2016 Love-a-Thon Kickoff!

Posted February 19, 2016 by Cristina (Girl in the Pages) in Blog-A-Thons / 24 Comments

loveathonI am so excited to participating in the 2016 Love-A-Thon! This is my first time participating in the event, but I heard so much good buzz surrounding it last year that I knew it was something I wanted to become involved the next time around! Hosted by the lovely Alexa @ Alexa Loves Books, Cee @ The Novel Hermit, Hazel @ Stay Bookish & Mel @ The Daily Prophecy, it’s a weekend-long event that really celebrates the community and promotes positivity throughout! To kick off the event, all of the participants will be posting a getting-to-kow-you questionnaire!

Love-A-Thon Questionairre

What’s Your Name?

Cristina! Do I like my name? Yes! Do I continually have it misspelled on a daily basis? Absolutely!

Where in the World are You Blogging From?

I’m blogging from the beautiful West Coast of the United States.

How did you get into blogging in the first place?

I started out as a lifestyle/fashion blog (I use that term very loosely because I blogged a grand total of like, 5 times) in college when I moved into my first apartment and wanted to chronicle my “new” life. I started posting the occasional book review, and found that I really enjoyed it. I ended up stumbling across my first book blog, Blogs of a Bookaholic (Hi Becky!), and she was so incredibly sweet and encouraging and reading her blog just made me KNOW I wanted to be a part of the community.

How did you come up with my blog name?

Branding myself a few months into blogging as a book blog was a huge deal, as I previously had an unrelated name. I had a lot of contenders, but I kind of wanted to stay away from the word “book” in the title, as I felt it was a bit overused. “Pages” was a word I kept finding myself drawn too, and my boyfriend Max is actually the one who came up with the name “Girl in the Pages!”

What genre do you read and review most on your blog?

Definitely YA, with some adult thrown in for good measure. My heart really lies in paranormal, as that’s really what made me fall in love with the genre, but I actually read a lot more contemporary now that I realized, and I love contemporary that deals with deeper issues (religion, mental illness, societal issues, etc). It makes me feel like I’m in college again and am reading for class (which I actually miss. A lot.)

What other posts do you do on your blog, apart from reviews?

I love doing critical discussions! That’s sort of what my blog evolved into, as they year I committed to book blogging was my senior year in college. I was thick in the middle of writing my thesis and taking seminars and balancing my literature major with YA reading for fun really helped my stress. However, I still really wanted a venue to talk about it academically. So you’ll find quite a few of those, a lot of features (I’ve been doing a lot lately, especially showcasing books I’d like to try or topics I’m interested in exploring), recaps of bookish events I go to, and some guests posts done by my boyfriend Max, who is getting more and more into reading YA.

Best blogging experience so far?

That is SO hard, and is definitely a toss up between attending YALLWest and ALA this past year!

Favorite thing about the blogging community?

I mean the main thing is that it’s so full of people who ADORE YA. Seriously, I don’t know anyone else IRL who does (aside from maybe reading it occassionally) and I was an English major surrounded by bookish people ALL the time. I feel like it’s still a very nice genre for people outside of their teens (although gaining more traction) and finding a whole community of people who love to read it is heaven.

Also, everyone has just been super nice and encouraging so far (in my experience) and you just don’t find that everyday, you know?

Name the 5 books you’re the most excited for in 2016!

This is hard to pinpoint the ACTUAL top 5 because I don’t really keep track of how excited I am for particular releases, they just sort of reside all together on my Goodreads “To Read” shelf (I have to keep a million spreadsheets at work so I don’t like to spend a ton of my personal time making them, as handy as they are). Off the top of my head, they’d have to be:

Name the top 5 books you want to read in 2016 that you didn’t get to in previous years!

What’s an underrated book or series that you think everyone should read?

I always, ALWAYS shout THE WRONG SIDE OF RIGHT by Jenn Marie Thorne at people (it’s flawless). Also, I just finished Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu and WOW. It was stunning.

Which book boy or girl would be your book boyfriend/girlfriend?

TAMLIN. From A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas.

Apart from reading, what are  your other hobbies or interests?

I’m very into makeup (I’ve always said if I wasn’t a book blogger I’d be a beauty blogger) and fashion (I have so.many.clothes.) Max and I really like trying new recipes (aka he tries them while I watch and pretend to be helpful) and we’re both really into the Food Network. I’m a very active member in my Greek alumni network, and though I haven’t had much time for it now, I was very involved with vocal performance and dance growing up. Also, we’re both HUGE Disney people.

Apart from book shopping, what else do you like shopping for?

Definitely clothes and makeup, but I’ve also gotten really excited about buying home goods items in the past few years (over the holidays we bought a Tiffany blue colored Kitchen Aid stand mixer and are in love with it. That’s how we know we’re boring adults now, we get thrilled over quality appliances). I’m also an avid collector of Alex & Ani bangles and Disney Tsum Tsums. I enjoy grocery shopping too (especially Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods)…I think the past few questions really just lead back to the fact that I really like food (and am fixated on it because I just had my wisdom teeth pulled and can hardly eat anything *cries forever*)

At a party, the DJ suddenly changes the song- and it’s your song. What song would be playing?

Circus by Britney Spears. It’s been my favorite song since I heard it for the first time back in 2008. I am a HUGE Britney fan. Britney is queen.

Pick out either a book you want turned into a film/tv show, or a tv show/film you want turned into a book.

Ohhh, currently my favorite show is Jane the Virgin, so I’d love to see a contemporary book series (maybe New Adult?) based around it!

Author you want to meet and sit down to tea with?

This is completely cliché but J.K. Rowling. I know everybody says that, but I wrote my college senior thesis on Harry Potter and I now have SO many critical questions for her!


Are you participating in this year’s Love-a-Thon?

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24 responses to “2016 Love-a-Thon Kickoff!

  1. *highfives* This is my first Loveathon too. 😀 I forgot about Me Before You for my list, but I’m keen to get to it this year too! Meep wisdom teeth are such a pain – I hope your recovery goes well and you’ll soon be eating solid, delicious food again!

    Cilla recently posted: Love-a-Thon: an Introduction
  2. My name is constantly misspelled too, so I feel your pain!! I have to check out ACOTAR. I won a copy a while back and still haven’t gotten around to reading it. Hopefully I get to that soon! I actually just got my wisdom teeth pulled too, about two days ago. ThE PAIN IS SO REAL. I’ve been sitting around watching Once Upon a Time and working on my blog. The only thing that actually feels good to eat is milkshakes. :/
    Krystianna @ Downright Dystopian

    Krystianna recently posted: 2016 BOOK BLOGGER LOVE-A-THON
    • Oh, I hope your recovery is going well! It’s funny, I’ve heard of like two other bloggers who had theirs pulled this week too! I’m just over a week into my recovery and while still a bit uncomfortable, I found I could start incorporating more nutritious and filling food in after day 3, so you’re really close! At least we have the Love-a-thon took look forward too!

  3. While J.K. Rowling is of course the easy answer I think it’s a testament to just how large of impact she has had on the development of readers. Especially our generation! Plus there’s just so many unanswered questions that I want to know more about.

  4. I love your blog so, so much and I’m so glad I discovered it for myself last year! Your posts are always so thoughtful and put together well <3 Anyway, I, too am very excited for A Court of Mist and Fury. I need more of Prythian! (And Lucien.) I think you'll enjoy Heir of Fire (I hope you do!) and Me Before You (which is lovely). Happy Love-a-Thon!

    • Thank you so much, Alexa! Your kind words mean SO much to me, as your blog is one of the early ones I came across when I started this blogging venture, and I will admit I was thrilled when we began chatting! Thank you for always being so welcoming to people starting out in this community, and leaving such thoughtful and lovely comments! <3

  5. My favourite show is Jane the Virgin, too! You have great taste 😉 I’m also a huge contemporary fan (it’s my favourite genre) and I must get round to Isla + Me Before You this year. So many books, so little time, you know? I also can’t wait to get round to The Wrong Side of Right. I’m not currently blogging, but I’m joining in #LoveAThon via Twitter. My handle is @readingwishes 🙂

    Rebecca recently posted: Goodbye For Now
    • YES to Jane the Virgin! I just finished season 1 on Netflix so unfortunately I haven’t been able to see the latest episodes, but I identify with the show SO much (partly because I’m half Latina too, so I resonate with it culturally). I totally understand about time seeming to shrink while your TBR grows! (Especially this weekend, when everyone is meeting new bookish friends and hearing about so many new recommendations!) Thanks so much for stopping by, Rebecca!

  6. I can imagine most people write it as Christina, but I like that you have an unique way of spelling it. Critical discussion posts are always so much fun to read 🙂 A darker shade of magic is ahamazing and I love Heir of fire. I can’t wait for A court of mist and fury & The raven king!

    • HELLO! IT’S ME! (Sorry I couldn’t resist…)

      I did indeed go to ALA SF this past summer! I was there on Saturday and Sunday! Crazy how you can realize you were somewhere at the same place and same time as someone else and not even realize it! Are you planning on going to YALLWEST this spring?

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