spooks and books | the halloweentown book tag

Hello and Happy Halloween, dear friends! Well, 🎶it’s the most wonderful time of the year!!!🎶 That’s right, friends: It’s spooky season!👻 And, what better way to get in the mood than with an appropriately themed book tag based one of my favorite Halloween themed movie series? So, today I’m doing The Halloweentown Book Tag, which was created by Bookish Coffee Blog!🎃

Before anything, the most important thing to say: Free Palestine!!! Since the Nakba, The Israeli government has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people. This HAS BEEN a decades long thing, but now in the age of social media, more and more Westerners are being made aware of the truth of this situation. This is genocide. Now is not the time to sit idle and ignorant. The people of Palestine are begging us to educate ourselves, spread information, take to the streets in protest, and call our government representatives, in addition to donating to medical and relief organizations if possible. The following are some resources where you can do just that, and I am begging you to please do so:

• Decolonize Palestine
• Anti-Racism Daily: Stop The Genocide in Gaza
• Save Palestine Carrd
• Arab.org: Click to help Palestine
• Medical Aid for Palestinians
• Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
• @sbeih.jpg (Subhi)
• Refuser Solidarity Network

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼

rules

1. Mention the creator of the tag, Bookish Coffee Blog
2. If you were tagged, mention who tagged you!
3. Answer the questions
4. Have fun!
5. Bonus: watch the movie while you answer the questions!

Halloween Gives Kids Ideas About There Being Magic

Name a book that is full of magic

This is tough for me as a fantasy reader, since pretty much every book I read is full of magic hahaha! I decided to go with one of my favorite fun fantasies, though: Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson. Rogerson is just really amazing at creating fantastical, magical atmospheres in her books!

Sorcery of Thorns tells the story of Elisabeth Scrivener, who is a librarian who helps guard magical books. When something goes wrong, Elisabeth is blamed for it and must enlist the help of mischievous and notorious sorceror Nathaniel Thorn in order to right her reputation. This book is full of fun, action, adventure, and a hint of romance and is definitely one to pick up if you’re looking for a quick, light fantasy standalone!

Halloween is Cool

Name one book from your October TBR

This October, I’ve started reading Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle. I just finished A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, which is a different dreary dark academia, but it’s really put me in the mood for more water-y dark academia fantasy and Curious Tides seems like the perfect pick!

I’ve only really just started reading Curious Tides, but from what I can tell it’s about a girl who’s got the magical power of healing, who attends a magic academy and who witnessed her best friend and other students drown in a cave whilst performing a mysterious ritual.

Nobody Really Appreciates my Taste in Weird Stuff

Name your favorite underrated read

I really enjoyed the Ruined trilogy by Amy Tintera (though I have yet to read the final book in the trilogy) and found it to be such an underrated gem! It’s got action, intrigue, and an angsty fake marriage/enemies-to-lovers romance! I’m always quite surprised that this series isn’t more popular!

The Ruined Trilogy is about the princess of a fallen kingdom who poses as the princess of a different kingdom so she can marry the prince of the kingdom that brought her own kingdom down and have her revenge. Of course, things get complicated when she starts to fall for the prince. This series is full of action and political intrigue. If you’re a fan of The Empirium Trilogy by Claire Legrand, the Ruined trilogy has a similar level of complexity (and angst).

The Cromwell’s are Powerful Witches, and it Took the Power of all of them to Defeat the Evil

Name a powerful fictional family

The families focused on in The Daevabad Trilogy by Shannon Chakraborty are the obvious choice for me. The series focuses especially on the feud between two powerful and magical families—The Al Qatanis, who rule over the djinn world, and the Nahids, who are forced to be the royal healers. That’s all I’ll say about that, though, for fear of spoilers, because you really need to read the series for yourself!

The Daevabad Trilogy focuses on the intesecting stories of Nahri, (an Egyptian conwoman who is thrown into the midst the politics of the djinn world she never knew existed), Dara (a djinnn warrior with questionable morals), and Alizayd (A pious and zealous djinn prince seeking to do right by his people). The series is incredibly political and steeped in Middle Eastern culture, and also has plenty of action and intrigue. It’s a wild ride with complex characters and I couldn’t recommend it more!!

Halloweentown was Written About in a Book, So Maybe It’s Real, Maybe It’s Not

Name your favorite non-fiction or historical fiction book

Stalking Jack The Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco is definitely one of my favorite YA historical mysteries. I know a lot of people aren’t a fan of the main character, Audrey Rose, in part because they feel like she’s so anachronistic, but I actually relate to her a good deal so I didn’t mind how she didn’t quite fit 100% with the time period.

Stalking Jack The Ripper is a historical mystery that delivers plenty of thrills and chills, with a side helping of a witty romance! The story follows Audrey Rose Wadsworth, who’s taken up as her uncle’s assistant in his forensic science business, and her uncle’s vexing and charming other assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two are soon swept up in the violent mystery of the Jack The Ripper murders and must race to figure out the identity of the elusive killer.

Mayor Kalabar Wants Revenge

Name a book you thought you would enjoy but ended up not

This is an interesting question as I’ve honestly got my taste in books down to a fine science, and thus rarely pick up books that I end up disliking anymore. The last book I can think of that this happened with, though, is probably Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan. Aside from the author being ridiculously problematic and allegedly bullying other authors, the book itself was WAY more vibes than plot And by that I mean the plot was barely there. At the time the book released, it had gotten MAJOR amounts of hype and I totally fell for it, which is a shame as the actual story left me pretty disappointed.

Instant Witch’s Brew, Sometimes it Works, Sometimes it Doesn’t

Name your favorite or least favorite book under 200 pages

I really love Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, but can you believe I’ve only ever read the first volume?! I know!!! It’s totally tragic, especially when you consider I have access to all the volumes in digital and physical format through my libraries! But I do plan on eventually continuing on (I’m extra excited because the author/illustrator team recently returned after a years long hiatus).

If you haven’t read or heard of Saga…first of all, where have you been hiding??? Kidding. In all seriousness, in case you haven’t (yet) read or heard of Saga it’s basically like Romeo and Juliet live in outer space and didn’t die but instead had a child and now are on the run from their respective factions who are chasing them through the galaxies seeking to kill them and their kid. It sounds simple in premise, but it’s fascinating and full of aliens, action, adventure, intrigue, and politics—plus the art is AMAZING!!

Time Works Differently in Halloweentown

Name a book that was so good it made time stop

I’m gonna name an entire series for this one because all of the books are so fucking good, and it is the An Ember in the Ashes quartet by Sabaa Tahir! Look, if you haven’t read this series, what are you doing with your life?!?!!

The An Ember in the Ashes quartet is a super complex and fascinating YA fantasy all about colonization, resistance, war, and morality and I’m begging you to read it if you haven’t yet!! I’ll be honest: I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first book, but I decided to give the second book a chance and I was absolutely hooked. I still have to read the fourth book, which I’m especially looking forward to based on how the third book ended.

Mortal See, Mortals Do

Name a book with non-human characters

For this question, the book that immediately came to mind for me was The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neil because I’m pretty certain that none of the characters in that are human?

The Tea Dragon Society and its sequels are middle grade graphic novels about a world full of magical creatures who take care of “tea dragons,” which are little dragons that grow tea plants on their heads. It’s super adorable and sweet, and features LGBT+ and disabled characters, which is always lovely representation to see in a series for young readers!

Luke Helps Save the Day

Name a character you thought was bad but ended up having redeeming qualities

I don’t tend to finish books with characters who I really dislike, so this was a tough question! I think I’m gonna go with Taha from Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim, though. Because the story is told rom Imani’s very biased perspective, Taha seems to be an arrogant jerk at first, but then Imani (and thus readers) learns more about him and comes to realize he might not be so bad—but then there’s a twist! Honestly, the entirety of Spice Road is about characters who aren’t great people but are learning to be better, and that’s part of why I loved the book!

Spice Road follows Imani, a magical young warrior of a secluded nation who goes searching for her missing brother despite him being accused of stealing their nation’s precious, magical spice. On her journey, she’s joined by a djinn who she doesn’t trust, and her arrrogant rival, Taha, plus his friends. However, Imani’s beliefs and life are thrown into disarray when she discovers that her narrow world is not everything that it seemed…

An Evil Force is at Work in Halloweentown, We Have to put Merlin’s Talisman in the Giant Pumpkin to Save Everybody

Name your favorite fictional villain and hero

My favorite fictional villain is definitely Xi Feng from Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao—another underrated gem! Xi Feng is so ambitious and ruthless and was such an interesting character to have an entire book focused on, especially seeing as she is, no questions asked, the villain of the story.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns is an #OwnVoices East Asian retelling of Snow White that tells the origin story of the Evil Queen. It follows Xi Feng, an ambitious girl from a village in a magical kingdom, and her vicious rise to becoming queen of the land.

Halloweentown is Saved

Name a book with a really satisfying ending

This is hard to think of, especially since I don’t want to spoil any books too much! I’m gonna go with The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson, which concludes the original trilogy of the Truly Devious series.

The series is about a teen detective, Stevie Bell, who attends a school for teen geniuses where she must investigate two mysterious—one which is a cold case from the past and one which is a new case in the present timeline. It’s a hilarious and mysterious series and the way it wraps up is perfect!

So that’s all for today, friends! I hope you found a good book recommendation from this post and I hope all of you have a spectacularly spooky and fun Halloween this year! Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to go cozy up with a good book and a warm cup of chai! Until next time, dear friends…

spill the beans, friends!

• Do you enjoy Halloween?
• Do you have any fun plans for this Halloween?
• What are some of your favorite Halloween season books, TV series, and/or movies?