Tell Me Something Tuesday: How Do You Feel about Authors Throwing Big, Obscure Words into Their Books?

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post on Rainy Day Ramblings, where the blog's owner Heidi discusses a wide range of topics from books to blogging. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog.

Here is what is on deck this week:

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT AUTHORS THROWING BIG, OBSCURE WORDS INTO THEIR BOOKS?

I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I actually like them! I don't mean fancy talk, the kind you would find in an old book, or flowery language. But I get excited when a book I'm reading provides the random unusual word I have to look into a dictionary to unlock. Maybe it's because English is an acquired language for me, so I love to learn new words - even if I rarely remember them when I set to write a post or a tweet 😅. Or maybe it's more because I revel in the endless possibilities that English language [and my own as well, of course] offers, and I love it when writing gets spiced up and leans a bit towards the unconventional side. There are so many wonderful, neglected words out there - why don't use them for a change?

It's a Tough Job: Tales about Your Dream Career and More

Hello sweeties!

A few weeks ago, a Twitter meme about your 5-year-old-self dream career and my own musings about jobs gave me the idea for this post. This is going to be a conversation prompt about the kind of job you wanted to do when you grew up, the one you got (instead?) and/or the one you would like to do one day. I'll go first...

Rehabilitating YA: 20 Trope-Free Standalones/Series to Read if You've Given Up on It (Pt.2)

Hello sweeties!

I've been wanting to write a post like this for a while. Every now and then, I hear someone say they've given up on YA (or are reading much less of it lately) because they got fed up with the tropes that come with the "genre". Now, while of course it's not mandatory to read YA at any age, and while I'm not denying the existence of such tropes (though really, any literary genre/age range has got its share of them...), I made it my reader's life mission to discover YA books that stand out for any reason and employ as little of those overused plot devices as it's humanly possible (hence, of course, my blog's name). So I thought I'd put together a list of YA novels blissfully devoid of tropes (or employing them in minimal doses), hoping to prove those reluctant/jaded readers that there's so much more to YA than meets the eye. And I ultimately decided to make this post into a series, because my list was too long for a single one. Here goes Part 2 (broken down by genres/my blog's Reading Rooms)...

(Note: these are not necessarily my favourite books - though some of them are. I only choose them for their lack/minimal amount of tropes. Also, there are a few mature YA/NA/adult friendly books in this list).