It has been a while since I wrote a Let’s Talk Bookish post, in fact, since August 30. I did a week of discussion posts then to celebrate 5 years of this blog meme, but I didn’t write anything ever since and not without reason. I’m not happy with the way this meme is being hosted for the past year or so. We for one barely got interesting and inspiring topics these past months, at least not for me. I felt like a broken record in the amount of posts in where I was going to repeat myself. I find this a pity, because this meme is such a good one to discuss topics more in depth. However, we still have Rukky’s rich archives and I actually had trouble selecting just 5 posts back in August. My ultimate goal was to select a topic from each year,  but this didn’t work out as I’d hoped. It also means that I had to skip certain interesting topics. I’ve decided to select one of these now, because we actually got another topic for today (Halloween reading), but I don’t do spooky season so nope. This post is a tad later than intended, but I fell asleep last night. Today I discuss content warnings, a topic from December 6, 2019 and is suggested by Lydia Schoch.

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted by Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Since April 2022, the meme moved to another host, Aria @ Book Nook Bits. Let’s Talk Bookish is a meme where participants discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and share their love by visiting each other’s posts.

It has been several years since there has been more awareness about content warnings. In fact, I haven’t seen them anytime before like 2020 or so. Maybe already in 2017/2018/2019, but I think they never stood out to me. If it wasn’t for being a book blogger and reading more English books that I started to notice them. The Dutch publishing industry started to adopt those warnings definitely from 2020 onwards. However, there still are publishers who do not provide these. That year a lot has changed in publicity though, many diverse books got pushed forward (which I agree on) for instance. And of course, Covid happened, so review copies were being digital mostly.

Do I need content warnings? No. I’m thankfully in a good space regarding my physical and mental health and therefore am not triggered easily. In fact, I seek out those triggering books as they seem to provide more depth in my reading material. Character driven books are my favourite and therefore I need depth in my stories. I don’t have time anymore for shallow characters or for poorly executed ones. Character growth/development is something I value highly in my reading and my rating easily drops when this is lacking for me. It’s different for plot driven books, but even then, I’m not triggered easily. I therefore find content warnings both spoilery and helpful at the same time. Spoilery because it gives away too much of the content, but helpful for the same reason. They give me a good glimpse of whether I expect to enjoy a book or that I should run away as fast as I can. Give me all that character trauma please.

On the other hand, I understand the necessity for content warnings. People who struggle with either mental or physical health can get triggered by certain topics in books/movies. For them, these content warnings provide lots of help in whether the book/movie of choice is suitable for them or if finding another book would be better. People who’ve endured (severe) trauma in their live or are enduring it now, probably are looking for a palate cleanser to take their mind off of things. When a certain type of media doesn’t have a content warning, these consumers can be triggered and therefore unpleasantly surprised. Not to speak of the consequences this trigger might have for them and their health.

So, it’s actually a bit two-sided. Yes, I understand why content warnings are necessary, but I’m in the privilege of being able to skip over them.

What do you think about content warnings?