Hello all! Today’s Top 5 Wednesday topic is: Bookish Things You’re a Grinch About
Hmm..bookish pet peeves, eh? I’ve got quite a few of those. ::rubs hands menacingly::
Movie Covers
Look, I understand the concept: once a book is made into a movie, a lot of people will think of it as “the book of that movie I like”, so why not market to those people to try to sell more copies, right? It’s just SO IRRITATING. Especially when you are only halfway through the series and the publisher switches to ONLY movie covers, so your series is half of one and half of the other.
Defacing Books
Having recently rediscovered my love of the library, I run into this ALL THE TIME. Dog-eared pages, notes scrawled in the margins, underlines, covers that have been folded back so far that I don’t understand how the spine still works! It’s really annoying. If it’s your own personal copy, fine, do what you want to it. But if it’s a library book or, heaven forbid, a book I lent to you…remember the golden rule of ‘borrowing’: leave it better than you found it.
Jumping POVs
I get it, you want to show the story from everyone’s point of view, right? Change things up, keep the reader on their toes. Help the reader understand all the characters better. Fine, but at least keep it to only two or three characters. Don’t jump between fifteen people. Don’t make EVERY chapter a new person. And, for goodness’ sake, LABEL THE FRICKIN’ POVS!!!!!
Distracted Women
So, I know this happens (occasionally) with male characters too, but the amount of female characters I’ve seen get distracted from whatever they are supposed to be accomplishing because some hot guy showed up is INSANE. Trying to figure out who murdered your best friend? “I wonder if that hot detective is single?” Trying to save the universe? “This might be the last time I see you, person I just met, so we should totally hook up. The universe can wait.” It’s completely ridiculous. Maybe focus on the task at hand and worry about your love life later.
Which leads me to…
Romance in EVERYTHING
About a year ago, I tasked one of my reading groups with a challenge: “Please suggest to me a book that: 1) has a female main character, 2) is Adult/Young Adult reading level, and 3) HAS ZERO ROMANCE IN IT. No hook-ups, no longing glances, no sexual tension, NOTHING.” Do you know how many responses I got that followed all the criteria? ONE. Out of over a HUNDRED people. Why on earth does every single story have to have romance in it? Why do I have to hit up the children’s section at my library to find a book without it? Is romance really that permeating in every day life, that I can name on one hand the number of adult books I’ve found without it?
So how about you? What are some of YOUR bookish pet peeves?
The Life and Books of a GorJess Nerd 