Pumpkin Spice Latte Book Tag 🎃 the return of the seasonal Tags

Hello fellow bookworms 🎃 It’s time for more Fall themed Tags!! I wanted to do the Pumpkin Spice Latte Tag since last year when I saw it on Acqua’s blog but I never ended up getting around to doing it 😥 However, this year I knew I wanted to do the Tag as I’m a big fan of the traditional Pumpkin Spice Latte 🎃 I only drink it maybe twice in fall (because it’s pretty expensive) but it always puts me in such an autumnal mood and I need to get my intake of all things pumpkin spiced, as it’s not that common here in Germany. Right from the get-go, I loved all the questions for this Tag ❤ The Tag was originally created by The Book Pusher and I’ve included her video down below 🍂

It’s pumpkin spice latte time!!

Tagging 💕

• Pauliina @ bookaholicdreamer
• Margaret @ weirdzeal
• Xandra @ starryskybooks
• & everyone who wants to do the Tag! If you love fall and you’ve been wanting to do this Tag you’ve now been officially tagged to do so 🎃

Pumpkin Spice Latte ➽ a book everyone likes to hate on but is delicious

The Gilded Wolves (Roshani Chokshi) 🎃 I find it hard to say that a book is ‘hated on’ by everyone, but I do have some favorites that receive mixed reviews/lower ratings on Goodreads. One of them is Roshani Chokshi, who – in my opinion – writes some of the best Fantasy stories with vivid worlds and such lush, beautiful writing. There’s a certain amount of hype for her, but there also tend to be some divisive opinions. The latest book by her – The Gilded Wolves – also shows this pattern. In my opinion, it’s a fantastic book with a great cast of characters whose friendship is already strong at the beginning of the book and amazing, intriguing plots full of treasure hunting and heists. However, the book tends to attract a lot of comparisons to Six of Crows, which I kind of understand but also: not every Fantasy that involves a heist element should be immediately grouped in with Six of Crows. Sure both of them share the multiple POV character cast and a heist element, but are also fundamentally different and can stand on their own 🍵

“Fall is my favorite season”  ➽ a cliche you can’t get enough of

I actually don’t mind most common tropes 🎃 While there are some tropes that I cannot stand (… like love triangles, miscommunication, and insta love), there are certain cliches in stories that I still enjoy a lot and that are always fun to me, no matter how many times I read them 😄 Here’s a short list of cliches/tropes I love:

• Pop-Culture references 📚 (as long as they are included in an organic way that doesn’t feel like fanservice. The nerd in me loves all the references)
• The Chosen One 👑 (one of the oldest Fantasy Tropes, but it’s still a lot of fun to follow a character destined to save the world and indulge in their perspective. I do enjoy spins on the trope though e.g. UnChosen Protagonists)
• Forbidden Romance 💘 (the yearning and angst is strong with this trope and if well done can really make me root for a couple and be super invested in their journey)

Sweater Weather to T-Shirt Weather ➽ A book you thought was one thing but was completely different by the end

Kingdom of Souls (Rena Barron) 🎃 I had high hopes for this book and the first 30% were great … but that’s when things went wrong for me. I thought this would be a story about a girl trying to use dark, forbidden magic because she has none of her own. In the beginning, this storyline was followed and I was so intrigued because the shame associated with being the only one without magic in the family and the dilemma of trading away years of your life for magic were so interesting to read about. However, this plotline suddenly got demoted to the background for other plots that I didn’t enjoy at all. I’m still so sad the forbidden magic wasn’t the main storyline, as the other storyline had one of my least favorite tropes (that I cannot reveal without spoilers) and in general, the story stagnated 😥

“Spoops” ➽ do you have a spooky book on your tbr?

Cemetery Boys (Aiden Thomas) 🎃 Now that it’s September this book has finally released and I couldn’t be more excited! I’m getting into the mood to read all the spooky books and this was on my most anticipated releases list 🥰 I recommended it to my library in the hopes that they would buy it, but so gar it sadly hasn’t happened yet- Nevertheless, I’m also keeping an eye on the Kindle book that I might buy because this seems to be THE perfect book to read in October!! It features GHOSTS and has a queer, Latinx, and trans protagonist! I’m all here for the magic and the slight spookiness, especially as I’ve heard so many good things about this book already 👻💗

Tarot Reading ➽ a five-star prediction

The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan) 🎃 I’m always afraid of making 5-star predictions in case I jinx myself, but so far Rick Riordan has never disappointed me! Very soon the last book in the Trials of Apollo series will be coming out and I’m incredibly excited to see how the big file will turn out to be! I predict this will be 5 stars, as I love the series (one of my all-time favorites) and I know Riordan will bring everything together for a good conclusion to his series. I’m a bit sad it’ll be over though, as the author probably won’t be doing any big series anytime though. I’m still hoping for some standalone/companion books set in his universe and maybe featuring some of the characters we haven’t seen much of 👀

Sephora Sage + Crystal Set ➽ a book that meant well but missed the mark by a landslide

The Extraordinaries (TJ Klune) 🎃 Sometimes you don’t enjoy a book, but you can tell that it meant well and has good aspects. That’s what happened with The Extraordinaries for me. I sadly didn’t enjoy my experience reading this at all, as a lot of things that aggravated me kept happening. However, I still recognize that this is an important story as it deals with a gay teen boy who has ADHD and loves superheroes. There is a sweet friends to lovers romance and it’s so important to have queer superhero books, which is why I would still recommend this book if you like superpowers. It got a bit far-fetched with time – the main character was so willfully naive – and the worldbuilding isn’t that fleshed out though. So all in all, this meant well but ultimately didn’t work for me personally.

What is your favorite autumnal drink? What’s a cliche/trope that you cannot help but love? 🎃