Keep It Fresh Award

 

I was nominated by Orang-utan Librarian, so thank you! And sorry it took me this long to post it! 😀

Rules:

1. Post the rules before starting and link back to this post as a reference for other bloggers.
2. Part A: Answer each of the fruit questions (each fruit corresponds to a book!) & add pictures plus why you thought that particular book deserves that particular fruit if possible.
3. Part B:Choose your favourite fruit (even if it is one of the fruits in part A). Come up with a question that we didn’t ask and answer it.
4. Part C:Create your own smoothie from the fruits in Part A (imagine a Lemon-Tomato-Apple smoothie ~ yuck), and find a book that would correlate to your smoothie!
5. Nominate as many and anyone that you think are deserving of this award but it would be nice if you nominated a minimum of 5!
6. Notify your nominees of the nomination.
7. The most important rules? Have fun and of course, keep it fresh!

Part A: Fruit Questions

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1. Strawberries – Name the sweetest book you’ve read. (e.g. sweet in terms of the characters or if the story takes place in a sweet world… etc.)

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya. This series is totally adorable and the main character is a real sweetie. I want to be her friend. 😀

 

 

 

2. Coconut – What is a book that you would bring on vacation with you to a tropical destination? (Or if you’re just relaxing at the beach…)

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I tend to like bringing really fat books on vacation with me so I only have to bring one book instead of three. And this book is a chunk. I’ve been meaning to read it for ages and if I go on vacation this year, this is the one I’m going to bring (unless I read it beforehand)

 

3. Pineapple – What is a book that you didn’t think you would like by judging its cover/summary/the first few pages but started to grow on you?

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas. It just didn’t sound like something I’d enjoy and honestly the hype was really off-putting. And in some cases, I was correct. I still don’t totally like the main character, but the world the book takes place in is pretty neat. So now I’m in book three which has actually changed focus from the goofy main character to the world building so the book for me has gotten much more enjoyable.

 

4. Orange – What’s the juiciest book you’ve read? (e.g. A book with tons of action, romance… etc.)

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. This book has romance elements in it but I wouldn’t classify it totally as a romance (though I’m sure that could be  disputed). This book though I feel is the total package. It’s completely enthralling.

 

 

5. Watermelon – A watery book (e.g. There wasn’t tons of substance to the book/the details were just too watery…etc. Don’t get us wrong though, we love watermelons!)

Dumplin’ by Jule Murphy. I choose this one because this book kinda fell flat for me. Nothing really happened. Like, there was the hints that things were going to happen, but then it just kinda tapered off. Not saying it was a bad book, but there wasn’t much substance to it.

 

 

6. Dragonfruit – What’s the most unique book you’ve read? (e.g. Unique in writing style, characters, plot… etc.)

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. This is definitely an awesome series. It has so many twists and turns and shocks. The plot is completely awesome, as are the characters. I can’t recommend this series enough. It’s fantastic. And you’ll never read anything like it again.

 

 

7. Lemons – Name a book that made you feel sour. (e.g. The emotions were just sour, you just felt sour reading the book, or the book includes sour characters… etc.)

Rumble by Ellen Hopkins. If you’ve been around my blog for a while, then you know I hate this book. It’s just so bland and the characters are unreasonable and the plot is just beh. My face was scrunched up for a good while after finishing this one, lemme tell ya. I wrote a full review (see ‘rant’) on it if you feel the overwhelming need to know why I find it awful.

 

8. Tomato – What is a wonderful book that you think should be more widely known? Or a fantastic author whom you think deserves more recognition? (Since some may not know that tomatoes are actually fruits!)

I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it until someone reads it and tells me that they did. The Relic Master series by Catherine Fisher deserves far more attention than it gets. I read it after hearing absolutely nothing about it, picked it up on a whim, and then binged through all four books. This series is awesome and imaginative and I love it. Somebody read it, dammit.

 

9. Apple – Name a really stereotypical book of a certain genre just like apples which are typical fruits. In the end was that book good or not? (e.g. A very typical contemporary/fantasy book… etc.)

Legend by Marie Lu is the most ‘dystopian YA’-y book I’ve ever read. This book was alright. I liked it. It didn’t particularly stick out as anything special though. But it was enjoyable. As far as being stereotypical, let me count the ways:

Dystopian society
One main character teenage girl who is somehow in a position of power
Other main character ‘rebel’ type, also somehow particularly skilled
Teenage boy opens teenage girl’s eyes to the ‘truth’
Both are the only ones who see an issue with the society
Epic adventure of infiltration
Adults in series are ding dongs
Side characters are rough-and-tumble get-er-done

So yeah. Enjoyable but nothing new and certainly nothing unique

10. Blueberries – Name a book that made you feel blue. (Any sad, depressing books that you’ve read?)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling. I’m sure you all know why. For the two of you who haven’t read the books yet, I won’t say. But hurry up.

 

 

11. Grapefruit – Any bitter books? (e.g. a book that was blue but MORE… do you have any bitter resentments towards characters from a book? Any sour turned bitter emotions? Any uber hateful villains?)

Can… can I use a TV show here? This is a spoiler for American Horror Story: Hotel, so if you haven’t seen the series finale yet, skip this answer.

I’m choosing the finale of Hotel as a whole. I mean. It was all a little too convenient, don’t you think? I kept waiting, pleading, that something awful would happen but it didn’t. The ending was happy. For everyone. That’s not how American Horror Story is supposed to be. It’s supposed to end horridly. I just. I was so disappointed. I’m bitter. 😛 It was a yucky finale.

12. Jackfruit – Name the most physically heavy book that you’ve ever read. (Because jackfruits are pretty heavy fruits!)

I’m going to semi-cheat here and say my Abnormal Psychology textbook I had to read when I took Psychopathology back when I was getting my psych degree. That textbook in particular was dense. I had other books bigger than this one, but this was by far the heaviest. And I needed to use it in class too, so I had to lug it back and forth every day. Goodness. (also wtf is a jackfruit)

13. Limes – Name a funny book that you’ve read because limes add flavour and so does humour with every book.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. This is the first book in the Bartimaeus trilogy and while it was a fantasy and not a comedy, the djinn in this book was a real character. He was hysterical and remains one of my favorite characters in any book ever. Highly recommend this one.

 

 

Part B: Favorite Fruit

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Choose your favorite fruit and then choose a book that would correspond the best and if your fruit is already taken on our list, make up your own question and answer it.

How are bananas not on this list. Bananas are the BEST. So my question is ‘Bananas: A character in a book that you feel isn’t given the credit they deserve’

And my answer for that is Annie Montrose from The Martian. This character is hilarious – she’s the PR person and she has to deal with a lot of stuff and figuring out how it’s to be told to the public. And the whole time, she swears like a sailor. It’s great, I love her.

Part C: Fruit Smoothies

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Finally, choose a book that was a mix of some of these fruits to make your own smoothie. (e.g. A strawberry blueberry lemon smoothie would correlate to a sweet and sad but sour book.)

Scar Night by Alan Campbell, the first book in the Deepgate Codex, one of my favorite series ever, would be a coconut, pineapple orange smoothie (which actually sounds pretty good). READ IT PEOPLE.

 

 

And that’s it!

This was a lot of fun! I nominate Panda, Ace, Nora and Analee! If you’ve done it already, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention because I’m a ding dong. :”D Hee hee.