Happy December, everyone! This time I’m switching it up and I’m participating in the Book Sacrifice Tag!
It’s been quite some time since I did a Book Tag-related post, and after seeing Jessethereader’s video for this tag, I decided that I wanted to participate in the Book Sacrifice Tag as well.
In this tag, there are four questions involving a book getting wrecked in hypothetical situations. You must choose which one will get wrecked in each scenario. Basically, this is the type of post where you can state your dislike for certain books and what you can do with them in these hypothetical situations.
Before we start, however, I just want to give the disclaimer that I will be discussing books I disliked in this entire tag post. If you like any of these books (or happen to be the one that authored these books), I only mean to give my opinion on these books and I mean no disrespect to you. I also reiterate that these are hypothetical situations and I really don’t like wrecking books for any reason in real life.
- An Over-Hyped book: Let’s start this off with a Zombie Apocalypse! Let’s say you’re in a book store, just browsing, when BAM! ZOMBIE ATTACK. An announcement comes over the PA System saying that the military has discovered that the zombies’ only weakness is over-hyped books. What book that everyone else says is amazing but you really hated do you start chucking at the zombies knowing that it will count as an over-hyped book and successfully wipe them out?!
I’m going to answer this with “You’re Welcome, Universe” by Whitney Gardner.
I understand why people would praise this book, given that it involves Deaf and LGBTQ+ representation (the main character is deaf and her parents are two moms), as well as having a graffiti war and the focus on friendship as a plotline as opposed to romance. And I do agree those are good things. However, I just found the plot execution of the graffiti war feeling unresolved at the end, and some characters more highly noted in the first half of the book disappeared for almost no reason at all. I also thought the friendship wasn’t exactly as well-executed as it was praised to be, borderlining on toxic given how badly the protagonist treated the person she was supposed to have a friendship plot with, and I found it very hard to connect with the protagonist due to her never really suffering any consequences for the things she does other than her graffiti at the beginning of the book.
So, yes, I’d chuck copies of this book at a Zombie Apocalypse. If it saves the world, that would be great!
- A Sequel: Let’s say you’ve just left the salon with a SMASHING new haircut and BOOM: Torrential downpour. What sequel are you willing to use as an umbrella to protect yourself?
Technically, this book I’m choosing is the third book in a trilogy, but it’s still a sequel to the first two books so I think it counts. I choose “The Midnight Star” by Marie Lu.
There were so many unnecessary or anti-climatic deaths in this book, as well as a whole bunch of worldbuilding mythology involved that just didn’t mesh well with what was already established in the first two books in this trilogy. Both these elements brought it down overall, but I also thought the character development in this book, as opposed to the first two, was also lacking.
- A Classic: Let’s say you’re in a lecture and your English teacher is going on and on about how this classic changed the world, how it revolutionized literature and you get so sick of it that you chuck the classic right at his face because you know what? This classic is stupid and it’s worth detention just to show everyone how you feel! What Classic did you chuck?
Please note I would never actually chuck a book at my English teacher in real life. Not only would this probably get me kicked out in a heartbeat, but I would probably expel myself first if I did.
If I hypothetically did so, given that this is a hypothetical situation and so has not (and will not) actually happen, I’m definitely chucking “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte at them.
Everyone did a lot of yelling at each other in this book, sometimes for no good reason at all, and the romance and revenge plots were so badly executed that this became one of the first few book reviews where I actually didn’t finish the book. Yes, the experience of reading it was that bad for me.
- Your least favourite book of life!: Let’s say that you’re hanging out at the library when BAM global warming explodes and the world outside becomes a frozen wasteland. You’re trapped and your only chance for survival is to burn a book. What is the book you first run to, your least favourite book of all life, what book do you not fully regret lighting?
There are so many books that I have rated less than three stars on this blog, sometimes even zero, but the one that honestly takes the cake for me is “The Game of Triumphs” by Laura Powell.
This book just really wasn’t for me, honestly. Hypothetically I would never burn a book unless in this type of scenario, but this would be the first one to burn out of all the books I’ve disliked. The plotline was disorganized, there was little if any character development, and the worldbuilding was badly executed overall. I feel like the concept as described in the summary was good, but I just wished it got fleshed out and clarified more than it did in the end.
Those are my answers for the Book Sacrifice Tag! And I have something to ask you all reading…which books would you sacrifice in each of these four scenarios and why? Feel free to let me know in the comments!