I got this awesome, Harry Potter-themed book tag from The Magic Violinist! Enjoy.
Reparo
Fixes damaged objects
A book that needs some serious fixing: Ally Condie’s Matched needed a more complex protagonist. And better prose. It was basically a Hunger Games rip-off and it didn’t try to disguise that fact or even be a decent rip-off.
Lumos
Creates a narrow beam of light
A book that deserves more attention: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie needs more attention, at least from YA readers. It’s just as terrifying and complex now as it likely was when originally published in nineteen thirty-nine, but it seems like very few kids my age have even heard of it.
Nox
Counters the effects of Lumos
An overhyped book: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan was a poor start to his spin-off series. The later books are better, but I was so disappointed by the first.
Accio
Summons an object from a significant distance
A book you’re anticipating: Winter by Marissa Meyer, the as-yet-untitled third book of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle, and The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan. In all cases these books are either the finales or very close to the end of their series so I’m anxious to see where the characters eventually end up.
Alohomora
Opens unlocked doors, unless bewitched
A book you want to be more open about: I loved Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins but it seems like the rest of the world hates it.
Expecto Patronum
Conjures an incarnation of positive feelings
A book that made you cry, or at least want to: The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan – the third book in the Percy Jackson series – because Zoe died. Dude, you shouldn’t kill off such an awesome character after only one book.
Morsmordre
Conjures the Dark Mark
A book you wish to mark as one of your favorites: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater is my current favorite, and will likely remain there until it’s knocked down by the following books in the series.
Petrificus Totalus
Petrifies victim
A book you wish to keep forever: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. Every time I borrow it from the library so I can reread it, I just want to keep it forever and forever. It’s hilarious and deep at the same time.
Riddikulus
Used against a boggart
A book with a deceiving synopsis: I thought Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys was a paranormal romance – and it is, a little bit. But most of the book isn’t about Blue and Gansey. It’s about searching for lost kings, being friends, growing up rich and growing up poor, and fortune-telling. So far the series actually has one of the most slow-burning romances I’ve ever seen, so don’t avoid it because you think it’s all lovey-dovey.
Lacarnum Inflamarae
Shoots fireballs
A book you wish to burn out of your mind completely: Son by Lois Lowry, because it was a terrible finale to an otherwise wonderful YA dystopian series. It tried to be fantasy and science fiction at the same time, something the earlier books either never were or pulled off more successfully.
Wingardium Leviosa
Levitates objects
A book you wish to reread: I need to reread The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien’s entire trilogy, really – because the first time I just plowed through it, impatient for the story to become more interesting. I could go back now and further appreciate it.
Avada Kedavra
Causes instant death
Worst book EVER: I’m probably going to be yelled at for saying The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, but it’s true. I hate it. Usually when my bloggy friends recommend books to me, they pick awesome ones – so I was excited to finally read it. And then I went, “…wow, this is trash.” It’s pretentious, with purple prose, poorly written characters (why was Hazel only healthy when it was convenient for the plot? why aren’t any of the parent-characters more fleshed-out?), and just general suckiness. Unfortunately, the movie comes out this summer. (Ah, that felt good. I got out all my John Green-induced ranting.)
Stupefy
Puts victim in an unconscious state
A book with a chapter you couldn’t seem to get over: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins – that chapter when the bat was eaten by mites? It horrified ten-year-old me.
Confundo
Causes befuddlement or forgetfulness
A book that generally confused you: Baby’s in Black, by Arne Bellstorf, is historical fiction told in graphic novel format. It’s about the “fifth Beatle,” Stuart Sutcliffe, only I’d never heard of him before so maybe he was the sixth Beatle? Anyway, the novel was translated from German, but that wasn’t what confused me. I just couldn’t tell the characters apart! The four Beatles, plus two or three other guys, looked so alike that I was never really sure who was talking to whom. About three-quarters through, I finally figured out which one was Paul. But I still don’t know about the rest. (P.S. Apparently the book’s title comes from a Beatles song? I learned a thing today!)
Crucio
Inflicts unbearable pain
A book that was a pain to read: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan had an intriguing plot – the entire story takes place in one night – but the stream-of-consciousness writing style wasn’t my thing.
Episkey
Heals relatively minor injuries
A feel good book that you enjoyed: I suppose the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling? They always comfort me because I’ve read them so often.
Impedimenta
Impedes target’s progress
A book that kept you up all night reading: When I read Ash by Malinda Lo I kept telling myself, “Just one chapter more!” and that turned into reading nearly the entire thing in one sitting. Which is clearly the only way to read a book that fantastic.
Silencio
Immediate silencing
A book that left you speechless after you read it: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. For such a short book, it really made me think. I sat in the car silently turning pages instead of talking a mile a minute like I usually do.
Legilimens
Allows you to delve into someone’s mind
A book with well-developed characters: Cinder by Marissa Meyer has possibly the best-developed main character ever, and the supporting characters are great too.
Levicorpus
A spell that turns you upside down
A book that changed your mind about a character from its prequel: Cress by Marissa Meyer, the third book in the Lunar Chronicles, changed my mind about Carswell Thorne. In the previous book, Scarlet, Thorne was vain and selfish and shallow. In Cress, however, even though he said he wasn’t a hero, he totally was.
Obliviate
Used to hide memories
A book with a story you can’t remember: The fourth Percy Jackson book – Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan. Actually, the same applies to its sequel, The Last Olympian. This tends to make reading the spin-off series, Heroes of Olympus, a bit difficult because the characters keep mentioning that time they fought Kronos and I’m just like, “…um, sure. Apparently that was a thing that happened. I don’t even recall that, but OK.”
Peskipiksi Pesternomi
Useless spell
A boring book that had absolutely no effect on you: Viola in the Spotlight by Adriana Trigiani, unfortunately. I say “unfortunately” because the previous book, Viola in Reel Life was really good – the protagonist was quirky. In the sequel, however, I felt like she’d had all the life drained out of her.
Reducto
Breaks through solid objects
A book that convinced you to reconsider a certain genre: Until I read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, I thought I liked only urban fantasy – not high fantasy as well.
Rictusempra
Tickling spell
A book that made you laugh: The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart made me giggle because Ruby, the main character, is ridiculous and also basically me (if you substituted”girl-crazy” with “boy-crazy”).
Sectusempra
Offensive spell that violently wounds the target
A book that may have scarred you for life: Stephen King’s Misery terrified me and I didn’t want to turn out the lights after reading it.
Tarantallegra
Makes you dance uncontrollably
A series finale that made you feel giddy: A long time ago, before even Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I was anxious for the final Underland Chronicles book – Gregor and the Code of Claw. And then Suzanne Collins ripped my heart out and made me cry because she killed so many characters.
Bombarda Maxima
Causes an explosion that breaks through obstacles
A book that made you explode with the feels: The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien because the ending is so beautiful and sad.
Finite Incantatem
Nullifies other spells
A book you thought you’d dislike, but ended up loving: The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, because I hadn’t enjoyed The Lost Hero. But the characters were much better in the sequel.
Feel free to join the tag!
Musings From Neville's Navel 
Wow….are you ducking the tomatoes with that TFIOS rant there. 😉 Hehe, It’s ooookay. I won’t come at you with pitchforks. Each to their own, right?! I’m so with you on Matched, too, btw. Agh. I don’t even understand why that book has a fandom. But come on! I don’t want to hear that about Son…noooo. *blocks ears* I’m still going to read it and see what I think, though. 😉 This is an awesome tag!!
Yeah… but hey, I was trying to be honest. 😛
I think Matched would’ve been better if it were a (slightly longer) stand-alone novel and not a trilogy. Not a lot happened in that book because, as I understand it, the plot was dragged out over two more books. (I haven’t read Crossed and Reached yet because I didn’t feel they would be worth it.)
Sorry. 😛 I had high hopes for Son and HOW CAN LOIS LOWRY WRITE A “MEH” BOOK.
I enjoyed “Mockingjay”! Second favourite book in the seires after the original – such a pity about the rubbish ending, really. And I know both Miriam and I will agree with you to varying degrees over “The Fault In Our Stars”. I enjoyed some aspects – namely the fact cancer was treated reasonably realistically, and I loved some of the characters to bits – but had serious trouble with the occasional pretentious purple prose and such. I do not like the trailer for the film though. Not at all.
Yay! Yeah, I didn’t like CF that much either. As a movie it was FANTASTIC but I guess reading about another Games bored me – and they didn’t have one in Mockingjay!
Ahaha, that makes me feel more reasonable.
I ~didn’t~ think the cancer was treated that realistically, though. Sometimes it was, but sometimes Hazel was completely fine. And her mom let Hazel and Gus wander about in Amsterdam? Whaaaa? Like, both kids are in varying stages of a deadly disease (I mean, GUS HAS CANCER AGAIN) and they barely know each other and they don’t know the city? Sure, it would be fun to do what they did, but I don’t think it’s realistic.
I found a really cool article about TFioS as wish-fulfillment (similar to Twilight – basically, girls in the intended age group/audience want romance but very innocent stuff and Edward, aside from being a vampire, is otherwise totally OK with just snogging for now and… am I even explaining this well?). I’ll have to find it again. The gist was that we want to date someone who says all this intelligent stuff and is Really Deep and yeah. Even if no boy (or teenage person in general would ever sound like Gus).
And it sucks that the other Green book I’ve read, An Abundance of Katherines, was awesome. Why not TFioS too?
*shrug* Evidently TFioS just wasn’t to your taste. I’ve only read “Looking For Alaska” aside from that, but that wasn’t really to my taste either. I just don’t think John Green writes my sort of book on the whole, but that’s fine! Can’t please everyone.
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah… it seems like he writes YA contemporary, and that’s not really a favorite of mine. It’s not BAD, per se, just not interesting to me.
Fair ’nuff.
I’m a teen who appreciates Agatha Christie! Although I don’t think I’ve read And Then There Were None, and I really ought to.
IT IS SO GOOD. I think it’s the first Christie book I ever read.
So basically, I should probably get around to reading And Then There Were None soon? I’ve been putting that book off for far too long.
I loved Mockingjay as well. The shades of grey! The not-as-heavy focus on the love triangle! I think the reason most people didn’t like it—not including the sad ending—was because it was so different, tonally, from the first two books. It was so much more political than its predecessors and focused a lot more on Katniss suffering from PTSD.
(Also, do you know if Suzanne Collin plans to write another book anytime soon?)
Indeed. It’s a quick read, both in terms of page-count and the amount of suspense.
*agrees with all your points* And it was more realistic, too – Katniss’s PTSD finally caught up with her. I suppose before she hadn’t had time to really think about it since she was fighting, but she wasn’t on the front-lines all the time in Mockingjay and you finally realized how badly she’d been hurt.
(I have no idea. I hope she does. I do know she’s written a picture book since Mockingjay. 😛 She used to write for Clifford the Big Red Dog so that’s actually not that surprising…)
Perhaps she’s writing under a pseudonym.
Perhaps.
*claps hands* 😀 Yay, I’m so glad you decided to do this! (Even though I’m really late getting around to actually commenting.)
Sigh. I don’t know how we can be friends if you hated The Fault In Our Stars. That book falls right into the top three for me, after Harry Potter and Eleanor & Park. I thought it was absolutely beautiful. (Although I do agree with you about the parent thing. I wish we could’ve gotten to know them a little better.)
*nods* Stephen King’s book sound absolutely terrifying. I don’t think I could handle reading one of his books.
Of course! It was awesome and creative.
Hmmm. It just wasn’t my thing. Even counting the things I did like – let it be known that I adored Isaac – it wasn’t outstanding. Even those parts were OK. I just don’t get the HUUUUUUUGE fandom TFioS has.
At least Misery was fairly short. I don’t think that, between his writing style and the horror, I could handle any of his longer books, like The Stand. (It’s, like, a thousand pages.)
Isaac is one of my favorite characters! 🙂 (By the way, did you know that John Green based Patrick off of himself? XD Hilarious!)
Yowza. I don’t have the attention required for books that long (unless it’s Harry Potter, of course.)
Patrick…? I don’t remember anyone named Patrick. Like I said, I didn’t think anyone but Isaac was interesting. That’s not making me super-impressed with John Green if I don’t even remember which character he was. xD
Yowzah, indeed. Yowzahs are cool. So are bow-ties.
Patrick was the support group leader.
And fezes. Don’t forget fezes. 😉
Oh.
And Stetsons!
(Have you seen “The Snowmen” yet?)
Definitely. 😉 Somehow the Doctor can wear anything and call it cool, and suddenly it is cool.
No . . . * checks DVD * HEY I HAVE IT ON THERE! 😀 Thanks for reminding me to check!
Okay, so now that I’ve watched a few episodes with Clara, I feel like I can form an opinion on her. Here it is: I still have no idea what to think. 😛 Which really bugs me, because with every other companion, I got a feel for their personality within a couple episodes (except for Donna, whose personality shone through right away, no problem). But with Clara . . . I don’t know what it is about her. She’s just so . . . bland. She’s not unlikeable, just–blah.
So… you’ve seen some episodes AFTER “The Snowmen,” I suppose? 🙂 Like “The Bells of St. John” or whatever?
YESYESYES. *nods incessantly* I felt that way with Amy too, but I also had multiple things I disliked about Amy too (mostly her wasted character potential). So when Clara showed up I was happy but then I realized I don’t feel a single thing for her. There wasn’t anything I liked or disliked. She’s just so boring.
…and it’s making me begin to seriously dislike her. She’s. So. Bland. It’s like… in trying to make the companions relatable, the writers made her so average that she has no personality.
(EDIT: I loved asylum!Clara and Victorian!Clara but the version we ended up with is just… ugh.)
Yeah, I’ve seen “The Bells of Saint John,” “The Cold War,” and “Hide.” 🙂
The earlier companions were so much better. I WANT MORE RIVER.
Eeeeee! So the next one, or maybe the one after, is “The Rings of Akhaten”! That was my favorite of the whole series. 😀 It’s just beautiful.
Indeed. The companions have really gone downhill since series five started.
I think maybe it’s because they’re trying to make the companions appeal to everyone. TBH, Donna IS loud and not everyone likes that. And she’s certainly not young. But you know what? That’s more interesting than Clara’s meek little “I’ll do whatever you say, Doctor” / “I am a completely average twentysomething who never wanted for anything” routine.
River… she might appear opposite Twelve. But the writers haven’t said that it will definitely happen.
Oooh, wait I did see that one! 😀 I loved the music in that. And that little girl was just adorable.:)
LOL. Yes, that’s pretty much how Clara is. 😉 At least Amy had spunk.
Whaaa . . .?! No more 11 + River? 😦 Noooo!
😀 I LOVE ITS MUSIC. And I love when there are child characters in DW, they’re awesome.
Yeah, I’ll give her that. Amy and Rose are quite alike when it comes to spunkiness.
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