firewhiskeyreader

Happy birthday to the forever Queen of My Heart, Taylor Swift! I love her so much and so to celebrate her birthday, I searched to see if someone had already come up with a Taylor Swift Book Tag. Sarah Jane from The Book Life posted one in 2014, plus there were two Reputation tags, one of which I did already (the Reputation Book Tag by Sarah from Sarah’s Bookshelves) and another one I haven’t done by Liv at Liv’s Books. Ultimately though, I really just wanted to make up my own questions for my own set of songs from Taylor because I’m ridiculous. So here are 13 questions to celebrate Taylor’s birthday! #SwiftieForLife

Also, I would encourage you to scroll through and pick your favorite music video to provide a soundtrack to your reading!

Cold As You: A Book You Really Did Not Like

Favorite Lyric: “And you came away with a great little story of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you”

Never Love a Highlander by Maya Banks is the last book I read that I really, really did not like because the hero was awful. AWFUL. I don’t even really want to talk about this book. It’s book three in a series and I’m fairly certain I read and enjoyed book one, but this one… Not so much.

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Teardrops on My Guitar: A Book That Kept You Up at Night

Favorite Lyric: “the kind of flawless I wish I could be”

I think I started Dirty by Kylie Scott on audio so it could “help me fall asleep” and it was so good I listened to the whole thing instead of sleeping. Was it a bad idea? Definitely. Could I have stopped myself? Honestly no. Dirty follows Lydia as she flees from her own wedding and breaks in (by falling into the bathtub) to a stranger’s house. The stranger is Vaughan, who is weirdly chill about finding a stranger in his bathtub wearing a wedding dress. The whole book is delicious and I enjoyed it so much. I obviously loved the audio.

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Hey Stephen: A Hyped Book You Loved

Favorite Lyric: “Hey Stephen, why are people always leaving? I think you and I should stay the same.”

Sometimes books randomly gain cult status popularity on Twitter in Romancelandia and one of those series was Hidden Legacy by Ilona Andrews and thank you one and all for tweeting about this series because it is my obsession. I love this series so much and I won’t shut up about it, so if you haven’t heard… Burn for Me is book one and it follows Nevada Baylor who gets pretty much forced into bringing in a very, very dangerous man. Along the way she meets my favorite fictional character, possibly ever, and thus began my obsession. There’s magic and mystery and intrigue and the books keep getting better. I highly recommend you pick it up if you haven’t!

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White Horse: A Book that Let You Down

Favorite Lyric: “I’m not a princess, this a’int a fairytale”

The Other Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn was shaping up to be the usual five star (I love JQ) when the book ended without really, like… addressing huge and unresolved plot points? I’m still upset about it because it could have been a new favorite! But no. Alas.

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Never Grow Up: A Book that Makes You Nostalgic

Favorite Lyric: “It’s so much colder than I thought it would be…”

Sabrielby Garth Nix, which I re-read this year, was a nostalgic re-read for me. I remembered the series enough that it was a familiar feeling like coming home, unlike some re-reads that feel like I’m reading it for the first time. I would say Harry Potter, but re-reading it as an adult just makes me want to set Dumbledore and the Dursleys on fire for child abuse, so… Anyway, if you haven’t read whatever this series is called, it’s essentially a series with necromancers that are good and necromancers that are bad and they are consistently at odds. There is adventure and great characters and if the romance had been a little more developed, I wouldn’t have complained, but mostly they’re absolutely wonderful.

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Enchanted: A book that captivated you from page one

Favorite Lyric: “Please don’t be in love with someone else, please don’t have somebody waiting for you.”

There are so many books I’ve read this year that I feel like really drew me in immediately, so I’m just going to go with the most recent: The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory. Now, this book was up against some pretty high stakes. I had a 6:00 am flight at an airport an hour and some change away and TSA confiscated by Tatcha cleanser when I went through security. (Yes, I’m still and will forever be mad about this.) After furiously texting half of my contact list who were mostly still asleep because they’re sensible humans, I pulled out The Proposal. Now, I didn’t necessarily forget that TSA made me so angry, but I did get fully transported away and was giggling out loud in the waiting area, on the plane, and on the second plane as I read this book. It is so enchanting and I just adore this book so, so much.

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All Too Well: A Book that Made You Cry

Favorite Lyric: “And you call me up again just to break me like a promise, so casually cruel in the name of being honest”

First of all, this is my favorite song of all time. Okay, now moving on to the book aspect of this question… I’ve listened to All Too Well, probably more times than any other song and it always gives me the feels. Similarly, Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai apparently always makes me cry (but in a very cathartic way!) no matter how many times I re-read it so it seems very apropos in this slot. It’s angsty and has incredible mental health rep and is really just marvelously perfect.

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Everything Has Changed: A Book that Changed You or Your Reading

Favorite Lyric: “And your eyes look like coming home”

The Viking Queen’s Men by Holley Trent reintroduced me to the idea of paranormal romance, which I don’t think I’ve ever read a ton of, but certainly hadn’t picked one up at all in probably two years before April 14, 2018 when I finished The Viking Queen’s Men (which for the record was also a Twitter made me do it purchase). I read the first three in the series, then Hidden Legacy, and started Guild Hunters by Nalini Singh in May and didn’t look back. Paranormal romance is in stiff competition with contemporary romance as my most read genre this year.

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Out of the Woods: A World that Pulls You In

Favorite Lyric: “The rest of the world was black and white, but we were screaming color”

There are so many worlds that I have adored throughout my life, like the Wizarding World J.K. Rowling created that I never wanted to leave. I’m obsessed now with the world Ilona Andrews created in Hidden Legacy and the Psy-Changeling series has stolen my heart.

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Wildest Dreams: The book that makes you feel the most seen

Favorite Lyric: “Nothing lasts forever, but this is going to take me down.”

I think for me this is a toss up between the book that gave me a panic attack because it felt like Becky Albertalli reached inside me and put high school me on the page with The Upside of Unrequited or Wanna Bet? by Talia Hibbert, in which Jasmine was remarkably relatable to me. Both books are really lovely, but I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to bring myself to read The Upside of Unrequited again, whereas I’ll probably re-read Wanna Bet? regularly for the rest of my life.

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Delicate: A book with mental health rep that speaks to you

Favorite Lyric: “Is it cool that I said all that? Is it chill that you’re in my head?”

Lol, I did not plan my answers to this well and I’ve now talked about pretty much all the books I would want to talk about for this tag (Hate to Want You, Wanna Bet?, The Upside of Unrequited). So instead we’re going to talk about Wrong to Need You, which I must re-read soon. The sequel to Hate to Want You so also by Alisha Rai, Wrong to Need You follows Sadia, a widowed, single mom, business owner, bisexual woman who is juggling too many things, honestly. She’s an incredible, incredible character and she has a panic attack on the page! It’s great representation, especially paired with Jackson, who is very much a mess about being back and has a lot of guilt and doesn’t really like talking. Yeah… I need to re-read this book.

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New Years Day: A book you could re-read forever

Favorite Lyric: “Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you.”

There are too many answers to this question for me, now that I’ve rediscovered a love of re-reading. Perhaps the oldest answer is Pride and Prejudice. I’ve read this book more times than I can count. I’m on my third or fourth copy of the book and it stands the test of time by pretty much everyone’s standard. Now I have the audiobook, which is lovely and brilliant.

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Safe and Sound: A book (or genre) you can turn to when the world is on fire

Favorite Lyric: “Darling everything’s on fire.”

Romance is generally my go to genre when the world feels like it’s falling apart around me and if you’re wondering about the fact that I’ve pretty much only read romance this year… Yes, that is how I feel about 2018. But to be more specific, when things feel especially bad, there’s something about paranormal romance that is even more helpful to me. Specifically, my go tos are Hidden Legacy, which I’ve talked about enough in this post, and Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh. Kiss of Snow is book ten in Nalini’s Psy-Changeling series and it was one I had been anxiously anticipating since book 3? Maybe. Regardless, I genuinely adore the book so freaking much, which is why I just keep re-reading it over and over and over again.

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Happy birthday, Taylor! You deserve the world and hope 29 brings you the greatest joy.

To all of you reading this, please feel free to participate in this tag and let me know if you do! If you don’t have a blog or other place to do this, pick your favorite song from this list and answer it in the comments!

xx