The Melodramatic Bookworm

The End of the Year Book Tag 2022

The end of the year is upon us and you know what that means – End of the Year Bookish Traditions! Be it talking about the favorite books of the year, or least favorites, or DNFs, the end of year content is always fun to read and watch. One such tradition is the End of the Year book tag, which I’ve tried to do every year I’ve been active over at BookTube. I think I brought it here in 2020 and did it last year as well, so guess who is keeping up that tradition? Me, me, me!

Frank Carter: Chapter 4 by Yashesh Rathod | Book Review

It’s always a shock when a series – be it book or movie – ends but we lose some much-loved characters as it does. Yet, we know that it was necessary for the plot, because without these events, the story wouldn’t have progressed. But what of when the author decides to do something about it by continuing the series? To give the reader hope that, oh, there is a possibility! That if the author has started on this path, then the characters will most likely be back? This is the case with the Frank Carter series by Yashesh Rathod. The third book in the series saw two important characters die. But with book 4, the author is putting the possibility of them coming back out there.

If you’d like to read my reviews of the first three books in this series before reading this review, here’s where you can: Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 3.

Tin Man by Sarah Winman | Book Review

We’re in an age where the world has decreed that making noise is the only way to be noticed. Social media has made it easy for us to do this, even though half the time, the noise is unnecessary and on the wrong side of the line. But it’s there. And in times like these, it happens very rarely that we come across a book that’s as hard-hitting as it is quiet. And isn’t that a truth of life? That some of the most hard-hitting things in life creep up on you quietly and some of the most intensely wise people are the quiet ones. A king among these things is this book, Tin Man by Sarah Winman, a fitting, winning rhyme if ever there was one.

Blogtober 2022 Wrap Up | I DID IT! I Ran Past the #Blogtober22 Finish Line!

Reading and writing have always been two of the most constant things in my life. Irrespective of how well I did them, they were always there with me, giving me insights and making me better in their own strange ways. I started reading as a very young child and writing when I was about 11. You can understand the kind of things I wrote then: inane but dramatic poems, narrating my life into poems because I was sure nobody was going to take me seriously, and using whatever English I had at my disposal in science and social studies projects.

As I grew up, my poems turned somber and I also began to write fiction. And then I started blogging. It wasn’t with any other goal except that I loved writing and I wanted to put a step out into that world where I could share my thoughts with people. At first it was writing stilted sentences coming up to about 400-500 words. As time passed and I realized what it was I wanted from blogging, I continued to make changes and evolve. But there was a problem. I wasn’t consistent in writing these blog posts. I still am not, to be honest. This year, however, I decided to get back to proper blogging and do something about this consistency problem. One of the things I wanted to do was Blogtober.

The Last Book I… Tag | #Blogtober22 – Day 31

Today is the last day of Blogtober and I thought, what better a way to wrap up this crazy month of blogging the way I started it – with a book tag. To top it off, this book tag, which I was first tagged to do in video format, is called The Last Book I… Tag, which is yet again, fitting. It’s been a hectic month, with every day bringing me a fresh round of panic because, “Oh, I’ve got to write at least these many words for this topic!” but also a sense of achievement that I actually ended up finishing and uploading a piece. Plus, book tags are some of my favorite videos and blog posts to write, so it’s only natural, in yet another way, that I end Blogtober with this one.

Books That Made Me Cry | Some Book Recommendations | #Blogtober22 – Day 30

A few months ago, I think, I did a video where I spoke about the books that made me cry. I’d seen Olivia from Stories for Coffee do this, and I thought it a great idea, especially since there have been SO MANY books that I bawled at. It’s a bookworm thing, I think, where we give our whole selves to pages and stories and lose ourselves in the process while finding ourselves. Does that make sense? No? Okay, anyway. Although this year hasn’t given me any such books, my past is littered with such books and my YouTube channel littered with footage of me crying and losing my mind over them.

In today’s blog post, I’ll be taking you through 10 books (more, actually) that I cried my eyes out reading and have shouted from the rooftops about how great they were. That’s a measure of how good a book is, I think, of how much it affects the reader. And these books stand out among my read pile because of how much pain, how much emotion I felt as I read them. There were originally 15 books on this list (in the video I made), but I’ve cut this list down to 10, to the books that affected me the most.

Readathons & Reading Challenges | #Blogtober22 – Day 29

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post talking about TBRs and whether or not you should make them. Today, I’ll be talking about readathons and reading challenges. I won’t be talking about why you should be doing these. Instead, I’m listing down the pros and cons of joining readathons and reading challenges. Based on this, you can decide whether or not you want to get involved in them. But before I start, I need to make it clear that irrespective of what the pros are, if reading is stressing you out, it’s always better to take time out and become kinder to yourself.

10 Books by Queer Authors I’ve Loved | Book Recommendations | #Blogtober22 – Day 28

June is Pride Month, a celebration of queerness and our LGBTQIA+ fellows. We have loads of posts on social media celebrating the same, as it should be. But many-a-times, we tend to forget that we shouldn’t be sharing these stories and reading these books only in that month. We need to do it around the year, not just because celebrating them is important, but also because they are part of the natural reality of life. I mentioned this in a previous blog post: Queer people have always existed. The fact that cis-hets have always discriminated against them is a proof of how intolerant cis-hets are and not that queer people are ‘against nature’.

So in this spirit, I’m here with 10 book recommendations today, all of which have been written by queer authors. I cannot stop recommending them, really, because whichever recommendation video you see, you’ll find at least a couple of these on there. I love these to no end and if you haven’t already read these books, this post is to recommend to you that you read them pronto! Please!

Difference Between a Bad Character and a Badly Written Character | #Blogtober22 – Day 27

Being a bookworm is a layered experience. We read books, we love some, we dislike some, we hate some, and we have reasons for all of these. One such book-related thing we all do is have favorite and least favorite characters. Everyone has their own reasons for loving or not loving a character. Debates can go on for ages about this because for every person loving or hating the character, there’s at least one person feeling the exact opposite.

A couple of months ago, out of the blue, I got thinking about a character and how I didn’t like them at all. There were, however, reasons which people pointed out saying that the character was supposed to make you feel those things and that that is how the author wrote it. So, this means that there are bad characters and badly written characters and there’s a stark difference between the two. Either way, however, you tend to dislike both types of characters – one, because they’re supposed to be reprehensible, and the second, because of how they’re written.

The Guilty Reader Book Tag | #Blogtober22 – Day 26

Being a bookworm is a study in self-control. I should get that new book. NO! I should reward myself with 5 new books because I finished one. NO! I should read just one more chapter before I sleep. (This at 2 AM.) NO! Only, the answer to this is usually yes, which is why so many of us have dark circles from not getting enough sleep. I should just say that I’ve read the book these people are talking about because I don’t want to feel left out. ABSOLUTELY NOT! What is wrong with you?!

This is how my bookish conversations with myself go, more often than not. So when I found this book tag to gauge whether I’m a guilty reader or not, I immediately did a video about it. I put out this video a long, long time ago (here’s the link: The Guilty Reader Book Tag)and I’m now about to see if any of my answers have changed. 😂