Quick Questions with a Cannonballer – Jen K

How many times have you participated in CBR? Has it changed the way you read?

I did the first six, wrote one review for CBR 8, and then fell incredibly behind. Recently, I have noticed two changes in my reading habits. The first was due to my shift to reading almost exclusively on my iPad/Kindle app. At first, I only used it to read novels didn’t think I wanted/needed physical copies of so I started reading a lot more romance and urban fantasy series. While now I read everything on there, I used to space books in a series a lot more while now I tend to go straight from one to the other because they are so easily available. The other change is that since I wasn’t buying physical books anymore, I wasn’t going into bookstores as often and wasn’t keeping up with what was new at all. Being involved in CBR again has allowed me see what books I have been missing out on and get new ideas for reading material from everyone else’s reviews.

How many chapters do you give a book before you move on to (hopefully) better things?

Rarely do I actually intentionally give up on a book. I’ve forced my way through some pretty tedious reads. What usually happens is that I decide a book isn’t working for me at the moment and then I “take a break” and somehow never get back to it. I have books that are at the 40% mark that fall into this category but there isn’t a set mark at all.

Your blog bio says you’re a world traveler. On a long flight, do you load up a Kindle, listen to audio books on your phone, or stuff a purse/backpack full of paperbacks?

Oh, definitely Kindle though half the time I use flights to catch up on movies I meant to see and never got around to – it’s amazing how many choices international flights have now. I only really do audiobooks if I can’t read, so when I am driving or walking or something like that. If I can sit and read, that’s always my preferred method.

What’s most important to your enjoyment of a book: Plot? Characters? Writing style? Happy ending?

That’s a hard one to answer. I think it’s all about the balance between those things. If you have great characters and a fun style, the plot can be slow. I guess if I really had to choose, characters would probably trump things for me, though. They don’t have to even be likable but they need to engage me. Even if the plot is amazing, if the characters are weak, I will probably get annoyed. I have definitely had a preference for happy endings lately, too.

How do you decide what’s next to read on your TBR list?

It’s mostly the kind of mood I am in, but if I have read a lot of “light” novels or one genre a lot in a row, I will try to switch it up. If I have read a lot of recently purchased novels, I make myself scroll down and get something from the further back on the TBR pile.

What’s the best book-ish tourist attraction you’ve been to?

I have visited a few of the famous bookstores like The Strand in NYC and Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal. My favorite sites are definitely either Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, or the Long Room in Trinity College. I was so excited to see the Book of Kells and I had no idea that leaving that display involved walking through this huge library which would have been worth the cost of entry all on its own. When I was there, they had a fascinating exhibition on the history of medical and dental literature with props used to teach students of those subjects in the past.

It’s summer movie season! Do you: A, go opening weekend; B, wait for the crowds to die down; or C, wait until it comes out on HBO or RedBox?

If it’s one of the big Marvel ones, definitely opening weekend – I can’t get enough Thor since Thor: Ragnarok and I have always liked the Captain America movies. Other than that, sometimes I just want to go to movies so then it’s a matter of what is actually out worth seeing, and sometimes it happens to be opening weekend.