Spring Cleaning Book Tag

This tag comes from Lauren's Boookshelf...I'm all about the tags this month due to teaching taking up a lot of free time, so I've been filling these out and scheduling them in advance. This one seemed fun because there's something about springtime that gets me in the cleaning mood. Now we just have to see how this relates to books!

The Struggle to Get Started:

a book or series you struggle to begin because of its size

This is the exact same choice the OP picked on her tag. I thought it was a good one. I own this book on Kindle but it's ginormous--849 pages. I don't even want to touch that.

Cleaning Out the Closet:

a book or series you want to unhaul

There are no books I presently want to unhaul, but when I moved back to the USA the first thing I got rid of were all of my original copies of the Harry Potter series. Rowling has proven herself to be a monster (and her retorts and tweets are kind of nasty and mean, too!) so I don't support her work anymore. I won't read or reread it, watch the movies, buy merchandise, etc.

My most recent purge was of Neil Gaiman's works. After learning about him sexually assaulting women and being an overall disturbing, cruel person, he also got tagged as a monster in my brain, and I had to get rid of his stuff.

I am not someone who can separate the art from the artist. If they turn out to be terrible people, they don't deserve my attention or support.

Opening the Window and Letting Fresh Air In:

a book that was refreshing

This book was more of a dark fantasy than horror story, but it was really refreshing in terms of haunted house stories. And the romance (while secondary) was unexpected and refreshing for how it went above stereotypes. I enjoyed this one.

Washing out the Sheets:

a scene you wish you could rewrite

The confrontation between Lirien and Queen Aurinda at the end of the book gave me so much trouble. I rewrote it a billion times. My agent had to do a lot of work to get it in ship-shape, but even now I have doubts and would probably rewrite it again if I had the chance.

Throwing out Unnecessary Knick-Knacks:

a book in a series you didn’t think was necessary

I honestly have no idea about this one!

Polishing Doorknobs:

a book that had a clean finish

This manga is complete at five volumes and is an adorable romance about a high school girl and a boy who can change from a cat to a human with a simple kiss. The series was a lot of fun and it wrapped nicely.

Reaching to Dust the Fan:

a book that tried too hard to relay a certain message

I honestly don't know about this one, either. If books come across as too heavy-handed to me, I tend to DNF.

The Tiring Yet Satisfying Finish:

a series that was tiring but satisfying to get through

This is a challenging read. There is so much and so many layers to it. But I loved it when I read it and I even wrote a serious collegiate paper on it that genuinely surprised my professor (of course I don't remember what it was about now). I love the quote "not all who wander are lost."