So, in the last post, I talked about the kinds of books I like to read. I did not talk about what I don’t like to read.
I am not a big fan of “chick lit”. As close to that as I like to get is the cozy mystery genre. I can’t stand romance. I am not even a huge fan of romance angles in books that I like. Not every story has to have a love interest. I don’t mind a little bit, but it drives me crazy when I’m reading a decent book and then all of a sudden the main character goes gaga over someone and then the book just spirals in to a angst filled drama llamaness. Speaking of angst, I do not like YA books, books with teenage or child main characters. I know children are the special snowflakes in many peoples lives, but I do not care for children characters. And I don’t hate every YA book. Just the ones that fill the pages with stereotypical teenage cliched behavior. Not every teen is an air head that acts stupid all the time and is worrying about how HAWT their friend is, ok? And it seems like more often then not, YA books are filled with stupid teens who are in sexual overdrive. I find it annoying and a little offensive that that is what we portray as teens in a majority of our books.
What else do I not like? I am not a fan of general fiction. I don’t care about your coming of age / slice of life story. I have lived that, and I don’t care to revisit it. Also, no sappy stuff please. I don’t want to read all about a family coping with the loss of one of the members of the family or how their dog died or how they are in poverty. Again, I deal with enough of that in real life, I don’t want to revisit that in my books. And speaking of the dog dying… I have a zero tolerance for unnecessary pet death or animal cruelty. If the book mentions it in passing and doesn’t dwell on it, ok, that is tolerable. But we all know books out there that seem to mention, in great detail, about an animal death and it feels like it is just put there for no real reason other then to be a shock factor. Don’t kill the pets. Period. 😡 I will dead stop a book if you do that in great detail and drag it out unnecessarily. You want to kill the men, women and children? Fine. DON’T. KILL. THE ANIMALS.
Is there anything else? Yes. More often then not, I tend to disagree with books on celebrity or best seller / best book of the year lists. Not saying those are bad books, they just are seriously NOT for me.
My mind is often boggled at the “classics”. When I try to read the classics, I usually just shake my head, saying “Why??” to myself over and over. Are they BAD books? No, not at all. But are they the GREATEST. BOOKS. EVER? *Shrug* Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
Now, with all of the NO list, I will occasionally read something from there. I will freely admit that it is almost NEVER of my own choice. Yes, I like my genre niches very much, thank you. Normally it is because of certain book clubs I’m in or yearly book challenges I participate in has me going outside of my comfort zone. I am not afraid, however, to give honest reviews regardless of how popular the book and or the author is. I’m not just going to say something is great just because everyone else does. Unless, of course, it turns out to actually be pretty epic. And I have had to eat crow more then a few times for rolling my eyes and scoffing at a book first and then it actually turns out to be pretty good. I will openly admit when I am wrong. 😛
Creature From The Book Lagoon 