30-Day Book Challenge from 2017 That I Never Finished (Part 2)

ICYMI, you can read Part 1 here. Unlike in Part 1, all challenge answers here are 2021 only.

Day 17: Favorite quote from your favorite book

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

This line really struck me as a young kid and it still does as an adult who never truly grew out of being a spacey dreamer.

Day 18: A book that disappointed you

I'm sure there have been many over the years but I can't remember them and I don't want to waste effort remembering. Brain space is such precious commodity. Why waste it on disappointments?

Day 19: Favorite book turned into a movie

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Pitch perfect adaptation, good casting, excellent set and music.

Honorable Mentions: Crazy Rich Asians, The Godfather Part II, The Devil Wears Prada (Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt 'nuff said), To All The Boys I Loved Before.

I love the music of The Godfather, the Love Theme especially (a remixed version is my ring tone).

Day 20: Favorite romance book

I can't. I can't pick just one! Off the top of my head though, these are the books I LOVED and have held up with subsequent rereads: Pride and Prejudice, My Imaginary Ex, Ascending Do Not Disturb, Rebirth of the Malicious Empress (don't let the title scare you away - this one's excellent), Speed Dating, Remember When.

Day 21: The first novel you remember reading

One of the Nancy Drew mysteries in 3rd grade. I forgot which one it was - I read so many in my youth - but it was a gateway drug. I've been a voracious reader ever since.

Day 22: A book that makes you cry

Death of certain characters always makes me sad. Dobby, Sirius, and Fred in Harry Potter. Rue in The Hunger Games. Those were the ones that had me sobbing, and I still get sad when I reread them.

And this one's cheating a bit as I haven't read the book in full except for certain chapters and scenes translated by kind volunteers, but Bu Bu Jing Xin by Tong Hua made me cry big, fat, juicy tears. It is a time slip melodrama set in the Qing Dynasty. The Chinese TV adaptation is also a favorite to this day.

Day 23: A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't

Anna Karenina. It's been on my list forever but I keep putting off reading it.

Day 24: A book that you wish more people would've read

Eating Fire and Drinking Water by Arlene J. Chai. I had read dark books before this, books with violence and gore, but this felt different. Maybe because for once the violence, albeit fictional, occurs to people who look like me. And the bad things that happen in the book still happen in real life and just as easily could happen to me. I was also quite young when I read this: young and impressionable and prone to bad dreams. What a trip.

Day 25: A character who you can relate to the most

In recent memory, it's probably Frank Li in Frankly in Love. On paper we don't have a lot in common. He's a full-blooded ethnically Han Korean born and raised in America. I'm a biracial Filipino born and raised in the Philippines. Frank's struggles with his Korean heritage and feeling American but not quite, resonated with my struggles growing up Filipino but expected to also conform with Chinese cultural norms - a culture that I am only ever exposed to in small doses when relatives come to visit a few times a year or in small, superficial ways such as celebrating Chinese New Year or Moon Cake Festival with food and hongbao. I say superficial because there are deeper cultural nuances to these celebrations that my Chinese relatives never bothered to explain to me, and that I never bothered to learn until my adulthood. And then there are the microaggressions from both sides, conflicting cultural attitudes, or worse, when both sides agree on what I feel are antiquated/misogynistic/xenophobic views. 

Day 26: A book that changed your opinion about something

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. 

I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school nearly my entire educational career. In fact, prior to reading DVC, I was quite the devout little Christian girl. I read the bible, could lead prayer novenas, knew every line the priest would say at regular mass. I was young and I accepted what was taught as is and never thought to question it. DVC opened my eyes to the fallibility of the human Church, I began looking into the many atrocities it committed throughout history, and I started to question my Faith, to look at it critically and have my own moral judgment about the various teachings.

I believe that religion is a very personal thing and every religious person comes to a point where they start to question their Faith or what they've been taught about it. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people emerge with stronger conviction in their Faith, others completely break away, and still some end up in a comfortable middle ground (like me!) who remain in the Faith but still have questions that may never get answered. And I'm okay with that.

Day 27: The most surprising plot twist or ending

The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The reveal about who the villain was and how it related to the overarching mystery and the mystery that started the whole thing. I did not see it coming. Masterful work.

Day 28: Favorite title of a book

Hannibal Rising - Thomas Harris.

Day 29: A book everyone hated but you

I have no answer for this one. I don't think I've encountered a book that most people hated and only I loved. I'm usually one of the haters. Hehe.

Day 30: Your favorite book of all time

This one hurts. It changes over time but if I had to choose just one? In 2021 my answer is World of Cultivation by Fang Xiang. At different points in the past, some of my answers would have been Harry Potter 4, Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, and Millennium Trilogy (Yes, all three. I CANNOT choose just one).