The Grad Student Book Tag

What do you guys think my big celebration should be for finishing up my graduate school classwork? Big party? No, social distancing. Fancy dinner? No, restaurants are closed. A book tag? PERFECT!

Jillian the Bookish Butterfly created this super fun book tag for all you nerds in graduate school or thinking about graduate school. And she knew I was working on a degree too, so she tagged me! Thanks Jillian!

As a side-note, I am NOT graduating yet. I still have to do my practicum (also called internship) in the fall, but I’m thinking (hoping) it’s going to be a LOT less work than my classes were. Guaranteed I won’t have to read 60 pages of a cataloging textbook every week. Ugh.

So, yay! Let’s get started!

---

Picking an Area of Study

What’s your favorite books and/or series from each of your favorite genres?

• 

• 

• 

• 

Oh gosh! I have so many favorite genres! lol

Fantasy: Lord of the Rings. I know, such a cliche. But I’ve been in love with it since forever, literally since middle school. Y’all, that was 20 freaking years ago. And true love never fades.

Historical Fiction: Wolf Hall and the Thomas Cromwell trilogy. It’s just SOOOOO stinking good! I love Cromwell as a narrator and his odd sense of humor, as well as seeing Henry and his wives from an outsider’s persepctive.

Classics: Pride and Prejudice. It’s just so romantic and funny and all-around well written. I never get tired of it.

Young Adult: Probably Eleanor & Park. You all know how obsessed I am with Rainbow Rowell.

---

GRE

What book or books did you feel like you really had to focus on when you were reading and/or you had a hard time concentrating on?

Haha, jokes on you! My GPA in college was so amazing that I didn’t have to take the GRE. Suckers!!!!

I had a really hard time focusing on My Cousin Rachel by Daphne duMaurier. I don’t remember why, but maybe that was my first semester of grad school? I was reading literally only a chapter a night, and sometimes struggling to finish it, even though I really enjoyed it.

---

Juggling Work and School

What book took you too long to read and why?

The first time I read The Lord of the Rings for some reason I stopped about a quarter of the way through the first book? I don’t remember why, because I was really enjoying it. When I picked it back up a few months later I literally couldn’t remember ANYTHING that happened after Frodo left Bag End, so I decided to just start over. Thank God I did, because I loved it so much and read the whole trilogy in like, three weeks. Which, y’all, for a middle schooler? Pretty quick.

---

Too Much Homework

Name a book you did not hate, but did not love.

A lot of books, but I’ll go with a recent one. I was super “meh” about Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. It was good, I guess, but it’s just not a book I was particularly interested in. I read it because it was a gift, honestly.

---

Research Projects

How do you decide what book you want to read next off your TBR?

I’m taking my break for the summer from my bizarro type-A routine you’re about to get a sneak peak into, but I have a super specific strategy. Why? I’ll tell you! First, I’m a libra and I have a super hard time making decisions. So even though I keep my tbr under 100 books (obsessively), I still find it really intimidating. Second, if I don’t force myself to genre-rotate I end up reading a whole bunch of things that are really similar and start getting tired of them. This helps keep my favorite genres fresh.

So, what I do is I make a list. It goes like this:

1. Fantasy or Sci-Fi
2. Other genre fiction
3. Literary fiction or non-fiction
4. YA
5. Re-read

Then I pick the book from my tbr for each genre that I am most excited about. Then I read them in whatever order I feel like. This is a great system because I can easily read five books in a month, so I’m still able to plan based on my moods. I can also pick the next book out of the five based on mood. But I’m able to plan ahead and put books on hold at the library with plenty of time to get them before I run out.

---

Writing Papers

What book, in your opinion, has the best writing?

How am I supposed to pick just one????

Well, I’m just going to go with an award winner, I guess. Bel Canto by Anne Patchett was just EVERYTHING to me. I am so obsessed with this book. You’re probably tired of hearing me talk about it, honestly. The writing is just SO GOOD, and the characters are so interesting, and everything is so bittersweet and heartbreaking and beautiful. I bawled by eyes out for a full half hour when I finished. Like, ugly cried. It’s so wonderful.

---

Studying

What’s a book you stayed up way too late reading?

So I checked out a book called Indianapolis from the library with about seven other books one summer. I decided to save it for last because I figured nobody else would want to read it and I’d be able to renew it the easiest. NOPE. Somebody put a hold on FOUR DAYS before it was due for renewal. I had to read the whole stinking book in four days. It ended up being about 100 pages a day, and I also think summer vacation was over by the time I got around to it, so I had to read it at night? Anyway, for four nights in a row I had to stay up until midnight to finish on time, which doesn’t sound that late, but I was getting up at 5 AM. Worth it. It was SO GOOD.

---

No Social Life

What fiction character do you think would make the best study buddy?

Definitely Herimone Granger. She would make me a study schedule, and quiz me, and never get tired of the whole process. Also, she would know all the material

---

Final Projects

In your opinion, what book was the best series finale?

• 

• 

I don’t usually like the last book in a series as much as the first. But I think Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Last Olympian were both EXCELLENT finales to awesome series.

---

Getting that Master’s Degree

What’s the most books you have bought at once?

I have no idea, y’all. I don’t count them, and I definitely didn’t when I worked at an effing book store. Plus, gift cards! Probably like, fifteen. idk, maybe more.

---

Thanks for the tag Jillian! I haven’t been reading blogs like a terrible human being, so I have no idea who might be in grad school. So if you’re in grada school, thinking about grad school, or recently graduated from grad school, I TAG YOU!