The Recommendations Book Tag

Hello! I have a new book tag!

Riddhi at Whispering Stories tagged me in this!

(View the original post at Ally Writes Things.)

I came up for a bunch of answers for each prompts but limited myself to one each.

IT WAS A TRIAL.

A book about friendship

Frog and Toad are Friends is a masterpiece!

I own the 50th anniversary commemorative edition, which contains bonus content about the author.

Lobel wrote Frog and Toad while closeted. I don’t know if that’s why the series means so much to me. It certainly makes it more poignant.

A fast-paced book

Stuck With You traps its characters in an elevator for about an hour.

Aside from flashbacks, that’s the whole book.

I thought it would be my least favorite of the STEMinist novellas, but it turned into my favorite.

A diverse romance

Happily Ever Afters is one of my favorite reads this year.

We have a protagonist with anxiety! A disabled character! A fat love interest! QTBIPOC friends!

The characters in this book are solid. I loved spending time with them.

An underrated memoir

How to Be a Heroine is one of my favorite comfort memoirs.

I have a reread pile going and somehow haven’t added this one to it? Where is my mind?

Though an Iraqi Jew and a Scandinavian Christian wouldn’t appear to have much in common, Samantha Ellis and I have surprisingly similar backgrounds.

I like the way Ellis writes about literature.

A nonfiction other than a memoir

Angela Chen’s Ace is THE BEST.

IMPECCABLE RESEARCH.

When I bought the physical copy after listening to the audiobook, I was surprised to learn the physical book is under 200 pages.

It’s so DENSE.

A book with fewer than 10,000 ratings on Goodreads

This is What I Know About Art came out in the summer of 2020 and changed my life.

Kimberly Drew details the process that led her to become a museum curator.

On the final page, she encourages readers, “It’s never too late.”

I’ve taken that to heart.

I’m 29 and I’m finally figuring out what I want to do.

It’s never too late.

A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist

I have a number of queer books queued up or on hold, including:

• Love, Hate, & Clickbait, an enemies-to-lovers contemporary romance
• The Binding, an m/m fantasy
• Ready When You Are, a YA romance set in Australia
• The One True Me and You, a contemporary romance about a non-binary cosplayer
• Who’d Have Thought, an f/f contemporary romance about a marriage of convenience
• The King of Infinite Space, a gay Hamlet retelling
• The Circus Infinite, a queer space circus adventure

So many gay books, so little time.

A book with more than 500 pages

My three favorite long books are:

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas
• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

I think my HOEAB copy has sprayed edges, which make it fancy.

A translated book

I read The Neverending Story in seventh grade.

The book is wild and VERY different from the film version.

I’m pretty sure Bastian kills Atreyu at one point??

Power corrupts!

Book you want everyone to read

I don’t know that every reader will relate to Piranesi.

I think a surprising number will.

Per critics, Piranesi’s experiences mirrored those of people in lockdown.

I think trauma survivors (and COVID counts as a trauma) will get a lot out of it.

It’s one of the most validating books I have ever read.

A short story collection

I finally read Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View.

DAMN you Wil Wheaton for making me cry!

This book had just the right amount of nostalgia.

The contributors’ ideas were really creative.

A book by a trans or non-binary author

I just read The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School.

It really captured how it feels to be closeted in a religious community.

Sonora Reyes is nonbinary. I’m excited to see what else they write!

Someone planted a tree outside my apartment.

Its branches have been slamming and scraping against my window since 4:00 AM.

As such, I don’t have a pithy outro for this post.

Give me your book recommendations, I guess.