The Sunshine Blogger Award Part One

I do generally consider myself a ‘sunny’ person, especially considering this year I’ve been making more of an effort to prioritise my mental health, so maybe that’s why I got more nominations for The Sunshine Blogger Award. What I love about the Sunshine Blogger Award is that there are always different questions, so I can take part in this one as many times as I am nominated.

I was tagged by Dani at Perspective of a Writer and Hannah at Peanut Butter & Books. Thank you both so much for your nominations, I had a lot of fun answering the questions you set and I hope you enjoy reading my answers.

Rules:

• Thank the person(s) who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog
• Answer the 11 questions sent by the person who nominated you
• Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions
• List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or on your blog

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Dani’s Questions

1. Who is the one person that is the sunshine in your life?

Definitely my sister. Yes we’ve had our arguments (what sister’s haven’t?!) and most of our childhood can be described as World War Three, but she’s one of my best friends and one of my biggest supporters in life.

2. Do you prefer all happy movies, or occasional sad movies?

It depends how I feel. Most times I am going to pick all happy movies but every so often I’m going to want to watch a film which will have me bawling before the end credits are rolling; when those mood strike I always pick The Fox and The Hound which never fails to make me cry.

3. What is the one food that always makes you happy?

All food makes me happy – cheesecake, gingerbread men, ham and pineapple stuffed crust pizza – but my ultimate happy food is Chimney Cakes. I rarely come across them in the UK so they’re a special treat of mine and when I do find them they always taste that much better.

4. What is the sunshine on your blog?

Just the sense of achievement I feel looking back at all of my posts, and the fact that I started blogging again after three failed attempts. I’ll hit my four-year blogiversary this November, and while that’s still a way away I can’t imagine not reaching it; which is a far cry from the me of three and a half years ago doubting I’ll make it to my one-year blogiversary.

5. What is your favourite wacky “fun” day?

I wouldn’t be much of a book lover if I didn’t mention National Book Day – which was a couple of days ago in the UK on March 7th – but, and I don’t know if this counts as a wacky “fun” day but I love Shrove Tuesday simply for the pancakes.

6. What is one thing you love about yourself?

Something that has improved so much since I started blogging is my confidence. Back before I started Reading Every Night I was quiet, withdrawn and just incredibly unsure of myself, but I’ve come so far since then and it’s allowed me to go so much further in life than I thought I could.

7. What is one think you love about the blogging community?

The support of everyone out there. When I posted my first discussion way back when I was terrified, and I felt the same when I published my NaNoWriMo update a couple of November ago talking about my WIP for the first time, but everyone was so supportive and all the lovely comments I got made taking those leaps worthwhile.

8. What is the one book that made you smile the most?

Most of the time it’s light-hearted, fluffy YA contemporary books. Authors like Morgan Matson and Sarah Dessen write amazing stories, where you know going in you’re getting a happy ending and an adorable romance to watch unfold.

There are also a couple of fantasy books that have such fun stories and great characters that they’d make this list too; Carry On and The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue are the top two.

9. Where is your corner of sunshine in your home?

The corner where my bed and bookshelves are. After all there’s nothing better than relaxing in bed, curled up under the duvet with a good book, a hot cup of tea and some biscuits.

10. What is your favourite colour or colours?

Blue.

11. What is the one movie (or drama) that always makes you happy?

Pushing Daisies is one of my go-to, happy TV shows. It’s such a fun TV show, set in a world that’s so quaint – with pie shops, nuns and windmill farms – and so bright despite the murders Ned, Chuck and Emerson would solve.

I’m still bitter about the fact that it was cancelled after the second season because it was a great show, and it ended on a sort-of cliffhanger that I’m never going to be able to get over.

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Hannah’s Questions

1. If you could commission any author to write a book for you, who would you choose?

Normally I’d say V.E. Schwab, because she’s my favourite author, but I’m going to chose a different author and say Leigh Bardugo. I love her Six of Crows duology but I also loved her short, fairytale-inspired stories and as a massive fan of anything fairytale I’d love a longer book like that from her.

2. What is your favourite kind of blog post to write?

I love taking part in book tags and I love talking about my WIPs, so tags like Kat at Life and Other Disasters’ Write tags are a favourite of mine. I also enjoy taking part in the Top Ten Tuesday weekly features because there’s so much variety in the topics, and I love writing lists.

3. When is your favourite time to write or read?

For reading probably the mornings; most of my reading is done on my commute so I’ll start reading really early. For writing though it’s the evenings; when I’m home from work, sat in my room on my laptop and there’s nothing else in the day that needs to be done or worried about.

4. What would you do if you were invisible for a day?

I’d sneak into places I wouldn’t normally be able to. I’d go to the cinema without having to pay an insane amount for a ticket, or I’d hop on a plane to somewhere warm without having to go through all the security procedures that take up so much time.

OK, maybe both of those are illegal, but it’s not like I’m ever going to be invisible for a day.

5. Have you ever read a book that traumatized you for life? If so, what was it about?

The last book I read that traumatised me was Half Lost, it’s been ages since I picked it up it but I’m still not over that ending. If you’ve read the trilogy you know what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t be warned it will hurt. The only other book I’m still not over is The Song of Achilles.

6. How do you sing your pet rock to sleep? Are you a cat person or a dog person?

I’m actually an animal person, it doesn’t matter what kind of animal it is I’m sure to love it, but if I had to chose I’m a dog person because of my gorgeous and adorable greyhound Tommy.

7. What’s your favourite female friendship in YA?

It’s kind of sad when you look back at the books you’ve read recently and you can’t pick out many that had a stand-out and memorable female friendship.

One I love is that between Cinder and Iko from The Lunar Chronicles. I love that series and I love the friendship between the two characters; granted one is a cyborg and the other is an android but the dynamic and the support between the two of them is unmatched in my opinion.

8. What’s your bookish pet peeve?

I hate it when people interrupt me when I’m reading to try and have a conversation with me, which happens all the time at home if I’m reading somewhere other than my room, and another is when people see I’m reading and ask me what the book is about. I am terrible at summarising books, I eventually just have to tell them to go to Goodreads.

9. What’s your favourite YA trope to read about?

I love the enemies to lovers or friends to lovers tropes, it doesn’t matter how many books I pick up with either of those tropes in I can’t get enough. I also love stories with antiheroes and I really really love a well written villain redemption arc, like the kind Holland had in the Shades of Magic series.

10. What kind of music do you secretly love to listen to in your free time?

There’s no music I’d say I secretly listen to. My tastes do widely vary though, if I put my iPod on shuffle the tracks can flick from Fall Out Boy to Jason Derulo to Little Mix and then to a track from The Greatest Showman soundtrack.

At the moment I am binge-listening (is that a thing?!) to The Umbrella Academy soundtrack. After binge-watching and loving the series I immediately had to download the music.

11. What was your favourite series as a child?

Other than Harry Potter (which should be obvious, let’s be honest) when I was in primary school I loved the A Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket. Then when I was in high school and discovering the YA genre my favourites were The Mediator series and the Night World books.

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I do have more nominations for The Sunshine Blogger Award…

…so there will be more posts with me answering even more questions, but in the meantime let me know your answers to the questions in this post.

Which person is the sunshine in your life, and what’s your favourite wacky “fun” day? Have you read the Half Life trilogy by Sally Green? If not what was the last book you read that traumatised you for life?