Armchair BEA Day Three: An Interview with Chachic

It's so fun to meet a new-to-me blogger, Chachic from Chachic's Book Nook, and get to know her through some hopefully fun questions I threw her way! It was interesting for me to find out that she travels in the roughly the same blogging circle that I do, yet I've not come across her path before.

Chachic is a YA book lover from the Philippines and has been active in gathering Filippo bloggers together. Check out this directory she's created. Very cool.

I asked her some of my favorite interview questions and here's what she had to say:

1. Tell us about what got you started blogging, and what you love (or don't love so much!) about it.


I was a lurker for a couple of months before I decided to start my own blog. I wanted a site that I could just give my friends whenever they asked for recommendations. Also, I don't get to talk about books with my real life friends so book blogging is a great way to interact with fellow book lovers. I love how nice and friendly the book blogging community is. I mean look at ArmchairBEA, the organizers came up with this event so those of us who can't make it to the actual BEA will still have something to look forward to. What I don't like is ever since I started the blog, I feel like I'm being pressured to read and review as fast as I can. 

2. What five books are most important or influential to you?

Oh I have so many favorites, it's so hard to choose just five! I have a list of favorites on a page on my blog broken out by genre and I love all of the books listed there. If I was asked what my favorite series was though, I'd have to say the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner.

3. I see you have a whole post (and feature) on your blog about why YA, but tell us here in just a few short sentences.... why YA?


I have a featured called We Love YA on the blog and in each post, one blogger answers the following questions: Why do you love YA? What are some of your favorite YA books? What can you say to encourage other people to read YA?


I think I decided to come up with that feature when I realized that so many of my old favorites fall under YA although that doesn't mean that I exclusively read YA books. There's something about the characters written under that genre that makes it very easy for me to relate to them. Remember how intense and vibrant everything was when we were teenagers? YA books are able to capture that part of our lives and bottle it up in all sorts of different ways: mixed with magic in fantasy books or with realistic scenarios in contemporary fiction or with happily ever afters always present in fairy tale retellings. I feel like there's a YA book out there that every person will be able to enjoy.

4. What other hobbies are you into besides reading and blogging?

I like to travel but I don't get to do it as often as I'd like because traveling is expensive. Whenever I go out of town though, I always post pictures on the blog to share the sights that I've seen, especially if they're local places so I can encourage people to visit the Philippines. You can view some of the pictures here. I'm also into lomography so I have some lomo shots in the blog.


I love hanging out and catching up with friends and family so I usually go out on weekends to spend time with them. It helps that I also love to eat so weekends are all about unwinding at the end of the work day and doing something fun. Also, the Filipino Book Bloggers group has had a couple of meet ups in the past couple of months and those are always interesting.

5. What do you do in your "real life" when you aren't reading, blogging... or doing the above listed hobbies?


You mean what do I do for a living? I'm a senior research analyst for a business process outsourcing firm here in Manila and I actually work with clients from the US. It's not related to reading or blogging in any way and I know that my managers have no idea that my blog exists. :P

6. Describe what your perfect day would be like.

The rainy season is just starting here in the Philippines and I'm frustrated that I wasn't able to go to the beach the whole summer so right now, a perfect day would involve nice weather, a beach with powder white sands similar to Calumbayan or Malcapuya, a shaded area where I could read, a really good book and something cool to drink on hand like a glass of ripe mango shake.

7. What is your favorite "bookish" memory?


I think most of my favorite bookish moments involve reading and discovering my favorites. Like when I experience a moment when I know that I'm going to love the book even if I haven't finished it, when I have to pause and think to myself, "this is really good" and when I finish reading the whole thing, I can say, "THIS is why I read!"

8. If you could read yourself into a book, which one would it be?

Probably one of my epic fantasy books like the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith or The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.

9. Who are some "new to you" authors that you've discovered so far this year and fallen in love with?

I read my first novel in verse this year: Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Ann Sandell and was blown away by this book. It made me more interested in novels written in this format and I'm hoping to read more like it within the year.

I've really been enjoying so many Aussie books lately probably because I also signed up for the Aussie YA Reading Challenge. Some amazing Aussie authors that I discovered this year are Kirsty Eagar, Cath Crowley and Fiona Wood. Melina Marchetta isn't a new-to-me author but I read The Piper's Son this year and thought it was amazing. I recently read and loved What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, who is another Aussie author but she writes women's fiction instead of YA like the other authors I mentioned.

10. What are you missing most about not being able to participate in BEA?

I feel like I've made a lot of good friends through the blogosphere and it saddens me that I've never met them in person. I feel like that's one of the biggest things that I'm missing out by not being able to go to BEA. I would love to meet my blogging buddies and talk about books with them in person. I would also love to meet my favorite authors in person because they're the equivalent of rock stars for bookish people like us.



Thank you Chachic for your wonderful answers and for being my interviewee subject! You sound like a blast and I, for one, will be adding you to my blogger list!


Here's some other places you can find Chachic:


Like her on Facebook.
Follow her on Twitter.
Friend her on Goodreads.


And finally, if you are interested in who interviewed me and what I had to say, head on over to Carrie's at Just One More Chapter! And here's the link for all the other interviews going on to today all around the Armchair BEA universe!