Hello and welcome to another Top Ten Tuesday post! This week’s Topic is Buzzwords or Phrases That Make Me Want to Read (or Avoid) a Book (These words or phrases can be in the title, synopsis, marketing materials, reviews, author blurbs, etc. and immediately pique your interest or immediately make you say “NOPE”. Examples include: fae, forbidden romance, morally grey characters, unreliable narrator, found family, magical worlds, love triangle, marriage of convenience, dark academia, stranded, dragons, dual points of view, starting over, etc.), but in typical Laurie fashion, I will be tweaking this one a little bit. I honor the original topic, but change the word “buzzwords” to the word “reasons” and work with those instead. I will mix both reasons to read and to avoid a book as well. Without further ado, let’s get into what makes me immediately put a book on my TBR and what makes me want to avoid a book altogether!
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.
- Blurb (or rather synopsis) – Whereas most people tend to judge a book by its cover – which makes pretty much sense – I trust the blurb more. The cover often doesn’t say much about the contents of said book. Nowadays blurbs hardly do the same, but somehow there still is a a synopsis of the book. Is the blurb appealing to me? TBR. Does it give me the ick? Avoid. Am I still uncertain? Check reviews.
- Reviews – Speaking of which… Reviews can make or break a book for me. I try not to pay too much attention to those, as they’re merely subjective, but I can’t help it. They still influence or de-influence me to pick up a book. Vibes reviews don’t say too much to me though, so I prefer reviews that actually point out why something isn’t working or why it does work for this particular reviewer. I try to do the same in my reviews, but I find myself struggling a lot as I often overestimate my fluency in English. Especially when I read other reviews by fellow bloggers.
- Dual POV narration and dual timeline – This first reason applies to romance or romantasy, while the second one does to historical fiction. I decided to combine these as they are written with the same aim and I enjoy that.
- Certain tropes – When looking a bit further into romance, I can’t stand certain tropes. The employer-employee trope is one I can’t stand, as well as fake dating. Sometimes they work, but more often they don’t and moreover, they are pretty much overdone.
- Long series – These I tend to avoid as much as possible, unless it’s a series I do enjoy. But sometimes, it’s too much to keep up, so five books is the maximum series length for me. Throne of Glass was the exception however, because this story is crafted so well.
- Stand alone books in fantasy – For this genre, I prefer a duology or trilogy as a stand alone is just too short and gives too little space to the development of both the world and characters. I tend to rate stand alone novels lower, as I tend to enjoy them less than the aforementioned duologies or trilogies.
- The author – This often makes me want to read a book, because I’m very picky with choosing the authors I would like to try. I have several autobuy ones, and discover new ones whenever many people are very positive about their books, or whenever I stumble upon a book with a synopsis that piques my interest.
- The genre – Of course, everyone has a preferred genre, but also a genre they simply cannot read. It therefore is a key factor in deciding whether to pick up a book or not. I’m no different, as I often won’t read non-fiction, poetry, philosophy or horror.
- The complexity of the story (and the plot not moving forward) or the language – I decided to combine these two as they often go hand in hand. English is not my first language, but sometimes you come across books that aren’t translated to your native language. However, the English in the novel might become too complex, which automatically makes the story complex too. This is the case with Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn for me. I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I simply didn’t understand it and therefore had to DNF. I also DNF when the plot is not moving forward, also a case whenever it’s a pretty complex one. Finally, let me go back to the genre point for a second, because I find nonfiction a nightmare to read in English, due to the language. I want to get the most out of those books, but it’s hard to grasp everything when you struggle to fully understand it. I therefore avoid this genre LOL.
- The hype – Hypes and I don’t get along pretty well, so it really depends on whether I would or would not read it. I often read a hyped book, which I could better have avoided. Hypes are truly a hit or miss for me.
What does make you read or avoid a book?
