Hello Everyone, and happy Friday!
This is a book tag I’ve had saved in my drafts for a long time (since 2019 if I remember correctly), so I figured why not break it out for BEDIO 2022? Since it’s been in my drafts for a long time, a lot of these answers are from when I originally saved it… so it’s going to be fun reading through this and updating it 😂
Although it’s called a book tag, I wasn’t tagged; I just found it on Google 🤣 More specifically through the blog Divine World of Books (apparently, this was originally a Booktube tag). Here is the link to her tag:
As a side note, I want to mention that I didn’t answer all the questions in the tag, as I just didn’t have a book that fit the prompt 🤷♂️ So if you notice some questions missing, that’s why.
Anyways, let’s get into the tag!
1) Totally didn’t need to have a sequel/sequels
A Darker Shade of Magic Trilogy by V.E. Scwab
In all honesty, I loved the first book of the trilogy, but the other two books seemed completely unnecessary to me. A Darker Shade of Magic should have just been a stand alone book, in my opinion, because I feel as though the story dragged on a lot, especially during the third book. This happens to me a lot with V.E. Schwab, as I also read her Monsters of Verity duology, and I enjoyed This Savage Song, but the story lost it’s interest for me during Our Dark Duet. She always has interesting concepts for the magic systems in her novels also, but the stories themselves end up falling flat for me.
If you want to hear me talk about this in more detail, you can check out this post I made while I was still reading the final book in A Darker Shade of Magic. By the way, sorry in advance for the terrible video quality 🤣.
2) Totally didn’t need to have more than one point of view
The Girls by Emma Cline
Since this was told from the perspective of Evie when she was a 14 year old in 1969, and when she was an adult during the present day, I remembered finding the chapters when she was younger more interesting than when she was older. Although the story itself was pretty depressing, the chapters from when she was older were even more depressing, and I just don’t think were necessary.
3) Totally didn’t need to change cover art through the middle of a series
The Sweep Series by Cate Tiernan
When I was buying the books at the time, the first 8 or 9 books all had a cool cover design that I loved (pictured above). Then, I guess they hadn’t designed those covers for the rest of the series, so the books were not just a different cover design, as the book itself was also much smaller (like a mass-market paperback) 👀 Since then, I’ve found the rest of the series in the cover design I like, but haven’t been able to justify it to myself to spend the money purchasing the books.
4) Totally didn’t need a love triangle
The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
If you know, you know, but I just hated Mal in the books haha
I will say though, I love how his character was depicted in the Netflix adaptation of Shadow and Bone versus the original trilogy. I think they did a much better job with him, even though he still sometimes had his moments.
5) Totally didn’t need this book to be included in this series
Black is For Beginnings by Laurie Faria Stolarz
This was the final book in the Blue Is For Nightmare series, which I feel didn’t add anything to the story, and it was also weird because they published it as a graphic novel instead of a regular novel. The rest of the series wasn’t originally published as graphic novels and weren’t re-published as graphic novels either (as far as I know), so it also felt separate from the original series in that sense.
6) Totally didn’t need to have just one point of view
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
For those who have only seen the show and haven’t read the book, the book is only told from Clay’s perspective. I thought it was interesting how the show included more perspectives from different characters, even if it was just to fill out the episodes (although I thought the first season was okay, I had no desire to watch beyond that, especially after attempting to watch season 2 and giving up).
7) Totally didn’t need that much hype
More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
This could be a controversial opinion (at least, I know it would have been if I published this a couple years ago when I originally saved this draft), but I’ve never been a big fan of Adam Silvera’s writing. I think he publishes interesting story concepts, and as a person he seems cool, but his writing style never did it for me 🤷♂️ I was excited to read More Happy Than Not, but ended up feeling bored and disappointed in the end. I just think his writing doesn’t appeal to me, and I can see why people love his work, but… I would say it was overhyped to me.
8) Totally didn’t deserve my time
What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson
I watched the movie starring Robin Williams and enjoyed it. Despite being a sad story, the depiction of the afterlife and the main character’s journey through it was beautifully written and portrayed by Williams. I also was writing a story at the time that revolved around the afterlife and wanted to read other books that covered the same sort of themes and worldbuilding. However… I just couldn’t get through it. I couldn’t get into the story, as the writing just didn’t connect with me; honestly, it’s been so long that I can’t remember too much about my exact thoughts on the book, other than I have no desire to try picking it up again.
Thank you for reading through the tag, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
–Erin 🎃
Eclectic Erin 