Blogger Interview: Michelle (Fluttering Butterflies)

Welcome to my second blogger interview, featuring the ever lovely Michelle from Fluttering Butterflies!

THE BASICS

Tell us a little about you and your blog.

Hello and thank you for having me here today! My name is Michelle (sometimes known as Clover) and I am the blogger behind Fluttering Butterflies, a YA book blog filled with reviews, discussions and interviews. I’m in my 30s, I have two children, and I’m currently studying for a degree in Psychology. I love making lists, organising things, playing Scrabble, building Lego and twirling.

What inspired you to start up Fluttering Butterflies?

I started my blog when my oldest son was a newborn as a creatve outlet after giving up my much-loved job as a bookseller. It was a personal blog originally but I think the progression into a book blog was a very natural one. I’ve always been a bookworm and I’ve always loved discussing books!

How long have you been blogging?

In January 2014, I will have been blogging constantly for 8 years. That seems a little unreal to me and I did have to double check just now to make sure that number was correct. But yes. 8 years.

BEING A BLOGGER

Do you remember what the first book you reviewed was?

I’m always a little terrified to go back and check to be sure (the cringe-levels of reading back old reviews very high!) but I’m pretty sure it was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K Dick. I remember that joining a friend’s dystopian reading challenge was one of the main factors in my blog becoming a book blog. Earlier reviews were mostly just me rewording the plot summary and adding maybe one or two sentences about how I felt about it. Yikes.

What’s been the highlight of your blogging career so far?

The highlight of my blogging career so far has definitely been the first time I was listed on the CISION Top 10 Teen Literature Blogs in the UK list. Being included on that list really gave me a boost in confidence, especially in terms of my blogging ability. It felt like a turning point. And since then, I’ve worked extra hard to make my blog  the best that I can make it.

Your biggest book-related starstruck moment?

I’m just going to pretend that that was a typo and you are really asking me for a LIST as opposed to just one moment. I’ve met John Green and Garth Nix at different author signings. I’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to meet a lot of my favourite authors while doing this book bogging thing... I remember being invited to Penguin and meeting Meg Rosoff and David Almond and it was amazing. I spoke to them both without making too much of a fool of myself and they were both lovely. Another top moment was going out for tea and cakes with Maggie Stiefvater!

AND EVERYTHING ELSE

You write amazing, diverse and interesting discussion/personal posts. Do you find them easy to think of or do you just wait until something springs to mind?

Wow, thank you very much for saying so! The thing with me is that I really struggle with writing reviews. Review writing does not come naturally to me. I always, always have to force myself into writing them. So while that is (not) happening, I always feel like I need to be adding more content to my blog in place of all these reviews that I’m not writing or posting.

As for the personal posts, it’s really important to me to continue with them. Because my blog was a personal blog originally it was these personal posts that I was writing that first brought in any audience at all. I feel like I need to keep those up out of respect to my early readers. And the discussion posts are just too much to write. I do sit down regularly and think of as many discussion posts as I can and then start planning them. I do find them quite easy to think of and for me they are quite easy to write as well.much easier than reviews!

Do you prefer to read paper or on an e-reader? Why?

Overall, I generally prefer to read physical books because that’s what I’m used to. I do have a Kindle that I love and read from on a regular basis but I still find it difficult to retrain my brain and hands to deal with a different type of reading device. Also, Kindles seem a little impersonal sometimes. I feel like a lot of the emotions that I’m going through when reading a book gets transferred into my physical copy of the book whereas that doesn’t really happen when I’m reading an e-book.

What’s your favourite YA book to film adaptation?

Ooh, tough question! I really love the Harry Potter films. I loved The Hunger Games very much. Earlier films...The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants was super cute. The film adaptation of The Outsiders was one of my favourites growing up. I watched Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist before reading the book (*slaps hand*) and really liked it. A surprising film adaptation that I enjoyed was The Perks of Being a Wallflower because I didn’t enjoy the book AT ALL. My favourite? Might not count as I don’t think it’s necessarily YA but it has to be The Princess Bride!

Thank you Michelle! You should all go and check out the wonderful Fluttering Butterflies for posts about anything and everything you can think of that relate to YA books!

Sophie