#spruceoutoffive

9. when do you tend to read most?

i mean. always? lol but the actual answer is i listen to audiobooks while commuting/traveling, when working out (on land)(as in not while swimming)(and at the gym only while warming up/cooling down bc i read the news between sets so that would fuck it up), while driving (when i do, which is not often)

and then i always read a physical or digital book before bed, and often 'before bed' starts like... as soon as i get home from / log off work, or at least a couple of hours before i fall asleep if i'm doing other stuff first

19. most disliked popular books?

oof. i mean, define popular? i know that's a copout but i am drawing a huge blank on this.

well i know a lot of people like night sky with exit wounds by ocean vuong and i found it kind of meh. definitely niche popular, but people reccing hockey romance often suggest wake up, nat & darcy and i didn't like that one. also niche popular, but before i read the fall (also hockey) i saw people praising it to the moon and back and saying it changed their lives, and i thought it was deeply mid (even when adjusting for hockey romance rating scales)(look i had an extensive hockey romance phase for several months there so when i look at my storygraph it's just wall to wall hockey)

okay i scrolled back far enough. some actually popular books that i went in expecting to love based on hype/reviews and also found kinda mid: piranesi (they would kill me for this on book twitter), the starving saints, my brilliant friend, bury my bones in the midnight soil, great big beautiful life. (those last two really hurt because i had high expectations of the authors)

hiii jay! I haven't read enough manga to be able to answer the second part i'm afraid! I've only read the first 12 or so volumes of Dragon Ball (not Z), a little of Death Note, and almost all of Fullmetal Alchemist. WAIT I forgot I literally have 29 volumes of Pokémon Adventure on my shelf behind me 😭 so yeah that one's my favourite!

As for anime I have to go

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Digimon Adventure

Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma

I watched through Food Wars with my friend from uni and it was a really fun experience!

Morning Jay! 🫶

skin - what distant relative are you closest to?

The most distant that I'm somewhat regularly in contact with is probably my godmother's cousin who is related to me through [redacted family from Ostrobothnia] many many generations back; mid-1800's or so. That family has been very good at keeping track of descendants up to present day and regularly organize family gatherings. Said godmother's cousin also happened to be my teacher in mother tongue (Swedish) in gymnasiet (high school) heh.

sweetheart - favorite mug/cup?

A toss-up between these:

Frida, I love the way you think!

Yay thank you Jay!

8. Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones?

Not yet 🫠 I'm about five books behind my goal for the year, so I doubt I'll meet it unless I get possessed by something during the holidays.

22. What’s the longest book you read?

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon was 868 pages!

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

Woof, probably the same as this year - try to read more instead of scrolling. I also think I'll lower my book goal a bit again after raising it last year.