Book Blogger Confessions Tag

Published on by theorangutanlibrarian

 

orangutan tag 2

It has been a while since my last confession… I mean tag 😉 So I figure I should just jump straight to the good bit! Thanks so much to the lovely Sophie for tagging me to do this one! She runs a brilliant book blog with such varied content- from reviews to writing to crafts! Definitely recommend you check her out 🙂

RULES:

  • Answer these questions truthfully.
  • Once you’re done, tag 5 other book bloggers to answer these questions next.

1. Which book, most recently, did you not finish?

otherworld

I actually find it really hard to DNF, so I was proud of myself for giving up on Otherworld. It was a very, very average ripoff of Ready Player One. And I’m not sorry for giving up on it!

2. Which book is your guilty pleasure?

Hmm I don’t know that I ever feel guilty, so I’m going for something that is more pure pleasure…

kiss quotient

3. Which book do you love to hate? 

fifty shades of grey

Hard question, cos I kinda hate hating things most of the time. I’ll admit I do enjoying hating on Fifty Shades of Grey from time to time- there’s just a lot of entertaining stuff out there making fun of it.

4. Which book would you throw into the sea? 

old man and the sea

I’ll admit I trawled through all my lowest rated books on Goodreads, looking for something that sounded appropriate, so I guess I’m giving The Old Man and the Sea a watery death because it sounds punny! I feel a bit mean about this, because it’s not a fate it truly deserves, given it’s actually a good book and the only justification I have is that I don’t click with Hemmingway’s writing style… which isn’t really a justification at all. Ah well- I guess I’ll just have to drown in my own guilt 😉

5. Which book have you read the most?

Easily, the Hobbit.

Hobbit_cover

6. Which book would you hate to receive as a gift? 

I don’t know that there’s anything… beyond Mein Kampf. I think any scenario where you receive this (or anything in this vein) as a gift would be pretty disturbing. Like, the thought process behind this would either be “Happy birthday- I think you’re a Nazi!” or “Happy birthday- from your friendly neighbourhood Nazi!”

mein kampf

(I realise there is probably a perfectly sensible answer to this question and I’ve just gone off the deep end, haven’t I?)

7. Which book could you not live without? 

Well, I’ve already mentioned The Hobbit, so I think I’ll have to go with another of my most formative reads: The Idiot. Not necessarily Dostoevsky’s best, but it’s left a deep impact on me ever since I read it.

idiot

8. Which book made you angriest? 

as i lay dying

I can safely say that As I Lay Dying makes me so hot under the collar that I might spontaneously combust. Now, I’ve been told that I don’t get this book’s brilliance. Apparently, writing 56000 words on why language is insufficient to convey meaning is a stroke of genius and not the pretentious bilge I took it for. Silly me. Granted I do understand that I was supposed to buy into the post-structuralist “everything is meaningless so we might as well all curl up and die” view a long time ago- alas I am too “foolish” to have taken that to heart 😉 I must therefore issue an apology to the intelligentsia powers-that-be who like to pontificate on whether chairs are indeed chairs/whether dogs are dogs/whether language is a useful tool to communicate: I guess I couldn’t have been more wrong. Clearly I am a grunting-cave-dweller for thinking language fulfils its function pretty well. Clearly it is smart to obfuscate meaning in order to make the point that meaning is impossible to find- that’s not a manipulative tactic at all and TOTALLY proves there’s no meaning… in this work at any rate 😉  (Wow- that got more sarky than I intended- see what I mean about this making me sizzle with rage?)

9. Which book made you cry the most?

sadie

Recently, that would be Sadie. I can barely talk about this without getting emotional, so I’m just going to suggest listening to the audiobook version if you can and move on before I tear up…

10. Which book cover do you hate the most?

I don’t know why, but I feel so so bad picking out ugly covers. Still, I have to admit, I’m not crazy about the original City of Bones cover.

City_of_Bones

That’s all for now- I tag: Journey into Books, Hammock of Books, Kristin Kraves, Meltotheany, Literary Latte, CJR Brit and the Book Prescription

And I want to know- do you agree or disagree with any of my answers? And what books makes you sizzle with rage? Let me know in the comments!

91 thoughts on “Book Blogger Confessions Tag”

  3. I’ve only read a few of the books you’ve noted here, perhaps a generational difference. Totally agree with the nazi book, such vile hatred from an evil man, perhaps even more frightening in today’s political climate. Sobbed the last five pages of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, each of the four times I read it. That’s a convincing response, dontcha think? The books I’ve read the most (6 times each) are Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Lillian Nattel’s The River Midnight. Very different stories, Midnight being far less well known but a brilliant story. A close second, with 5 readings, is Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. The one I finally threw in the trash – well, maybe I gave it away – is Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Half way through a rather long book, I’d simply had enough. I realize its premise is brilliant but I couldn’t believe in the characters and that’s a deal breaker for me. One of the many books that made me angry is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. It’s done as much for making me compassionate toward those who struggle under unfair circumstances as all the political rallies I attended as a young woman. Yes, I loved the book, but the heartbreaking life it revealed still enrages me. You didn’t ask for my opinion on all these categories, but maybe I’ve suggested a few books you haven’t yet read. Thanks for a really interesting post.

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    1. Ah that’s fair. And it doesn’t get easier with age. Ahh Kite Runner made me sob too. And To kill a mockingbird is a good one- I’ve reread that too many times to count! (partly cos I studied it in school and read it over and over for an exam- it was lucky I loved it so much and that it was a pleasure to read every time). Ah I can understand that about grapes of wrath. Yeah for sure- I’m definitely curious about song of Solomon having read her other works and midnight sounds good 🙂 thanks for the recommendations!

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  6. Same on Falkner! I had to read “As I Lay Dying” for one of my graduate courses. I loved the premise, but the execution was incredibly pretentious. And I hate that argument when it comes to classics. The ‘Oh, if you don’t like it, you just aren’t smart enough to understand it.” That line of reasoning completely ignores the fact that literature is subjective, and takes it for granted that just because something has been deemed “literary” that automatically makes it a brilliant book. We should all judge books for ourselves, not love the books that the ivory towers tell us to. The whole “literary” genre has been for a very long time, classist, racist, and to a lesser extent, sexist. There’s a reason so many classic writers are middle or upper class white men. So, to act like a book is amazing and wonderful just because the fancy-pants critics have deemed it so is inherently problematic.
    Also, like “Lolita” is a classic. It’s not even the only classic that involves pedophilia. I’ve really raged at a few professors during my time in graduate school because we read SO MUCH freaking pedophilia in my English Lit program. If the sheer amount of pedophilia isn’t evidence enough that “literary” works aren’t always great, and the criteria by which works are judged low-brow or literary is arbitrary and problematic, then I don’t know what is. “Love in the Time of Cholera” is one that included pedophilia, but the descriptions were so over-the-top creepy, phrases like “diaper smell” to emphasize the youth of the teenage lover, I honestly couldn’t tell if the author was being creepy or subversive.
    Anyhow, loved this post! Great content as always 🙂

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    1. Ahh I’m so glad you agree!! It’s incredibly pretentious! I couldn’t agree more! Taste is subjective and frankly not liking something can come from a very sensible place- I never tell people they’re wrong for not liking something cos chances are they’re right in their criticism- sometimes out of fondness for something can blind us to its faults.
      Oh yeah I really get what you mean- I raged about my degree too (and of course I was forced to read Lolita as well :/ never have I thrown a book against a wall quite as much). And I really didn’t like Love in a Time of Cholera either.
      Thanks so much for reading and for your great comment!

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  7. I got an ARC of Otherworld … I would agree that it has too many similarities to Ready Player One. Even it didn’t, it still was an average at most of a read.
    Fun post!

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  9. I think As I Lay Dying is a book you have to read at a certain age and with a certain mindset to enjoy–it’s not to everyone’s taste and no one should make you feel guilty for not liking it. Although I did once meet some people who were making it into a comedic musical, and I think that would be a good way to capture the funny parts and avoid the pretentiousness.
    Also a friend of mine started reading Mein Kampf in his high school cafeteria once, just to see what reaction he’d get. The number of people who didn’t know anything about it was depressing, and, as he told me, “It’s hard to imagine someone as terrible as Hitler could be such a boring writer.”

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    1. Personally I don’t think there’s any point when I could’ve read and liked that- but I do like that comedic musical idea.
      hehe well I do think Mein Kampf should be read for historical reasons… but I think I’d fear reading it in public and people getting the wrong idea. Having read extracts, that doesn’t surprise me 😉 (actually it doesn’t surprise me at all tbh). That is depressing people didn’t know what it was though

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  15. I’ve really enjoyed watching YouTube videos (Folding Ideas and Dominic Noble in particular) where people critic (and tear apart) 50 Shades (both the books and the movies).

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  16. Yep, pretentious books are the worst. Kind of makes me wonder if the authors actually believe the drivel they spout, because if they did it seems they would just kill themselves (and leave the world a better place for those of us who think there is meaning and order AND aren’t pretentious wanktards)

    Hemmingway is definitely one of those authors I now avoid. I read the Old Man and the Sea and was so underwhelmed and unimpressed that I never bothered with another (I think).

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    1. Yeah completely agree! hehehee that about sums it up 😉 I don’t know why they bother to write books if they think everything is meaningless- I suppose just to drag everyone else down with them.

      I completely understand- I had to read a couple for uni, but won’t be bothering again.

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  24. So unfortunate that you had to kill Hemingway’s novel here! I loved Steppenwolf and looked forward to reading The Old Man and the Sea. Maybe it really is not as great as so many claims it is though. 😮 As for Otherworld, I’m sad to hear that it’s a ripoff of another book, especially Ready Player One. Welp, that’s too bad. Great post!

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  27. Oh, dear lord… I do like some Hemmingway, but I loathed The Old Man and the Sea; and not only did I have to read it in high school, it was assigned twice more in college. That book is the bane of my existance. 😏

    I read The Brothers Karamazov when I was fifteen because an older university guy, I was trying to impress, was reading it. I started to read The Idiot for the same reason, but gave up. Being much much much older now I think I’m going to give The Idiot another chance when I do my Year of Reading Classics in 2020. 📚

    I love this tag. 👍✨

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  31. The Fifty Shades franchise are easily my most hated books. The faults are just glaring at us one every page. The Hobbit is definitely one of the most readable books ever written. No matter how many times I read it I still feel like I’m on a grand adventure.

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  32. I can’t recall ever not finishing a book. But then again if I can’t get excited about the back cover, I seldom move forward with it. Thanks for the chance.

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  33. I’ve never read As I Lay Dying, but I feel pretty confident I’d share the same opinion as you :’) I adore The Hobbit!! I think I’ve probably read The Chronicles of Narnia the most, but The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings come in second. I’m a new reader of your blog, and I love it sm!!

    twinklexthoughts.blogspot.com

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  34. Oh, I just cannot stand any of the original covers in the Mortal Instruments series. They’re so awful, and whenever I have them out and about somewhere, I keep them turned facedown.

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  35. Oh, I dunno… I recently re-read The Old Man and the Sea, and I think it deserves that watery death. So I think your punny answer was also a very appropriate one. 😉

    And yes. The Mortal Instruments series covers are pretty bad.

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  38. Pingback: The Book Blogger Confessions Tag – Thoughts on Papyrus
  46. Pingback: Book Blogger Confessions Tag – the wordy habitat

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