Tagged: harry potter
Reader Request Week 2015 #0.5: Previously Asked Questions
As I mentioned in my initial question-submitting post, I didn’t exactly get to answer many of your questions. In fact, I only ended up answering one, which you can find using this link. So I wanted to go back and properly answer all of the questions I didn’t get to last year.
Harliqueen asked me:
What made you want to start a review blog and what keeps you going on with it?
If I’m being completely honest here (as I try to be), I have no idea what made me want to start a review blog. I’m serious. One night I was lying awake in bed with an unusually bad bout of insomnia and it just popped into my head that I should start a book blog. Then, the next day when I got seriously thinking about things I thought it would be a great idea. I could connect with fellow readers, something that never happens in my small, geographically isolated village. And I could get free books eventually. Wouldn’t it be cool if people actually wanted to read about my thoughts on books?
Fast forward to now three years later where 1,220 people wanted to read what I write about books enough to click the follow button. My large-to-me readership is part of what keeps me going but it fundamentally comes down to a love of books. I love talking about books, writing about books and sharing my opinions about books with other readers. We have some great debates here on The Mad Reviewer and I really couldn’t be happier about the awesome commenting community I have. Not everyone comments and that’s cool with me as well; some of you just lurk, some of you like to tweet or retweet links to my posts, some of you are authors waiting for a review from me. It doesn’t really matter to me why people read my blog, I just love the fact that they do and I get to share my love of books with so many people.
Emily Guido asked me:
That was a great question but my question is kind of weird. I just want to know as a reviewer, like to actually just read to read. I write, yes… but I review books or beta read for other struggling authors. But sometimes, I just like to download a book and just fall into it and not think about reviewing or beta reading or anything else. I guess that keeps me sane and I escape! I’m a big fan of yours! Great blog! Lots of love, Emily
Yep, sometimes I just love to download a book and not even think of reviewing it as well. I review a lot of the books I read but there are certain types of books that I really don’t like reviewing on my blog, so I don’t. The number one thing that comes to mind is erotica and/or trashy romances. Sometimes I just want a guilty pleasure read and so I download some (usually) pretty awful free erotica novels and short stories off of Amazon or read some of the fifty cent romance books I picked up at the local bookstore before it closed. In the latter books, the heroine and the hero of each novel is pretty much interchangeable with not much character development and sometimes that’s just what you need! So yes, while I review 99% of what I read, that 1% can be some pretty awful writing and I absolutely love it once in a while.
Mark Lee asked me:
Ooh, how about this: what’s your all-time favorite book and why?
I think the book that is my all-time favourite in the sense that I’ve loved it for years would be any of the Harry Potter series. It had a huge impact on my childhood! (I distinctly remember being 11 and waiting for my owl from Hogwarts to come…) And now as an adult I went back and read the series and completely understand why my mother loved reading it and watching all of the movies with me. It’s great! It truly is magical and unique! The amazing thing about the Harry Potter series is not just how unique it really was when it came out but also how easy to relate to it was for people of all genders, races and age groups. Both myself and the boys in my class read the series in the third grade and loved it (of course not all of the books were even out then, so the series up until that point). And considering how little many of the boys in my class read, that was simply amazing.
Harry Potter just has a magic all of its own that has captivated almost everyone who reads the series. I happen to be one of them.
Now I feel much better about myself for finally having answered the questions you guys posed to me over a year ago. If you have any new ones or any follow up questions, head on over to my call for question submissions here and ask away!
Discussion: Favourite Characters
Every person who reads has a favourite character or characters. There are just some characters that you remember years and years after finishing a book. They speak to you because you can see a part of yourself in them or they have such strong personalities that you can’t forget them.
Harry Potter is, of course, quite a popular favourite and he remains one of my favourites to this day. I say ‘one of’ because there is no way I can just choose one favourite character when I’ve read quite literally hundreds of books. One of my most recent favourite characters would have to be Isherwood Williams from Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. Ish isn’t a perfect person, but he’s resourceful and intelligent. He makes mistakes and tries to be a good leader of his group while rebuilding civilization in his own manner. Things don’t turn out quite how he wants them to, but he’s just one of those characters that believably shapes the world he lives in through sheer force of will.
Keeping with the depressing post-apocalyptic theme, Marco of The Return Man is another of my absolute favourites. Tortured, cynical and at the same time full of hope, he’s a mess of contradictions that in the hands of any other writer would be a terrible character. But V. M Zito made him believable by giving him an unique backstory that explained his cynical attitude as well as why his past continues to haunt him. Opposite him at first is Wu, also one of my favourite characters. Wu isn’t perfect and neither is Marco, but the two of them formed one of those unlikely friendships that just worked well.
I’ve rambled on enough about my favourite characters, so now it’s your turn. Who is/are your favourite character(s)? Why?
[As a side note, there are no rules for Discussion posts other than the usual ones from my Commenting Policy. Feel free to engage myself and other commenters!]
My Favourite Villains
This is the first article in a weekly series. Today I will be covering my favourite type of character: villains. Villains are the spice in novels and well-developed villains turn good novels into great novels. Here I will list my top 5 favourite villains in descending order. Warning: this may contain spoilers.
1. Niccoló Machiavelli from The Magician by Michael Scott.
If Michael Scott is good at one thing, it’s creating complex characters. Machiavelli may be a villain, but he certainly has flashes of good and his backstory is quite sad. He seems to reluctantly work for Dee and the Dark Elders, but he is also very pragmatic about it. Throughout the series I have been unable to truly figure him out, although his character does take an interesting turn in the penultimate book, The Warlock. I really hope to see more of him in The Enchantress because he’s a truly fascinating character. I guarantee you, he is one of the best villains you will ever see in YA fiction (and regular fiction, for that matter).
2. Satan from Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Yes, this is probably a pretty controversial choice, but as a character, John Milton’s Satan is a wonderful villain. Charismatic, powerful and completely evil, he is the epitome of a villain. He believes what he is doing is right and will do anything to achieve his goal. After being thrown out of Heaven, Satan goes to Earth and convinces Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge in order to corrupt mankind and spite God. The only reason John Milton’s Satan is not my favourite villain is because he’s portrayed as pure evil, rather than having any real redeeming qualities. Continue reading