Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Can you believe it has been four months since I participated in Top Ten Tuesday? Shame on me. This is one of my favorite memes and I haven't posted anything since February. Well, when I saw this week's topic, I figured it would be easy enough to share some thoughts. Here are my...
Top Ten Unpopular Bookish Opinions
- Unexpected cliffhanger endings. I've paid for the book. Don't make me wait (and spend more money) to see how it ends.
- Reading a book or series because it is wildly popular. I'm just not a very good follower. I remember the Harry Potter craze. Standing in line for a midnight launch would never be for me. I didn't even read the series until 2015. Still haven't read the Twilight series or The Mortal Instruments series. I haven't even cracked open the first book of the Outlander series, and I promoted the book for its twentieth anniversary.
- Does it grate only on my nerves when someone says YA historical isn't popular? I knew a multi-published author whose agent wanted her to rewrite the whole book because YA historical doesn't sell. Is that really true? The BNTeen Blog came out with this list of YA historical novels they were looking forward to this year. There are a variety of lists from previous years too.
- Can we abolish the third person omniscient point of view? Give me a deep point of view from a character or characters. I don't want to see it all and know it all. I want to experience a story through its characters' eyes.
- When all of an author's books seem the same. I have had to stop reading an author from time to time because every one of her stories seemed the same with different people. I'm not talking about knowing a genre well and writing to form. I'm talking not enough difference in the plots to distinguish book number one from book number six.
- Prologues that are more than one page shouldn't exist. We've heard people don't read prologues (well, I do). If that is true, why would they read a prologue that is multiple pages?
- Claiming authors are racist or prejudice when they are writing about their experiences during a certain point in time. In 2018, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was renamed because the Association for Library Service to Children was opposed to Wilder's depictions of Native and African Americans. News flash: we can rename every award, we can topple every Confederate statue, and change the name of every street and building in America that bears a slave owner's name or the name of a member of the Confederacy, but it won't change America's history. There are dark parts to American history. Evil has existed since the beginning of time. It will exist despite our best efforts. Instead of trying to eradicate our past, teach the past to our youth, and teach them to be kinder, more loving, and more tolerant than those who came before them.
- There's a lot of talk of empowering girls and young women. I support it and search it out for our daughters. But, boys and young men are the ones who now seem left behind. How about we focus on books that empower kids and young people.
- Bad editing. No editing. I am the worst self-editor. I can't even imagine trying to edit my own work before it is published. It should never happen. Get references before you pay any money, but please have a professional editor polish your book.
- Book descriptions that don't match the contents. Thankfully, I've only read a few of these. When you dive into a book expecting one thing, yet, get another, it's disappointing.
What are some of your unpopular bookish opinions?
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9 comments:
I know what you mean about judging people from the past according to today's standards. I had to do a very hard sell to get teachers to read Huck Finn with their classes because of the word "Ni%%er". I explained that Twain wasn't a racist, and showed evidence, but no. According today one can never use that word even if the book WAS published over 100 years ago.
Actually, third person omniscient can be very useful. I hate first person omniscient, however (as in ghosts talking to the reader and knowing everything).
How can you not read Huck Finn? It's a classic.
Agree with you on first person omni, Davida. I'm okay if the omniscient POV goes away entirely.
People say that YA historical isn't popular? I've never actually heard that, but I'm sure it's not true, I know of loads of super popular YA historical books!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/11/top-ten-tuesday-215/
Bad editing is something that bothers me a lot as well.
My TTT.
#5: I read a lot of very prolific authors (James Patterson, for example) and sometimes you just have to give yourself a break.
#7: This really hit me when it happened because reading the Little House books back in the early 80's when I was in elementary school, I'm not sure I'd even heard the term Native American. But you make a very valid point. Don't change the books but do explain why it's not appropriate in the current times or something. Educate rather than eradicate, I guess.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thanks!
I have to agree with most of these. I was sad when they changed the Laura Ingalls Wilder award. People didn't know better back then. Also, just because we've improved (as a whole) on racism, doesn't mean that we don't have our own set of faults that we can't see, but 50 years from now people may be criticizing us about.
I agree with number 5. I was once a fan of John Green until I realised all his books were just the same... seriously killed for me. Now I think his books are overhyped and boring.
This is my TTT https://bookishstuff.org/my-unpopular-bookish-opinions-toptentuesday/
Thanks to everyone who commented. I visited your blogs later in the week.
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