The Stuck at Home Book Tag

I was tagged by the lovely Silvia @ Silvia Reads Books. It’s been a while since I’ve done a tag post and this one seems quite fun and topical.

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The Rules

• Thank the person who nominated you
• Answer all the questions down below
• Pingback to the creator: Ellyn @ Allonsythornraxx
• Nominate 5+ bloggers you’d like to know more about, to do this tag

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The Questions

1. What are you currently reading?As of Sunday, I’m 300 pages into The Pheonix Empress by K Arsenault Rivera. I read The Tiger’s Daughter back in 2018 and I really enjoyed it. Currently, I’m loving the deep dive into Hokkaran culture and the angst between Shefali and Shizuka. I love that even though the two have their secrets and Shefali has a lot of (justifiable) beef with Shizuka, they talk through their issues!
2. What’s your favorite “can’t-leave-the-house” activity?Drawing! I bought ProCreate on my roommate’s iPad at the beginning of quarantine and I’ve been trying to get daily practice in. I’m really proud to say I can see really clear improvement!

   

   

3. A book you’ve been meaning to read forever

   Jade City by Fonda Lee. Amazon tells me I bought the eBook almost two years ago and it’s been collecting digital dust ever since. I’m participating in the Asian Readathon this month (personal challenge is to read only books by Asian authors or with Asian settings) so this one’s next up on my TBR.

4. An intimidating book on your TBRThis one’s hard since long books don’t necessarily scare me. I’ve read long-ass webserials in very short time spans. If had to pick, The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, sequel to The Three-Body Problem. With how technical Liu’s writing is, I have to be in a very specific mindset to properly read these books and I haven’t been able to get myself there in a while.
5. Top 3 priority books on your TBR

   

   My personal challenge for the Asian Readathon to read only books by Asian authors and/or books with Asian settings, I’m trying to clear as many of those as I have currently available (physical or eBook). The three up next on my list are Jade City by Fonda Lee, Blood Heir by Amelie Wen Zhao, and Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Kim.

6. Recommend a short bookInto the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard

   

   Futuristic post-apocalypse Vietnamese-inspired Beauty and the Beast retelling with themes of motherhood and outsiderness, linguist, doctors, and dragons, and a beautiful sapphic romance

   The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

   

   Subtle yet captivating, a beautiful Asian-inspired novella that manages to paint a beautiful and complex world with barely 100 pages

   This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

   

   Some of the best damn prose you’ll ever read (gorgeous, flowery, sometimes math-y), slow-burn enemies-to-lovers f/f romance, and time travel shenanigans

7. Recommend a long bookA long book you say? Heh. Are webserials with 1M+ word counts considered long enough?

   Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing by 墨香铜臭

   

   The ultimate heavenly being/demon king power couple in HuaLian and their couple-y shenanigans. This webserial will wreck you.

   A Practical Guide to Evil by ErraticErrata

   

   Snarky villainainous MC, ‘practical’ villainy (aka no chaotic stupid), intelligent scheming characters on all sides, subverions of traditional fantasy tropes

   (art by Sandara)

   Worm by Wildbow

   

   The superhero webserial. A brilliant set of characters and insanely clever uses of superpowers, not to mention some of the most unique (and sometimes horrifying) superpowers I’ve ever read. On top of all that, the author rolled dice for all characters (including the MC), to see who lived after major boss fights

8. Something you’d love to do while stuck at home
   Honestly, I just want a job lol. I just finished undergrad and grad school plans are pretty nebulous so I just want something where I can dedicate my 9-5 working on so that I can have some structure in my life. I have some research projects, but a lot of those are in variuos stages of waiting for email replies.
9. What do you plan on reading next?Blood Heir by Amelie Wen Zhao

   

   Part of that list of priority TBR books. I was sent a physical ARC last fall, but because of hiatus I never got aroung to reading it.

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Tags!

I feel awkward tagging people in things, so if you’re in doing this tag, consider yourself tagged!