huh, apparently my ask was turned off! i had no idea when that must have happened, i definitely didn’t turn it off on purpose.
D: What book do you hate that most others love?
ohh that’s a tough one. i generally stop reading books i’m not into so my opinion very rarely turns to hate rather than, like, indifference/boredom.
like i wouldn’t call it hate but the book i’ve tried reading more times than any other is DON QUIJOTE. i think my first attempt was when i was sixteen or so, my last attempt was at thirty. i WANT to enjoy it, i’ve read tons of classics, some older than that one, but something about that particular book makes my brain go “uuuuuugh”. i’m so ashamed.
i was a precocious child who was EXTREMELY proud of reading difficult books from a young age, so sadly i missed out on YA when i was the target demographic. i only really started reading YA in adulthood and haven’t read as much as i would want to.
the one YA book i remember reading when i was a teenager, that made a huge impression on me, was a norwegian one titled RAGNAROK about a girl struggling with bullies at school who finds the rainbow bridge to valhalla by accident. sadly i’ve not been able to track it down, the library i borrowed it at no longer exists, and i can’t remember the author. (there are SO many books titled ‘ragnarok’).
alternatively i REALLY enjoyed THE HUNGER GAMES books and i’m still mad the movies only excelled at details while missing the main messages.
X: What book has your favorite cover art?
my taste in book covers seems to oscillate between simplicity and really ornate stuff
i used to collect antique books. i’m pretty sure the most good-looking book i own is J.H. WESSELS DIGTE, a collection of johan herman wessel’s satirical poems (hence satyrs on the cover), published in 1862. it’s embossed with gold on the front. google images has this image which doesn’t do the real-life shine and glimmer of it justice:
it’s so pretty and the whole book is typeset in gothic font and i love wessel’s works so it’s a highly prized possession of mine.
Z: If you wrote a book, what would it be about?
i’m DELIGHTED that you ask. i’m currently working on two novels:
one is an alternate history fantasy set in the late 1800s/early 1900s about a woman, yana, head of her household after her husband’s passing, who gets abducted and embroiled in the politics of a human vs. elves war. essentially the lead-up to ww1 never happens bc humanity is focused on an external enemy and the war makes for some very different power dynamics in europe. also this story is home to some of my most beloved mind children, including sureau (beautifully depicted by you here), the deposed elven ruler who everybody waits for to fight back and regain his kingdom from his sister, but sureau is secretly quite happy laying low, enjoying good food and orgies, and adulation from his supporters.
my other project is a crime thriller set in the thirties and it’s your typical hardboiled private dick story except the main cast are mostly women. the main character is a sheltered girl, marla, whose father is arrested in a murder conspiracy and she hires private detective and master of disguise helena boudicca dunn to exonerate him. marla has to try to negotiate through the underworld and falls in love with sleeves, a mobster (and one of the few male characters). dunn has her fair share of troubles too but is also in a loving relationship with her girlfriend who sews all her disguises. generally this story comes from a) me working through some issues regarding the complexities of family and upbringing, and b) adoring hardboiled noir stories for most of my life except for all the misogyny.