BroodyBFF Challenge #9- Why I Love Reading Discussion

Today’s blog post is going to be a discussion. The topic is thanks to the #BroodyBFF’s Challenge #9- The Love of Reading!

I don’t think I have the knowledge about The Book™ that made me a reader, but I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember. My childhood classics- Lyle the Crocodile, Horrible Harry, Magic Tree House- grew into a lifetime of reading- Animorphs, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Harry Potter, The Inheritance Cycle.

My love of reading comes from a child-like sense of wonder and the desire for exploration. Reading gives me thousands of lives and experiences. I don’t have to make the same mistakes humanity has already made, there is learning on top of the emotional connect and sense of community. Additionally, reading will take me to places I will never get to see and experience. Whether the setting is far away and expensive to travel to or is a fictional location, reading is like going on vacation.

People I will never meet, plots that will never happen, things too terrible and too good to be true, that all occurs in the books that I read- especially since my favorite genres are Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Is it an escape from reality? I’m not quite sure. I feel like I am growing as a person through my reading, and that it is not quite the same as reality escaping but more of a way to further understand the reality around me. Reading makes it easier for me to imagine life from other perspectives, which I think is an important skill. Could my YA perspectives be written a bit more diversely? Heck yeah, and I know that we are getting there. The YA community seems to be the most outspoken about stereotypes and wanting real diversity from the publishing business and I know I am going to watch a new generation of writers bloom.

I love reading now, and I love the direction I’m seeing the industry head in. I’m currently reading Warcross by Marie Lu and one of her anecdotes about her writing was how long it took her to write an Asian-American character. It was a scary thing, the possibility of being rejected as a writer simply because publishing houses will only have a handful of token POC books each season. Her struggle about not openly describing characters the way she pictured them struck me, and it is so powerful that her MC in Warcross is Chinese-American. I hope all of the tremendous success this book is having will only propel the confidence of not only herself, but other authors to continue being true to themselves!

A toast to reading- may it never stagnate, and may the well of good literature never run dry.

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You can check out my fellow #BroodyBFF responses on Twitter! 

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads | My Review

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The BroodyBFF's street team will run from May to November, so check back here at Love at First Write regularly for new challenges and updates, and follow me and @broodingyahero on Twitter to see the hashtags, visual challenges, and #BroodyChats! 

Review: Brooding YA Hero by Carrie Ann DiRisio

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me

by Carrie Ann DiRisio

Publication Date: October 17^th 2017

Publisher: Skypony Press

Find This Book: Brooding YA Hero:Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me

Rating: 5/5

An ARC of this book was provided to me by the author for winning a Broody Street Team Challenge. My review will be honest, as always.

For all Young Adult Readers, this is the book for you! This book says all the things that go through your head when reading a YA book, no matter what sub-genre. It discusses tropes, clichés, character types, genres, settings, and plots. Things we readers love to complain about and wish could change about the genre. As a reader or a prospective writer, this really is a book for everyone.

As someone who’s been following BroodingYAhero on twitter for a loooong time I was so excited to hear that Carrie was going to be writing a book from Broody’s POV. He never fails to make me laugh and this book met and went beyond my expectations.

Our hero, Broody McHottipants takes us through what it’s like to be a main character and how to be a main character an honestly it was so wholesome and inspiring. Normally after I read a good book, I go on Goodreads and like my favorite quotes- for this I would literally be liking the ENTIRE book it was a hilarious read.

Did I mention that this book is INTERACTIVE??? Not only is there plot about Broody writing a book about how to be a main character, and not only is there information delivered in an easy to learn way, but there are also fun quizzes. My entire workplace did a Madlibs from this book! I didn’t know that I could swoon over something other than our Brooding YA hero, but I did for this book. This book deserves all of the positive adjectives you can think of and shines brighter than Broody’s miraculous gemstone eyes (please don’t tell him I said that).

I know that I'll be reading this book again in the future, and that it will always be in the back of my head when the tropes I love to poke fun of inevitably recur in my future reading. I am literally SO excited for this to come out so that I can see all of the gorgeous illustrations that will go in the official release! 

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You can check out my fellow #BroodyBFF 's on Twitter! 

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads 

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The BroodyBFF's street team will run from May to November, so check back here at Love at First Write regularly for new challenges and updates, and follow me and @broodingyahero on Twitter to see the hashtags, visual challenges, and #BroodyChats! 

BroodyBFF Challenge #7- YA Friendships Discussion

Today’s blog post is going to be a discussion. The topic is thanks to the #BroodyBFF’s Challenge #7- Friendships!

A big problem for me in YA is that girls can’t be close with other girls with out being the blonde evil villain! The main characters always have guy friends, hate typically feminine things, and the best guy friends fights with new brooding love interest over main character for the majority of the book. I need wholesome friendships without guys competing with other guys and girls putting down other girls! PLEASE SEND RECS.

My favorite friendships avoid the subjects listed above. My love for this upcoming series started with the OG friendship: Percy Jackson and Grover Underwood. Their tag-team pan-pipes and magical pen got them safely out of more situations than I ever thought possible, and they have been there for each other through so much. Their inside jokes are the best and their friendship made Percy Jackson and the Olympians amazing for me.

Once Grover parts ways with Percy to save The Wild, Uncle Rick formed one of my favorite squads of all time. The Prophecy Seven from Heroes of Olympus. They are squad goals. All of them have tragic backstories as demigods, but that effects them all in different ways and they love and support each other without any typical gender-hating i.e. women bringing down other women and men fighting over said women. None of that here! They have friendly competition and complement each other’s strengths and their friendship is just so good and pure! They’re a big family, and they have their disagreements, but they are always there for each other. Just like real friendships. They felt so real and were so satisfying to read, that was part of why I loved these books so much! I hope we get a short story in the future where Percy introduces them to Grover. Grover kind of dropped off the face of the earth after The Last Olympian and I seriously need a reunion <3

What are your Favorite YA Friendships?

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You can check out my fellow #BroodyBFF responses on Twitter! 

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads 

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The BroodyBFF's street team will run from May to November, so check back here at Love at First Write regularly for new challenges and updates, and follow me and @broodingyahero on Twitter to see the hashtags, visual challenges, and #BroodyChats! 

BroodyBFF Challenge #6- Contemporary YA Discussion

Today’s blog post is going to be a discussion. The topic is thanks to the #BroodyBFF's Challenge #6- Let's Talk Contemporary!

Honestly I don’t read a lot of contemporary. One look at my review page and you can probably tell that the majority of the novels I read are Sci-fi/Fantasy. Why is it that I avoid the genre so much? I don’t think Contemporary YA really captures anything I have experienced in high school. If I’m going to have to stretch my imagination for the plot, I’d rather it just be in a fake/fantasy setting than in a ‘real’ setting. Contemporary is kind of disorienting in a sense.

I have never felt the urge to randomly interact with a strange guy on the side walk, or at the coffee shop I frequent. I don’t believe in office romances, or falling for your lab partner in chemistry class. Heck we didn’t even have take home group projects in science in high school! (English and History, sure, but not science and teachers always let us pick our own partners. AKA you would never be partnered with Broody.)

High school for me was hanging out with friends, stressing out about assignments and fitting in my violin practice, lessons, and rehearsals into my schedule on top of school clubs. I had a great group of friends, we played instruments, watched movies and anime, and hiked together. Not a lot of drama, which I guess means not much to write a book around unless the climax was the craziness experienced before opening day of a musical.

So yeah, I guess I would just like to see more every day, relatable things in Contemporary books. And not unbelievable, far-flung, romances in a modern setting.

What Contemporary Books could convert me to the genre?

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You can check out my fellow #BroodyBFF responses on Twitter! 

Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads 

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The BroodyBFF's street team will run from May to November, so check back here at Love at First Write regularly for new challenges and updates, and follow me and @broodingyahero on Twitter to see the hashtags, visual challenges, and #BroodyChats!