Little Red's Reading Blog

2017 Love-a-Thon Questionnaire

An Introduction to You and Your Blog

What’s your name? Where in the world are you blogging from?
Tell us your history with reading. Were you always a reader? Were you a reluctant reader? Was there a book that convinced you to become a reader?
How did you get involved in the online book community?
How did you choose your primary platform (blog, Instagram, YouTube, etc)? How did you come up with your blog name?
What’s your favorite thing about the online book community?
What sort of posts can readers expect from you?
What book genres do you talk about most?

1. My name is Meagan and I am blogging from Canada :)

2. I wasn’t always a reader, when I was really young I didn’t have the patience for it. Then, when I was 11, I got a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and I read the book in one day and since then I have been hooked!

3. Last year I finished grad school and found myself living in a city far away from my family, most of my friends having moved back to their homes and I was looking for a job. Grad school was a lot of hard work and after the first month off when I finally had a well deserved break I began to feel like I needed to work on something. I had started reading for pleasure again as much as I could since finishing school and I started thinking about reviewing the books I was reading. So I started my blog.

4. I was unfamiliar with Instagram and had a bad experience on Youtube so I decided a blog was the way to go. I enlisted my siblings and my boyfriend with helping think of a name and both my sister and my boyfriend liked the idea of playing with Little Red Riding Hood since I a) love fairy tales and fantasy and b) I have red hair. Thats how we came up with Little Red’s Reading Blog.

5. My favourite thing about the online book community is seeing how many other people love the books I love and getting recommendations from them.

6. So far I have only been posting reviews on my blog but in anticipation of Love-a-thon I set up and instagram account so I am hoping that people will like what I am posting over there! https://www.instagram.com/littleredreading/

7. I definitely talk about fantasy the most on my blog since it is what I love to read. I enjoy classics, historical fiction and romance as well but I haven’t posted many reviews from those genres (yet).

Favorites

1. Favourite food: ice cream beverage: tea!

2. Favourite colour: this is a hard one, I love all colours but find myself drawn to turquoise and yellow at the moment!

3. Favourite thing to do apart from reading: I have always loved to draw. I haven’t been sketching as much as I used to since grad school but I did yesterday and really enjoyed it! I also love to write and took part in NanoWriMo for the first time last November and I am in the process of editing (and trying to finish) my first novel. I also love to bake.

4. Favourite tv shows: Lots! Call the Midwife, Victoria, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Merlin, Rome, Modern Family, This Is Us

5. Favourite musical artist: I am a bit out of the loop with music, I enjoy listening to classical music, movie soundtracks and musical theatre. When I am not listening to audiobooks on my way to work I listen to the Hamilton soundtrack and try really hard not to start singing out loud on the bus.

6. I have loads of favourite movies: All of the Harry Potter movies, all three Lord of the Rings, The Secret Garden, Princess Bride, Bridget Jone's Diary, Love Actually, The Railway Children, Dragon Heart, Every single Disney animated movie, Anastasia, Thumbelina, Swan Princess, Quest for Camelot, The Young Victoria, Gladiator, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables (1 & 2)

7. Favourite places to shop: any bookstores, particularly the independent one in my hometown, Kate Spade (though I mostly window shop there), Coach (alas more window shopping), gap, old navy, american eagle

Book Talk

1. Favourite childhood book: There are a few that stand out from when I really started reading for fun at 11/12: the first four Harry Potter books, Ella Enchanted, The Tales of Christopher Chant, The Golden Compass, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Prydain Chronicles, The Song of the Lioness Quartet and the Circle of Magic Quartet

2. Favourite books in the last five years: The Lunar Chronicles definitely, The Mortal Instruments and the Infernal Devices and now the Dark Artifices, Wicked Lovely, Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses, The Hunger Games, A Song of Ice and Fire

3. Favourite genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance

4. Underrated book, series, or author you love: TAMORA PIERCE. I have been reading her books since I was 11 and I love every single one of them. She doesn’t get a lot of recognition in the online community but the people who have read her love her. Also a close second is the works of Diana Wynne Jones, she was also a big influence on me growing up.

5. A book I want to see made into a film or tv show: It would be amazing to see Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books as a tv show. Since the series spans over 20 years I think an animated series in the vein of Avatar the Last Airbender would work best.

6. Book boyfriend? Book BFF? Book family?: Another difficult question! My book boyfriend is Numair Salmalin from the Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce and/or Jem Carstairs from Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices. My book BFFs would definitely be Harry Potter and Keladry of Mindelan from Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small quartet. My book family would be the Weasleys. Come on, they are everyone’s book family! I come from a big family like the Weasleys and in high school one of my friends was devastated to learn that we all didn’t have red hair like the Weasleys. My dad and I are the only ones with red hair sadly.

7. Books I want to read in 2017: I just finished Reign of Shadows after I saw how much Kristin/Super Space Chick liked it. Other books on my tbr list are: King’s Cage, Lord of Shadows, A Court of Wings and Ruin, Caraval, The Fate of the Tearling, Crooked Kingdom, Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising, Cruel Beauty, Roseblood, The Night Circus, The Scorpio Races, The Raven Boys, The Kiss of Deception, A Torch Against the Night, and The Wrath and the Dawn. I am also anticipating Philip Pullman’s book coming out this fall The Book of Dust.

8 comments

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Review: Wayfarer

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Review: Windwitch

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Review: Heartless

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Review: The Valiant

Her entire life Fallon has trained to be a warrior like her sister Sorcha. Although her sister was killed in battle by Caesar’s forces her shadow looms large in Fallon’s daily life. She spends her days training with her friend and love Maelgwyn, and eagerly awaits the day when her father, King Virico, will accept her into his war band. Fearing that she may come to the same fate as her sister, Virico does not accept Fallon into the war band, instead he gives her hand in marriage to a man who is not her beloved. Devastated by her father’s betrayal Fallon runs out into the night and is captured by slave traders. The slaver Charon recognizes Fallon is not like the other slaves and he sells her and fellow slave Elka to the elite school for female gladiators owned by none other than Julius Caesar himself. When Fallon learns of the true identity of her lanista, the woman who runs the school on Caesar's behalf, she decides fighting as a gladiatrix is not the curse she had previously thought it to be, but the opportunity to fight valiantly that she has desired all her life. Fallon finds help to achieve her goal and to navigate life in Rome from fellow slave turned gladiatrix Elka, Charon the slaver, and the handsome Roman legionnaire Caius Varro.

Having read and enjoyed Lesley Livingston's series Wondrous Strange, when I was given the opportunity to receive an ARC of The Valiant I leapt at the chance. A YA novel set in ancient Rome by an author I know and like? Sounds great! In Wondrous Strange Livingston delves into her knowledge of Shakespeare's works to create a Faerie worthy of the bard that translates into YA fiction. Before I started reading I was optimistic that Livingston would apply the same research and creativity into her version of ancient Rome. As someone with a BA and MA in Classical Studies I have more knowledge of the ancient world than the typical reader and on the whole I can say that Livingston's depiction of the ancient Roman world was fairly accurate! Particularly her description of Caesar's campaign in Britain and her characterization of Cleopatra.

However, there were some small details that irked me as a classicist. Livingston's depiction of the baths started out accurately with her description of the series of pools in differing temperatures but a few minor details ruined the illusion for me. She romanticizes the baths by describing the water clean and perfumed. I know of a few academic articles that argue to the contrary that the baths were disgusting by modern standards. Before they are sold at the slave auction, Livingston has Fallon and Elka bathe under supervision and are not allowed to leave the baths until they have scrubbed off all the filth of their journey with soap. The ancients did not scrub with soap as we would today. Rather they would apply olive oil to their skin and they would scrape all the grit and dirt of the day away with a tool called a strigil. It may seem picky and pretentious to complain about small details like this but I believe it is important to do the research! Despite my complaints, overall I really enjoyed The Valiant and gave it four stars on goodreads.