Top Ten Tuesday: Unpopular Book Opinions

June 11, 2019

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme originated by The Broke and the Bookish now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is: Unpopular Book Opinions

Before we get into all the pleasantries of Top Ten Tuesday: LIFE UPDATE!

David and I got the keys to the farm last Friday and couldn’t be happier. Now we’ve closed on the land and did the majority of the moving this past weekend. It was exhausting! And why you didn’t see my Winds of Fury post yesterday (sorry, Melanie!) — it will come soon. Blogging is more-or-less an afterthought, but I refuse to give up! Blogging brings me joy when I make time for it. 🙂 My hope is to get back into blog hopping by the end of the month. <3

Anyway– this week’s Top Ten Tuesday has perfect timing. TTT posts are often much easier for me to write than book reviews. This one is exceptionally easy. Why? Because I have opinions. Lots of them. And I’m 100% not afraid to share them. The tricky thing with unpopular book opinions is that they don’t often come up! This particular prompt gives me license to vent about all sorts of things. With all the moving chaos I’m 100% in the venting mood, too. Bring. It. ON.


 

Top 10 Unpopular Book Opinions I Possess

 

 I Don’t Read New Releases.

We’re starting out docile there. I just don’t have time to read new releases. About 2,000 books are newly released each week. I can barely keep up with the major world news, let alone which new books are all hyped. When I have read newly released hyped books I’m disappointed 99.999% of the time. I prefer to let everyone rave about the book for a few months, gather consensus from everyone’s book reviews, wait another 6 months to 4 years and THEN read the book. Typically, by then, I know I’ll enjoy it.

 

Don’t Make My Favorite Novels Into Films. You’ll Screw It Up.

Almost without a doubt, the film adaption of a novel is awful. There’s a reason it was a book in the first place, people. It’s complex and beautiful and deep and powerful and wonderful because there are so many little details pulling the whole story together. When you condense book that is a 12-hour audiobook into 90 minutes something is going to go awry. And in most cases, this will not result in an adaption which is even close to equal to the novel. And no, this does not count inspired-by-the-novel films. When you take the story and change it to fit the medium I can forgive your trespasses — after all, you told us up front you were changing it.

 

Don’t Review A Book You Haven’t Read. It’s Rude.

My biggest Goodreads pet peeve! WHY are people writing reviews for books they haven’t read?! I don’t care if you hate the author or read something on Twitter or insta-buy the author or whatever — don’t write a review for a book you haven’t read. You’re feeding the lies and speculation which end up with books like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children being tagged as Horror when they aren’t! And for amazing books being slashed apart over nothing. Don’t feed the beast of lies. And ESPECIALLY if the book isn’t published yet. If you do the latter there is a special circle of Hell for you. The one with people who talk in the theatre.

 

I Don’t Read Series Until They Are Finished and All Books are Published

This is common knowledge for those who follow Death by Tsundoku. I was burned by Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time and I will not let that happen again. I don’t care how much you love this series, I will NOT be picking it up unless the FINAL book is about to be published. I cannot remember what I had for breakfast. Why do you think I will remember what happened in the third book in a series 2 years later? While Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors, I have read very little of his work due to this. The one exception? Book club books. Because book clubs always trump everything.

 

I Love E-Books

In order of preference: E-Books, Audiobooks, Hardcover, Trade paperback, all other paperbacks except mass-market, Mass-Market Paperbacks. Hardcover used to be first in my heart forever. Then I got a job where I travel. Yes, I miss seeing all those books on my shelves, but I am comfortable with a library in my pocket also. The ambiance of a single bookshelf is enough for me. A library is a wonderful dream. For now? Digital all the way, baby. 

 

I Crave Reading About Friendship Over Romance

I don’t mind a well-written romance every now and then, but I’m EXHAUSTED with romance as a plot point. Please. Give me best friends any day. Friendships are something everyone can relate to. And while books might have romanticized versions of friendships, they are things we can learn from. Most romances in novels, particularly YA and fantasy, are so impossible they constantly make me roll my eyes. That’s not how love works. Show me real love. Show me the bestest friends.

 

Spoilers Are Amazing

I used to believe that spoilers were the worst. And, honestly, I still avoid them. But only because I’m conditioned to avoid them! I have a great post about why I love spoilers coming in the future (if I ever stop spending 110% of my time moving…) — but the CliffsNotes version is this: If you know what’s coming, you’re always looking for it and will enjoy it more. Consider The Name of the Wind or The Bone Witch Both books are written from the perspective of the protagonist telling their tale after it was completed. You know they survive! But that’s so exciting. Now you’re trying to figure it out and wonder how they did it from the start. There is a totally different vibe to the book now.  I love it.

Also, you best give me props for those spoiler tags. Even though I wouldn’t count these things as spoilers… Meh. I’m trying here, people.

 

Mass Market Paperbacks are Functional, but Useless Otherwise

Yes, I can hold a mass-market paperback in my hand easily. But the font is always so tiny that I can barely read it. Plus, I’m always accidentally ripping and smudging the pages. What paper do they use for this? You look at it and it smudges. The covers never stay on, I cannot take these books anywhere! Yes, it fits in my purse, but so does my Kindle. And my Kindle won’t get lost (as easily) nor will the book fall apart on me while I’m straining to read it. Pass.

 

I Can’t Stand A Song of Ice and Fire. And George R. R. Martin. 

If you frequent my blog, you already know this about me. I read A Game of Thrones and finished it… but only barely. I started A Clash of Kings and was 35 pages into it before I realized I absolutely didn’t care a smidge about these books. I feel like Martin doesn’t actually care for his characters. And he cares for his fans even less. Each time I see/hear an interview with him I get so angry. He’s just playing everyone at this point. And no. He will never finish this book series.

 

Bookstagram All Looks the Same

Seriously– I just don’t understand Bookstagram as something you scroll through. Sure, I understand why people like to see pretty photos and spend time creating these masterworks of bookish photography. But I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here! Am I the only person who sees that these are all identical?! Props. Background. Lighting. Themes. Books. I get it. But they are all variations on the same theme. Thousands of variations on a theme! And I just don’t care.
#SorryNotSorry

 

Wow. This was a shockingly therapeutic post to write. I love it. I do feel like I got harsher as I wrote… but that’s what made this post fun. It’s a bit venty, it’s a bit silly, it’s also a bit ranty. All things I needed in my life right now.


What do you think?

  • Did you participate in Top Ten Tuesday? Share your links below!
  • What are your most unpopular bookish opinions?
  • Do you agree with any of my thoughts above? Why?
  • Which comments above do you think I’m just completely wrong about? I dare you to convince me otherwise!

20 Comments

  • Captain's Quarters June 11, 2019 at 6:51 pm

    Congrats on the farm matey! What kinda farm is it? I was born in the suburbs and so cows and vegetable growing and such is like magic. Magic that takes a ton of hard work but still magic. Hope yer farm be everything ye both want it to be. Arrrr!
    x The Captain

    • Jackie B November 19, 2019 at 12:25 pm

      Thank you for the well-wishes! We bought an 8.17 acre blueberry farm. Yup. 397 blueberry plants. That’s a LOT of work from July 4th-August 15th. We have 3 acres of pasture we will be using for organic, pasture-raised meat chickens. We are also fixing up the barn so we can have egg-laying chickens as well. Finally, my husband will be planting additional fruits and vegetables for selling at market and for ourselves. The plan is that we will live as much as possible off the land. It’s a TON of work — way more than I was expecting, honestly. The work divide is that my husband is repsonsible for the outside and I for the inside. Alas. Sometimes it just doesn’t work that way.

      But! Now that the ground is freezing I find that we will have more time. Now the husband just needs to do ALL THE BRUSH CLEARING. And trust me. It’s a lot.

      • Captain's Quarters December 19, 2019 at 2:18 pm

        I actually did a court case (as a paralegal) that dealt with blueberry farms and I learned a ton about the business and how not to do things. The First Mate’s family also used to grow blueberries back in the day. More recently they had the egg chickens (about 50) and ducks as pets. The chickens were all eventually eaten by the raccoons and foxes. But there are still some ducks around. The First Mate loves duck eggs for baking. I have to admit that the eggs taste so much better from free range animals then from the grocery store. That be a lot of land and a lot of work ye have. I follow a farm blog and enjoy hearing about the life. Best of luck to yer farm and hope 2020 is so much better for ye.
        x The Captain

        • Jackie B January 6, 2020 at 9:48 pm

          No way! You learned a ton about blueberry farms?! Any advice you’d recommend? We’re mostly making it up as we go along. As you do when you start anything. Only, we don’t know any other blueberry farmers to learn from. And, you might be surprised, there aren’t a lot of social-media savvy blueberry farmers we’ve found yet. Wah wah.

          I don’t think I want ducks around the farm, but I definitely want duck eggs. Maybe I can convince the husband we want some eventually. Not this year, at least.

          I also hope 2020 is a better year. So far? It’s awesome! 🙂

  • Krysta June 11, 2019 at 8:19 pm

    There are way too many series out there and I can’t keep up anymore. It makes a lot of sense to wait until a series is finished and you can just zip through without forgetting everything that happened!

  • Kim @ Traveling in Books June 11, 2019 at 8:33 pm

    I don’t care about spoilers, either. Sure, surprises are nice, but trying to figure out how everything comes together when you know what’s coming is fun, too. There was a book series that I became interested in because of a spoiler– I found out about the death of a character in the Vorkosigan Saga thanks to a writing podcast, and the story around that death sounded amazing. So I looked into it and became hooked, and now the Vorkosigan Saga is one of my favorite series ever.

  • Sammie @ The Writerly Way June 11, 2019 at 8:47 pm

    Congrats on your new farm! How exciting. :3 So much yes to not reviewing books you haven’t read! The only time I’m okay with this is a non-star review for DNF books, because I find it helpful to read DNF reviews on Goodreads. But if you haven’t even tried to read it, don’t give an opinion. It seems like that should be common sense.

    I absolutely love ebooks, too! So much more convenient to me, personally. I still have physical books, but if I can catch an ebook on sale, I will always buy that over a physical book.

    Here’s my TTT post.

  • Isabelle @ BookwyrmBites June 12, 2019 at 1:23 am

    honestly I either read books before they’re published (i.e., as ARCs) or like years after they’ve come out and everyone else seems to have had their say – there is no in between! as you mention, there are just too many to keep up with, especially considering I’m still not great at guessing which books I will or won’t enjoy enough to finish.

    I’ve been guilty of the pre-review: the “OMG I GOT AN ARC I’M SO EXCITED THANK YOU [PUBLISHER]” or sometimes links to tweets / articles that made me not want to read the book (whether it’s calling out problematic content, or the author being a toxic person whom I don’t want to support – I know this is controversial in and of itself, though tbqh the links are mostly for me so that I can remember why I shelved the book as “NOPE”). personally I don’t really mind them; I’ve also made peace with the listed shelves (genres) on the side of the Goodreads page being unreliable since it happens to books regardless of how many people have shelved / reviewed them. what annoys me is when people *rate* a book they haven’t read, whether it’s 1 or 3 or 5 stars, or those two early (suspcious) 5-star ratings with no review

  • anhdara13 June 12, 2019 at 2:29 am

    This is such a good vent post lol. I don’t agree with everything but I completely get where you are coming from and it’s good you know yourself so well for all of this!

  • lydiaschoch June 12, 2019 at 4:57 am

    I love ebooks, too. They’re so handy, especially when you’re traveling or visiting a place like a hospital/nursing home that you might not want to bring germs home from. It’s a lot easier to wipe down an e-reader than it is a paperback.

    My TTT.

  • Grab the Lapels June 12, 2019 at 3:17 pm

    #1 I Don’t Read New Releases

    I’m almost all the way in this boat with you. There are so many unexplored older novels that I’m happy to read that I don’t feel the allure of new fiction. However, new nonfiction will absolutely draw me in, mostly because I’m looking at new information by investigative journalists. I don’t want to read it when it’s outdated.

    #2 Don’t Make My Favorite Novels Into Films. You’ll Screw It Up.

    Did you not like the Harry Potter movies? I thought they were supposed to be well done and quite accurate.

    #3 Don’t Review A Book You Haven’t Read. It’s Rude.

    I’m not sure why Goodreads even allows this. I hear the excuse: it’s a great way to get people excited about a book. WTF? You’re giving me five stars of….what, you’re excitement? Now that I work at a library and am learning more about the ALA Right to Read document, my opinions have changed on how I feel about other people reading writers I would never read because I think the writer is a bad person.

    #4 I Don’t Read Series Until They Are Finished and All Books are Published

    I didn’t realize we were going to keep reading Lackey beyond 2019, but by the time we catch up, the Spy series should be done. Sorry!

    #5 I Love E-Books

    I love that I can easily take notes in them! I loathe that my Nook Glow doesn’t highlight easily, and I’m worried that if I get a Kindle it will be “too old” in a year or two. Currently, I use the Kindle and Nook apps on my phone.

    #6 I Crave Reading About Friendship Over Romance

    I wonder if writers have forgotten just how romance-y a friendship can be. I mean, I never did feel sexual attraction for me female friends in high school, but there was a definitely some “never be apart from me and I hope you never get a boyfriend because it’s just us and you belong to me and I belong to you and we’ll always rely on each other and share secrets” intensity.

    #7 Spoilers Are Amazing

    I used to love when my students were reading a book for me class and had literally ALL THE ANSWERS TO THE ENDING right there in front of them, but they didn’t notice because they didn’t pay attention to the verb tense or point of view. I would get so damn giddy! Basically, I feel like the author is spoiling his or her own work if only we are clever enough to notice, and I LOVE THAT.

    #8 Mass Market Paperbacks are Functional, but Useless Otherwise

    Confession: these are the only types of paperback books I’ll buy new. They’re usually about $6.99 and I feel like I got a deal. Plus, they already look old — which makes me smile. But yeah, totally cheap quality.

    #9 I Can’t Stand A Song of Ice and Fire. And George R. R. Martin.

    When I heard from multiple people that the show A Game of Thrones included even more rape than the books, just cuz — what, it increases viewership?? — I gave a huge middle finger to this whole series, both book and show.

    #10 Bookstagram All Looks the Same

    Yes!!! And you have to have money to make your pictures look nice! I know people have tips on how to do the photos cheaply, but I don’t care. You’re still asking readers to invest money to gain attention on a platform that looks like the Fox News version of books (that is, homogeneous).

  • Laila@BigReadingLife June 13, 2019 at 2:30 pm

    I’m not a huge Bookstagram fan either. Although I love Instagram in general. I only follow just a few book people. And it’s more for discussion/stories than anything else. Those pics all do look the same.

  • PerfectlyTolerable June 14, 2019 at 12:41 pm

    I don’t understand how people write reviews without reading the books?!?! This baffles me and I hate it too!

    You might be the only person I have ever heard of that likes spoilers? Thats awesome for you, cuz it means you won’t get pissed but I think we are going to have to agree to disagree 😉 I HATE spoilers with all my heart haha

  • Davida Chazan June 15, 2019 at 12:15 am

    About Bookstagram… I hear you! I do NOT get it at all! In fact Instagram just seems… a waste of time, to tell the truth.

    • Jackie B November 19, 2019 at 11:45 am

      Whew– I’m glad that I’m not the only person who doesn’t get Bookstagram! I mean, I want to get it. It’s so pretty… but it seems like SUCH a waste of time. You’re a woman after my own heart, Davida!

  • Evelina @ AvalinahsBooks June 17, 2019 at 1:12 am

    I have no idea how you manage to keep blogging at all in all this craziness. But I’m glad things are moving forward 🙂
    I have failed to write you that letter still. Now I need your new address. Faceplam!

    And I definitely also belong to the ebook lovers club 🙂 same with friendship vs romance!

    That’s actually why my boyfriend stopped watching Game of Thrones. It was all about the killing and playing the reader/watcher. (Meanwhile I don’t watch cause I’m too innocent. Another story xD)

    And yeah, I can agree about Bookstagram. I can be interested in it one afternoon in a month when I’m zoning out. That’s about it! Maybe why it never worked out for me xD

  • Anna @MyBookishDream June 19, 2019 at 12:12 pm

    I don’t tend to read new releases either. Mostly because I like to research a book before I decide if I want to read it. And that really isn’t possible with new releases. 🙂 I’m also much more interested in books about friendships, than romance. I’m someone who doesn’t care about spoilers. I have never really been bothered if I get spoiled by something? That’s great for me, as I’m not worried about being accidentally spoiled by someone! Great post! 😀

  • Amanda @Cover2CoverMom June 22, 2019 at 9:01 pm

    I totally agree with the following unpopular opinions…

    Don’t Make My Favorite Novels Into Films. – YES! I almost never enjoy the film adaptation as much as the book. I spend the entire movie saying “that isn’t how it was in the book,” which just annoys everyone that watches the movie with me lol I also do better with the “inspired by” types of movies!

    Don’t Review A Book You Haven’t Read. – How is this even a thing that people do?! Goodreads should shut down star ratings until the book’s publish date. ARC reviewers could still post their reviews, and come back with their star ratings.

    I Crave Reading About Friendship Over Romance – Me too! Give me a good ol’ friendship story any day of the week. I don’t mind a book where there is a romance, just not when it is the center of the plot. Regardless, I’d rather read friendship over romance.

    Mass Market Paperbacks are Functional, but Useless Otherwise – I refuse to read them. I have 20/20 but even I have a hard time reading the small print. I’d rather be uncomfortable holding a hardback book than reading small print that is straining my eyes.

  • Dani @ Perspective of a Writer June 22, 2019 at 10:48 pm

    Ahhhh I hope the farm is turning out to be everything you guys are dreaming it will be. ❤️ I love ebooks! I love that I can mark in them, make notes, search and that the words are lit from behind with a giant light! Paper books will never be my favorite because it just can’t compare. Hahaha. I will have to somewhat agree about bookstagram. I really dislike seeing the same setup and a different book plugged in. It’s so boring. I like how I do it a lot better (arrogant much, right?!) I can see how you with your farmer heart, helping your husband grow things and do worthwhile things would view bookstagram this way. Hahha I feel like I’m growing my skills. Though I will say I don’t think your opinion is really that much unpopular. Since I wrote a couple of Instagram posts many people tell me they don’t get it, can’t do it and just don’t see the point. 😀

  • Jamie June 25, 2019 at 10:12 am

    Your opinions aren’t so unpopular because I agree with almost all of them! I completely agree on waiting for series to finish and mass markets. I used to buy mass markets when I was a kid, and the little $3 mass markets were all I could afford. I never bother picking them up, I don’t like how compact they are and much prefer every other book format. As for series, after having a few that I didn’t end up finishing in over 10 years, I end up forgetting so many details in between and it gets harder for me to just pick the series up and read. I’ve avoided ASOIAF until the last two books are published, I just can’t start a huge epic series knowing that it’ll be years before it finishes.

    I’m also pretty meh about bookstagram, honestly most of why I still post is book boxes, just so I can grab the edited pictures later for my blog. I can’t stand social media in general and only use them to chat with a few of my close online buddies or to look at memes. Instagram, facebook, and snapchat have brought me horrible experiences with my personal life and so I just don’t care for social media at all.

Participate in the discussion!

%d bloggers like this: