2017 Love-a-Thon Kickoff!

Posted February 17, 2017 by Cristina (Girl in the Pages) in Blog-A-Thons / 24 Comments

Hosted by: Alexa of Alexa Loves Books, Cee of The Novel Hermit, Kristin of Super Space Chick & Mel of The Daily Prophecy

I’m so incredibly thrilled to be participating in the annual Love-a-Thon for the second year in a row! Last year I made some INCREDIBLE connections and it led to some fantastic collaborations! I can’t wait to get involved this weekend and meet even more amazing bloggers!

Basics

What’s your name? Where in the world are you blogging from?

Cristina! I hail from the famous California Bay Area (and contrary to popular belief, it is not always sunny in California. In fact, we are experiencing a severe storm as I type this post…)

Tell us your history with reading. Were you always a reader? Were you a reluctant reader? Was there a book that convinced you to become a reader?

I have 100% always been a reader. I had an obscene amount of books growing up, that ranged from sticker books, picture books, pop up books, etc. I possibly had more books than toys, and may have stole all of the money out of my piggy bank in second grade and used it to sneakily buy books at my school’s book fair without asking permission from my parents…

How did you get involved in the online book community?

I started blogging over on WordPress.com on a whim one day in college, and was posting book reviews before I even knew that was a THING and there was an entire online community for book bloggers. I slowly started stumbling across other book blogs and eventually branded myself as a YA book blog. I’m actually celebrating three years of blogging this month.

How did you choose your primary platform (blog, Instagram, YouTube, etc)? How did you come up with your blog name?

I’m huge on writing and speaking, so I knew that blogging was the right way to go as my primary platform because it’s the most text-focused. However, I LOVE Instagram and my dream would be to become really skilled at book photography. You can find my *attempts* here.

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’s your favorite thing about the online book community?

Having other people to flail about YA books with. I don’t know many people in my day to day life who read a lot of fiction, so for a long time I felt very isolated by what I read. Now, I have SO MANY people to talk to about books thanks to this community. It’s wonderful!

What sort of posts can readers expect from you?

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. I want to continue facilitating those types of discussions on my blog this year. However lately you’re also able to find many recaps of bookish events I go to (we have a great bookish community out here!), and, of course, reviews. I’ve also been dabbling more in features over the past year!

What book genres do you talk about most?

YA, but I also like a healthy dose of adult fiction too.

Favorites

Favorite food? Beverage?

So many people find this strange but my favorite lifelong comfort food has been steamed rice. I will literally eat it with anything. I love going to Hawaii because it is socially acceptable to eat rice for breakfast there. I’ve also been a HUGE lifelong fan of cranberry juice (especially Ocean Spray Cran-Apple). I don’t drink coffee or soda at all.

Favorite color?

Blues! In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a huge fan of aquas/ceruleans/mints/teals.

Favorite things to do apart from reading?

I really enjoy exercising (currently doing the Couch to 5K program) as well as going to Disney Parks (it’s an actual hobby, I’ve had an annual pass for 5 years now), watching TV, doing makeup, and hanging out with my cat.

Favorite tv shows?

I love watching TV but I’m SUPER picky about what I watch. Some of my favorite current shows are:

  • The Crown
  • Gilmore Girls
  • Master Chef Jr.
  • Jane the Virgin
  • KUWTK

I also really enjoyed The People vs. OJ Simpson last year, and basically any sort of competition show on the Food Network.

Favorite movies?

I’m honestly not a huge movie buff. Max is so we own quite a few, but usually I’d rather watch TV. However, some of my recent favorites include Moana and the remake of The Great Gatsby.

Favorite musical artists?

Britney is my ride or die. I love her and have seen her in concern twice, including her Vegas show. I’m also a fan of Lana Del Ray, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, and Panic! At the Disco (I never stopped loving them from their initial emo-band days). I also really enjoy disco-era music (I grew up listening to my mom’s old albums from ABBA and the Bee Gee’s).

Favorite places to shop?

Nordstrom is my favorite store, hands down. My other usual haunts include Sephora, the MAC store, and B&N.

Book Talk

Favorite childhood books?

So many! A few that come to mind right away are Madeline, the Ramona Quimby series, and the Baby Sitter’s Club.

Favorite books read in the last five years?

Favorite genres?

Upper YA contemporary, thriller, and books that focus on family dynamics. I used to LOVE paranormal but it’s gotten a bit overdone.

A book you want to see made into a film or tv show?

The Raven Cycle would make an insane yet wonderful TV show.

Book boyfriend/girlfriend? Book BFF? Book family?

Rhysand for all of the above and every other question like this forever and ever.

Books you want to read in 2017?

There are SO many 2017 books I’m super excited for! Top of mind are:

  • A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas
  • When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
  • Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios
  • Once and For All by Sarah Dessen

Save

Tags:


24 responses to “2017 Love-a-Thon Kickoff!

  1. Rhysand is definitely a great book boyfriend! I am so excited for A Court of Wings and Ruin, too. I live in Nevada, by Lake Tahoe and were getting weird weather over here. I can’t wait for the sunshine.
    New Bloglovin follower
    Great to meet you, Christina

  2. Haha, stealing money to buy some books, I love that.

    I’ve also fallen in love with Instagram, although I should invest more time and effort into making prettier pictures if I want to make it happen :’)

    Cranberry juice! I love it too.

    Jane the Virgin is so funny.

    • I know, I am always amazed at the time and effort that some people are able to put into their Instagram feeds! I can usually only take pictures when inspiration strikes me out of the blue, and it’s always the more random photos that are more successful than the ones I end up overthinking!

  3. I love Instagram! It’s my favorite social media and I wish my photography skills were better. The Crown and Gilmore Girls are two of my favorites too! I also love Sherlock and Pretty Little Liars 🙂

  4. I loooove Bookstagram! Your pictures are fantastic! I’m a huge Mara Dyer fan! I’m so excited about The Becoming of Noah Shaw! Ahhh!

  5. Hello darling! I’m so glad that you joined the Love-a-Thon again this year. I love that visiting Disney Parks is one of your things. I constantly want to be visiting Disney, and I’ve made it a life goal to visit them all (which would have happened already IF they hadn’t opened a new one in China…). I need to visit Disneyland again soon though because it’s been much too long since I went over to the West Coast!

    • Ahhhhh so you’ve been to Tokyo Disney and DisneySea?! Those are my DREAM parks to visit (I’ve only visited the US ones plus the Aulani resort in Hawaii). I’m so glad to be participating in Love-a-Thon again this year too, hopefully it can spur some great collaborations for us and others in 2017!

      • Yes! I wish I could have lingered longer (only got a day to go around and it was pouring rain), but it was magical. I really want to visit again one day!

  6. Brown rice is the best!! No coffee or soda?! I need to be more like you because I LOVE pop (soda) and it is not good for you at all. Going to Disneyland Paris is on my bucketlist, also a family trip to Disneyworld. Great post! I heard about all the rain in Los Angeles sorry to hear, stay safe!! #LoveAThon

    • I was never allowed to drink coffee or soda growing up so now that I’m older I have no taste for it (I think I’m luckier for it, except I wish I had a caffeine boost on some early mornings! I try to occasionally supplement with green tea since it has some caffeine but way less than actual coffee). I would love to go to Euro Disney as well! I think my number one international Disney park that I’d like to visit though it DisneySea over in Japan!

  7. I love blue too! I also really enjoyed Jane the Virgin and KUWTK, they’re entertaining 😀 I’ve heard so many amazing things about The Crown, can’t wait to start it!

  8. I’m so happy we “met” last Love-A-Thon and were able to collab on our Summer of Sailor Scouts<3!!! And omg I used to live for Scholastic book fairs. My mom would always give me a certain amount of money and then without fail I would convince her to come back after school so we could buy even more books. Luckily I come from a family of bookworms so my mom was excited to shop the fairs too! lol! Congrats on three years of blogging! I've always wanted to go to Hawaii. We started get lunch at this Poke place at work sometimes and I love it! And I really need to see Moana already! I already know I'm going to love it so I feel confident buying it before seeing it lol! And YES! Nordstrom is my favorite store too! I love it so much! There's never a time that I don't have 1-5 things in my cart just waiting to be purchased on my next payday!

    • Oh I really recommend getting out to Hawaii one day! I stayed at the Disney resort Aulani and it’s AMAZING! I also used to love the Scholastic Book orders, when they would hand out the catalogs and you’d order through your class and they’d deliver the books right to your desk! My parents bought me most of my books that way!

      I am also so glad that we were able to “meet” through Love-a-thon last year as well! Hopefully we can do some more collaborations this year, I would love to keep working with you! (I know on the Twitter chat tonight you, me, and Alexa were thinking about some sort of ACOMAF reread collab…)

  9. Hi Cristina!! Your photos on Instagram are awesome 🙂 I love meeting other life long readers, I always felt awkward and strange when I was younger because I had so many books vs toys and nobody I knew read as much as me.

    Good luck on the couch to 5k program 🙂

    OHHHHH, you’ve seen Britney’s Vegas show, that’s so amazing!!! And in concert!!!

    Happy love-a-thon Cristina <3

    • Hi Lauren! Are you a fellow Britney fan too? I HIGHLY recommend seeing her perform live, she is amazing!

      Yes, my favorite thing about the online book community is definitely that I can finally find people who “get” my love for reading, and that for me it’s an exciting weekend or evening activity I look forward too. I still don’t know anyone in my day to day life who reads as much as me, but I know plenty of bloggers that do!

  10. I love your blog name! I think it just my be my favourite of all the wonderful blogs I’ve discovered so far via the Love-A-Thon! I post on YouTube primarily, but have also started a blog now that I’ve started adding more book content (my YouTube channel started as a vegan and adventure channel, but I love books too much not to include that too!) Nice to “meet” you!

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.