The 2021 Book Tag

“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”

First line in The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

It’s time for a tag, and no, we haven’t traveled back in time. It’s still 2022 (unfortunately?), but I’m doing the 2021 Book Tag created by Phoenix @Books With Wings. I was tagged by Nehal @Quirky Pages who, to be fair, did tag me in 2021 but I’m just now getting to it. Still, thank you very much for tagging me, Nehal!

Rules:

• Link back to the original creator, Phoenix @Books With Wings
• Thank the person who tagged you
• Answer all the questions
• Tag at least 3 people
• While the events covered in this tag are mainly centered around the going-ons in the United States of America, if you live in another country feel free to add another question or two to this tag that you think goes with an important event that happened elsewhere!
• PLEASE NOTE: While this tag discusses events that happened in 2021, it does not at all need to be completed in 2021. This is NOT a time-restricted tag and you may do it whenever you want. (you also do not need to talk about books that you read in 2021! It can be books you read whenever!)
• Some of these questions are rather vague; these are totally up for interpretation!

(I’m totally taking advantage of the rules allowing me to make up questions relevant for my own country, Denmark, which is why the last two include a bit more information about the events.)

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A sequel that did not live up to expectations (general 2021)

I’m going way back and picking what was probably the first sequel I ever read that didn’t live up to my expectations: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. It’s the third book in The Inheritance Cycle, and I just remember wondering why it even existed. Nothing happened in it, and it just made me frustrated that we had to wait even longer for the final book in that series!

A book where everything immediately went badly (Attack on the USA capital)

Here I’m picking Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb because while the main character Fitz doesn’t seem to have had an easy life before we meet him, it gets very bad very quickly at the start of this book. Abandoned by the only family he has ever known, he has to try and survive at court where nobody wants him because he’s a bastard and some people are even outright cruel to him.

A book where things seemed to change for the better (President Joe Biden’s inauguration)

I tried very hard to come up with a book I could talk about without spoiling anything (because things usually change for the better at the end of a book) and decided to zero in on the ‘seemed’ in the question. I’ve picked Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Alex Stern’s life hasn’t been perfect as she has dropped out of school and dealt with drug dealer boyfriends and even murder, so it obviously looks like her life changes for the better when she’s offered a spot at Yale. It seems like a big chance to turn her life around, right? You’ll then have to read the book to see if it sticks.

A book where science/some kind of sci-fi thing plays a major role (Vaccines)

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera. In this book’s world, you can get a memory-altering procedure that makes you forget certain things you don’t want to remember anymore. Am I the only one who is starting to find this slightly tempting?

A book where the characters get a reprieve (general, middle of the year)

(I don’t read those kinds of books!)
Slightly difficult but I think Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell fits quite well. It’s about two friends who work at a pumpkin patch together for two months every year. I know it’s work but it’s also their reprieve from school and a chance to see each other, and honestly, working at that pumpkin patch sounds like so much fun!

A book about sports/centered around competition (Summer Olympics 2021 2020)

I guess I have to pick the one sports-centered series I’ve ever read: All for the Game by Nora Sakavic. It’s about the fictional sport Exy which the main character Neil plays while he’s on the run from the mafia or something, and his teammates are other troubled youths because why would they not be? It’s a whole thing.

A book with a terrifying plot twist (Delta Variant)

I’ll try to be really vague here and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying that A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara has a terrifying plot twist. Multiple, really (just like the variants). I’m not over any of them, to be honest, but that is also why I love that book so much!

A book with awesome behind-the-scenes characters (eg side characters) (Essential workers)

I want to mention almost all the books Cassandra Clare has ever written about Shadowhunters because the main characters are never my favorite characters in those books. I’m always reading them for the side characters and then I suffer the main ones. I mean, how many Clary and Jace copies do we really need?

A book where there are HUGE consequences to an event/action/etc. (supply chain backups due to covid)

Well, The Martian by Andy Weir starts out with an event that leaves one person stranded on Mars which feels like a pretty huge consequence.

Denmark question #1
Two of our politicians broke the law and were given prison sentences in 2021: A book with a hated character you wish was sent to prison for their “crimes”

Naturally, this kind of question is only fun if I pick someone I’m meant to love so my answer is Noon from The Winnowing Flame Trilogy by Jen Williams. Noon is insufferable but somehow, everybody loves her and excuses her selfish behavior because she can do no wrong. I would love for her to be punished for her horrible personality.

Denmark question #2
The European Football Championship became both a very tough and a very unifying experience due to Christian Eriksen’s cardiac arrest: A book where a group of people bands together to defeat the antagonist

I may not like the book, but The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien is just too obvious a choice here to avoid it. It also involves the unification of some very different people who put their differences aside to work together towards a common goal.

I’m not going to tag anyone, but I’ll love to read other people’s answers to these questions. A few of them were kind of hard, I think, so it’d be interesting to see different answers than the ones I came up with. Anyway, thanks again to Nehal for tagging me and to Phoenix for coming up with this brilliant idea for a tag!