Book Blogger Love-A-Thon 2015 || High Fives!

This is my last post for the 2015 Book Bloggers Love-A-Thon. I’ve been encouraged to keep reading and blogging, subscribed to tons of new blogs, found lots of potential future bloggy friends, and felt a great positive vibe from the community. Thanks for building each other up!

Here’s to spreading the love!

Book: Orhan's Inheritance. I'm not finished yet, but it is so spectacularly written in a beautiful way that weaves an honest history about current day strife between Turkish and Armenian people. This. This is what art is for.

Genre: Georgian Brit Lit, you have served me well. You continue to influence how I read, and will surely be a lifelong love.

Author: R.J. Palacio - I'm not finished with your book, Wonder, yet, but I am in love with your writing style. Thank you for making a beautiful story about

Blogger: #WeNeedDiverseBooks - My goodness, you have opened my eyes to an important and vibrant conversation about what needs to change in the American book world (esp the YA book world). Thank you for continuing to educate me. When I finally write a book, you bet it will be heavily influenced by the articles you post.

Book-related site: NPR Books - It's no secret that I love NPR, even from abroad. I love your reviews, articles, lists, interviews, the way you guys point our attention to the quieter things in life.

If you're participating in this Love-A-Thon challenge, leave a link in the comments because I want to read more posts!

Book Blogger Love-A-Thon 2015 || Book Snapshots

When I moved across the world, I was only able to take a few beautiful books with me. These books have made world-treks too.

The Clouds by Silas Chosen was inspired by a conversation I had with my best friend (and full disclosure, lover), and dedicated to me. I went from Dubai to São Paulo to get it, then took it back to Dubai, and now that I moved to São Paulo, it's back here again with me!

Ballads and Ballad Poems, edited by Guy N. Pocock, is dated 1929, and my dear friend Qadria went to London to get it for me. She brought it back to Dubai, and I packed it along when I moved to Brazil.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, E.B. White, and illustrated by Maira Kalman, is one of the most practical and physically beautiful books I own. I didn't want to part with it, and I was able to justify packing it in my suitcase because it's *pretty* thin.

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This post is part of the Book Blogger Love-a-Thon, an event dedicated to spreading the love for blogs + bloggers! It’s time dedicated to exploring the blogging community, leaving a comment or two, meeting new friends and fostering positivity among the bloggers of the community. I'm proud to be a participant!

Book Blogger Love-A-Thon 2015 || Getting to Know Me

I am participating in the 2015 Book Blogger Love-A-Thon this year! It’s a fantastic idea hosted by Alexa Loves Books to increase camaraderie within the book blogging community, make some new blogger friends, and share the love. Let’s start!

What’s your name? Alisa

Where in the world are you blogging from? São Paulo, Brazil.

How did you get into blogging in the first place?
I’ve been blogging off and on since I was eight years old, but I decided to start book blogging so I could have a legitimate reason to start getting ARCs (just being honest here!).

How did you come up with your blog name? I like double entendres and puns (Go figure that I love books and my favorite type of humor is wordplay). I thought it would be cute to refer to getting paper cuts from reading so much, even though most of the books I read are e-versions. There are some clever people who already made blogs called Papercuts with one T, so I decided to go the hipster route and use three T’s.

What genre do you read and review the most on your blog?
Contemporary YA lit. An extremely influential youth library turned me onto the genre when I was 12. She said, “The reason I like YA is because it’s so unpredictable. Adults have a hard time knowing what young adults like, and they usually get it wrong. But if they get it right, they get it very, very right.”

What other types of posts do you do on your blog, apart from reviews? My blog is pretty new so I’m still experimenting with features that I enjoy and want to stick with. Top Ten Tuesdays hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and New on the Stack hosted by The Deliberate Reader are fun to write, and I will probably keep with them this year.

Best blogging experience so far? After I posted my review of Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn, one of the authors linked to it on her social media account and said how much she valued and appreciated the feedback. Besides making my day, it made me realize that our blogging community is made up of real-life people, doing things that are important to them, and the words we type can be powerful and useful. Be kind!

Favorite thing about the blogging community?
The online conversations about books and movements in literature that I don’t get to have in real life. I can count on one hand the amount of real-life friends that will talk about books, but I subscribe to hundreds of book blogs that are full of jokes, new ideas, news, analyses that I never would have thought of, and personal reflections. It’s wonderful.

Name the 5 books you’re most excited for this 2015!
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman, The First Bad Man by Miranda July, The Marvels by Brian Selznick, and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.

I got to play Jane Austen's piano
on my birthday <3

What’s an underrated book or series that you think everyone should read?
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It takes discipline to read, but I the pace and the topics in it are the closest I’ve seen to meditation in a fiction book. It gives such a sense of peace and contentment.

Which book boy or girl would be your book BFF? Hermione Granger. We’re basically twins.

Apart from reading, what are your other hobbies or interests?
I study Portuguese everyday, since I live in Brazil. I also love journaling and crafting beautiful letters. If I have free time, I explore my city (or new cities!!).

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

At a party, the DJ suddenly changes the song – and it’s your song. What song would be playing? Hmmm, I don’t listen to music very much, but maybe something by Heath McNease.

Pick out either a book you want turned into a film/TV show, or a film/TV show you want turned into a book.
I would like Breaking Bad to be a book series. The TV show was way too violent and tense for me to enjoy, but I think it’s exciting if I’m reading.