? (+Quiz)

June 11, 2018October 22, 2022 Maggie8 Comments

If you handed me a young adult novel and gave me thirty seconds to look at it, I could probably tell you a bit about the cast of characters. There’s a pretty good chance the cast consists of a dark and mysterious guy, an insecure girl, and a vaguely attractive childhood friend.

Not all YA books would be like that, of course, but a majority of them do contain these basic character archetypes. They’re like pages in a coloring book – an outline for the writer to fill in with whatever colors or patterns they see fit. There’s nothing wrong with that, but some of these archetypes have become tropes. In other words, all of the writers are coloring in the picture the exact same way.

These tropes make stories predictable, which gets boring for the audience. But are all tropes really that bad? Can any of them be salvaged? I’ve picked ten of the most common character tropes in YA fiction to try and answer which tropes are really worth saving (and how to save them), and which ones should be tossed aside.