Hello all! As some of you may know, Sat, Jan 28, 2017 is Lunar New Year. Happy Year of the Rooster! This is the biggest celebration in Chinese culture, and as a proud Chinese-Canadian, I’ll be celebrating with red pockets, a couple of feasts, and family.

Millions of people around the world celebrate Lunar New Year, mostly in Asian cultures. As a teenager, however, I went to an American international school, so lots of my friends are also big fans of Lunar New Year.

To celebrate the Year of the Rooster this year, I’ve teamed up with my pal Joey @ Thoughts and Afterthoughts (the King of Book Tags) to bring you the Lunar New Year Book Tag! Joey’s post will go up on Saturday, but I wanted to make sure that you guys got this with enough time to put together your own posts if you choose to. Instructions, downloads, and a link back are at the bottom of the post.

Here’s the deal: like in Western astrology, Chinese culture has it’s own zodiac, based on the year you were born and a corresponding animal. There are 12 animal signs and they each represent different personalities. We’ve created a book tag based on those.

Which Chinese zodiac animal you are?

• Click over here for list of dates. Match up your birthday to the corresponding year, and that’s your animal.
• Or if you’re good at math, try this handy trick from TravelChinaGuide.com: Divide your year of birth by 12 and read the remainder. If the number of the year can be divided with no remainder, take the remainder as zero. Each remainder corresponds to an animal sign.

Got it? You can read more about the different signs here, or below in each of the graphics!

Without further adieu, I present you…

The Lunar New Year Book Tag

My most anticipated book this year is definitely Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner, but The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord is a very, very close second.

I’m a dog! My favorite comfort book is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. For YA, I go back to Harry Potter and Just One Day by Gayle Forman all the time.

My subscription boxes are the book thing I spend way too much on. It’s SO expensive to ship to Canada, but I love the surprise and the fun of opening monthly presents. My Stars Hollow Lit-Cube subscription is ending soon, but I’m getting the Wizarding World LootCrate as well. I also have a little partnership going with Uppercase Box – stay tuned for that tomorrow!

I feel like I’m never going to stop recommending Diana Peterfreund or the Secret Society Girl books to EVERYONE. Those of you who have been in the YA game for awhile might know Diana’s For Darkness Shows the Stars, but very few people I know still talk about Diana’s first books, the ones that began my feminist journey. I LOVE these new adult books, guys. They’re in my top ten fave series EVER.

Mercy Wong from Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee is the most recent character I’ve read who is just kick-ass. Someone who has an ideal vision for herself and how she wants to be, and someone who is persistent like an ox!

E.K. Johnston’s Exit, Pursued by a Bear is one of the most unique and brilliant takes on sexual assault and feminism I’ve ever seen. The main character, Hermione, is not afraid to shut down her detractors and act like the survivor she is. Hermione is a definite tiger, and so is this book.

Can I just add EVERYTHING by Morgan Matson? I feel like she does sweet, swoony romances like no one else.

I haven’t read a lot of royalty books recently, but the one that’s top of my list right now is My Lady Jane by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows. SUPER excited to finally get to it. Have you read it?

This is literary fiction, but I just finished Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, and EVERYONE IN IT IS MANIPULATIVE. It’s crazy how dark it is, but also how visceral and true it is to life. Lila and Lenu basically spend the entire book manipulating and competing with each other…and yet, they’re not completely terrible. Really fascinating book.

One of my fave standalones last year was When We Collided by Emery Lord. I know I already mentioned her, but I definitely feel like Vivi has some serious horse-like qualities. She’s desperate to be perceived as independent, devoted to Jonah, and at the same time, so energetic.

I’m kinda obsessed with this gorgeous paper rendering for the cover of Tamara Ireland Stone’s Time and Time Again series right now. This is a bind-up of her wonderful time travel books, Time Between Us and Time After Time, and I HIGHLY recommend them. Also, Tamara has an awesome post about the cover actually being made from paper!

Am I allowed to choose a cat? If so, I choose Clive from Wallbanger by Alice Clayton because I was literally rolling with laughter at his antics in this romance – which is itself hilarious. 

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Since this is a book tag, I’m tagging Alexa @ Alexa Loves Books, Rissi @ Finding Wonderland, Giselle @ Book Nerd Canada, Booktuber Erika Chung, and anyone else who wants to play. Instructions and downloads below. 

Thanks for checking out our Lunar New Year Book Tag! Are you guys celebrating Chinese or Lunar New Year? What are your traditions? What are your thoughts on my picks?

Want to do the Lunar New Year Book Tag, too?

• Grab my handy download of banners below if you want to use them. 

Lunar New Year Book Tag banners (753 downloads )

• Come back and link up here so we can all check out your posts!