This book tag was created by Jemma at Fantastic Books and Where to Find Them and is part of the promo for the upcoming release Harley in the Sky by Akemi Dawn Bowman (out March 10th), whose debut, Starfish, I loved (review here)

RingMaster – What book introduced you to your favorite genre?
My favorite genre is fantasy and honestly, I cannot remember the very first fantasy book I read. I know I started reading Harry Potter circa second grade, but JKR is dead to me, so I guess if I want to pick something else that holds a lot of nostalgia and is one of the earliest fantasy series I read, it’s the Unicorn Chronicles by Bruce Coville. My fourth grade teacher read the first book, Into the Land of the Unicorns, out loud to my class, and I fell in love with it. I still remember waiting years and years for the series to finish. The first book was published in 1994 and the second in 1997, before I was introduced to the series (sometime during 2002-2003), but the third book didn’t come out until 2008 and the fourth/final one in 2010, so I waited like 8 years, which amounted to almost half my lifetime at the time of the final book’s release. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for someone who started the series when the first book was just published.

Acrobatics – A fast-paced read.
Charlie Hernandez & the League of Shadows by Ryan Calejo is a fast-paced middle grade fantasy book based on Latinx/Hispanic folklore. I read it plus the sequel, Charlie Hernandez & the Castle of Bones last month and had a blast. I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about it even in lists of Latinx kidlit, but I highly recommend it for fantasy action/adventure lovers.

Clowns – A book that made you laugh.
Aru Shah and the Song of Death, the sequel to Aru Shah and the End of Time, by Roshani Chokshi, had some pretty funny jokes/moments in it.

Knife thrower – A book that had you on the edge of your seat.
I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal was super intense and suspenseful. It’s a YA novel about contemporary race relations told from two points of view, following a Black girl and a white girl who are forced to become allies as they try to make their way out of a fight at a football game and a local street protest that transform into a full-blown riot in their city.

Tightrope Walker – A book you just couldn’t put down.
Soul of the Sword by Julie Kagawa, sequel to Shadow of the Fox. There’s a super high stakes quest in a race against time and I desperately needed to know how everything was going to play out. Dying to read book 3 right now.

Ventriloquist – A book with a great twist.
Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim has a number of twists. It’s a genderbent take on The Count of Monte Cristo, with a brown girl protagonist who tries to get revenge on the people who sold her into indentured servitude, except there’s some complications with her being attracted to the son of the man who supposedly ruined her life and several people not being who they appear to be, among other things.

Magician – A book with a magic system you love.
The Reader by Traci Chee. I raved about this book back when I reviewed it in 2016, and the trilogy has become one of my all-time favorite fantasy series. I mean, how much better can it get than reading and books being literal magic? I liked how reading wasn’t just restricted to words on paper but also reading in the sense of perceiving the world around you, so there were multiple ways to “read” and manipulate the world with magic.

Static Trapeze – Best or Worst Cliffhanger.
Infinity Son by Adam Silvera. I can’t say what happens because it’s a spoiler, obviously, but holy shit you cannot just leave us dangling there after That happened. *cue keyboard smash*

And that’s the end of the tag. I tag whomever wants to do this