The Wonder Woman Book Tag

I saw this tag over on Melanie‘s blog, and it’s really short and fun so I thought I’d give it a shot! (Also it’s one in the morning and I’m not sleepy so here I am.)

➽Wonder Woman: Your favorite badass female book character…

This is probably a surprise to no one, but V.E.Schwab’s Lila Bard is one of my favorite female characters of all time. I love that she’s a female hero with typically masculine traits, I love that she’s ruthless and does what she has to do without feeling useless guilt, I love that she craves power, I love that she’s not afraid of her power, I love that she’s adventurous, and I love that she wants to leave her mark on the world. I read a post by Schwab a while back where she was relating Hamilton lyrics to her characters, and Lila gets this gem: “There’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait. Just you wait!” How fitting! (and also shout-out to Mia Corvere of the Nevernight Chronicle by Jay Kristoff, a female assassin who is super badass!)

➽Fantasy Island: A book setting you want to escape to…

Either I haven’t been reading too much high fantasy or I just like my modern life too much. I’m gonna go with an urban fantasy answer: the Sweep world by Cate Tiernan. It’s basically our world, except Wiccan magic really exists.  Tiernan crafted her magic system in such a way that it had fourteen-year-old me truly believing in its existence; that is, she incorporated a lot of real-life elements of Wicca (a real pagan religion) but mixed it with false elements. In her world, there are Wiccan clans you are descended from, and people have magical powers to varying degrees. Magic can vary from cooling your hot tea to lighting a candle with your mind to shape-shifting.

➽London: A hyped book that let you down…

I just do not get the hype for Children of Blood and Bone.  I didn’t hate this book, but I didn’t like it either. I found it generic, immature, poorly written, and melodramatic. There are so many reviewers whose opinions I usually trust and/or share who are rating this highly, and I’m starting to believe we read different books because ??? I’m sorry but this book is just so aggressively mediocre?? Like I appreciate that the setting is very cool and very fresh but otherwise the book has so little going for it, in my opinion. And it’s one of those things where I’m seeing it everywhere and everyone is lavishing praise on it and I’m over here like ??? Did I read this wrong???

➽Steve Trevor: A book that has a beautiful cover and a great story (i.e. good personality)…

It’s funny how difficult it is to find a book that has both of these things! But The City of Brass was the best high fantasy book I read last year, and probably the best I’ve read in many years. It features a sensible heroine, stunning writing, a heterosexual romance I was actually on board with, a morally grey male love interest, rich world-building, and complex political intrigue. I’ll probably have to reread this book before I jump into the second one because there are so many details I’m sure I’ve forgotten, but that won’t be a problem because I literally loved this book so much. And the cover. I mean, God, look at it! It’s atmospheric, it has gorgeous colors, elegant font, a sky full of stars…! I cannot wait to see the cover for the sequel!

➽Lasso of Truth: A book you hated…

Speaking of books with gorgeous covers and stories that don’t match…Roar is another relatively popular and well-received book that I just Do Not Get.  It’s almost entirely romance, and a really gross heteronormative romance at that (the male love interest literally calls the female MC’s mouth his “territory” at one point).  Said gross romance overshadows all the things about this book that were interesting: side characters and the worldbuilding involving SENTIENT NATURAL DISASTERS.  Also, this book is boring. I don’t even remember what the supposed plot was about because it was so blah and was taken over completely by the awful romance.

➽Wonder Woman’s Shield: A book so sad that you need a shield…

So, I don’t read a ton of sad books, because I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t like it when a book crushes my heart and demolishes my soul. I generally like books with closure and somewhat-happy endings. One of the only sad books I can think of is We Are Okay, which is a very heavy look at grief and loneliness that expertly utilizes a bleak setting to reflect emotion. The MC in this book suffers a heavy loss and I could literally feel her sadness poring through the pages – I think I may have cried at one point? Like nothing that terribly sad happened, but the author just wrote it so well I felt like all these emotions were pressing down on my chest and choking me.

➽Ares: a villain that is scary, but you can’t seem to hate them…

This is a question that clearly seems to want you to talk about ATLA’s Azula (or Legend of Korra’s Kuvira, who is one of my favorite villains of all time)…but I will try to keep this book-related.  I don’t know if this counts, but Lada Dracul? She’s not quite a villain, but she’s definitely an antiheroine who by the end of the second book has become rather terrifying, and I LOVE HER. I love her growth and her arc and her self-isolation and her single-mindedness and how she’s not totally likable and I can’t wait to see how much more vicious and bloody she becomes in the third book.  She needs to become Lada the Impaler, yes? I’m certain Kiersten White will not disappoint on this front.

➽The Amazons: A book that you wish had more/better LGBT+ representation…

Half of the Western literary canon, dear Reader…but I will try to stick to one book, and that book is Madeline Miller’s Circe.  Like, are you telling me Circe lived on that damn island with all those other nymphs for hundreds of years and never had even a tryst with any of them? I ain’t buying it. There was so much of a focus on Circe’s relationships with men, and yes, yes, I get that Miller was generally sticking to the truth of the various myths about Circe, but she embellished/straight up invented a whole bunch of other stuff, so I don’t really see why there couldn’t have been more Sapphic women.

➽Justice League: What superhero book friends do you tag…

❤ Pace Amore Libri
❤ Spotlight on Stories
❤ Lost Purple Quill