Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Top Ten Tuesday: Unpopular Book Opinions





Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week, I’m putting on my armor and confessing my unpopular book-related opinions. Please don’t hate me! I swear I’m a good person!









Unpopular Book Opinions







1. Super-popular authors whose work I can’t seem to get into no matter how hard I try: Cassandra Clare, Veronica Roth, Gayle Forman, James Patterson, Brandon Sanderson, Marissa Meyer, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce.








2. I like the Game of Thrones TV show more than the books. I know the show has (many, many) problems, but I can re-watch the TV series without getting bored. Reading the books will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. They’re too long. Each one takes me a month to read. The show gets to the point a lot faster by leaving out minor characters and plotlines.








3. I’m not bored with young adult dystopias. Remember the dystopia craze that happened 5-10 years ago? There were suddenly a billion YA dystopias, and everybody got burnt out on them and begged publishers to stop? I’ve recovered from my burn out! Please bring back all of the dystopias! Make them unique, though. My burn out happened because the books became too similar.








4. The house system at Hogwarts is a terrible way to organize a school. It’s unnecessarily divisive. Before Harry starts school, Hagrid—a Hogwarts employee—tells him that evil wizards come from Slytherin. Ron also says negative things about Slytherins when Harry first meets him. When Malfoy and Harry meet, Malfoy bashes Hufflepuffs. Harry is prejudiced against Slytherins for his entire school experience. Also, the students complain that some teachers give kids from their own houses preferential treatment. The house system causes pointless drama. Teenagers manufacture enough drama on their own. They don’t need a school or its employees giving them superficial reasons to dislike each other.








5. Dear Martin and How It Went Down are better than The Hate U Give in every way. All three books have similar themes, but The Hate U Give gets most of the hype. I think Dear Martin and How It Went Down are more innovative.








6. I actually enjoy reading classics (most of the time). Yes, they’re dated. Yes, they’re challenging. I like them because they helped shape our current culture. I feel like I understand storytelling and modern literature better because I’ve read so many old books.








7. Art, music, and sports are boring to read about. These things are great in real life, but they don’t translate well into writing because they’re meant to be experienced firsthand. Reading about a game is never as fun as sitting in the stadium with your friends. When you’re reading descriptions of art, music, or sports instead of living through them, they lose their excitement.








8. People shouldn’t rate/review books they haven’t read on Goodreads. I’ve seen this happen a few times: Someone reads an advanced reader copy, hates the book, and posts a long rant. Then other people post reviews that say, “This reviewer hated the book, so I hate it too.” Maybe you should wait for more reviews before you parrot the first person to post a rant. Your perspective might change if you listen to more people. Or, focus your energy on boosting books you love rather than tearing down books you haven’t read.






9. The romances in many young adult books are unnecessary. There seems to be a secret rule that YA books need romances. This sometimes leads to books where the romance feels like an underdeveloped afterthought. It’s okay to be single! I would rather read about a single character than a half-baked romance.








10. If you’ve read J.R.R Tolkien's books, you’ve read pretty much every high fantasy book. Historical settings, kings and queens, good vs evil themes, magical quests, wars, prophesied “chosen one” characters. Every time I read the synopsis of a high fantasy book, I get déjà vu. They all sound the same to me.


















Do you have any unpopular book opinions?





27 comments:

  1. Whaaat? You can't get into Brandon Sanderson? Them there's fighting words. :P

    I agree about YA dystopia. I've been on a kick with them lately, and I'm absolutely loving them. There are still some unique ones trickling through (like Dry by Neal Shusterman and his Arc of a Scythe series), but I just can't get enough dystopia lately.

    I definitely agree about the Hogwarts system, too, and it made me so mad at the end of book one when Dumbledore intentionally gave Gryffindors bogus points just so that Slytherin wouldn't win the House Cup (which they had obviously earned, by quite a big margin). And this was supposed to be seen as a big triumph?!

    Here's my TTT post.

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  2. I got really annoyed that Snape was just allowed to bully Harry without Dumbledore doing anything to stop it. It was ridiculous! I stopped reading YA because of all the romance tropes and angst-when I was at school hardly anyone had a boyfriend and there was never instaluv or soulmates stuff going on!

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  3. Love these!! And I agree with you on ALMOST all of them (I like some of your popular authors, and I can't seem to get into reading classics the way I did when I was younger).

    Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction

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  4. Interesting. I guess I dislike fantasy because I couldn't get more than 10 pages into any Tolkien book!

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  5. I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't like Divergent, lol. I quit the series after the first book. I think I was also burnt out on YA dystopias by the time I read it, so that didn't help. I totally remember the seemingly nonstop flood of dystopian releases after The Hunger Games became so popular.

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  6. We agree on so many topics! I'd love to see less romance in the YA genre for sure. It's way overdone.

    My TTT.

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  7. YES TO LESS ROMANCE IN YA. Not every YA book needs romance *bangs drum repeatedly*. I also agree with not rating books you haven't read on Goodreads. I personally hate (most) classics, but I'm glad you enjoy them. And yes, the Hogwarts house system is ridiculously divisive, like you can really be boiled down to one personality trait?
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/11/top-ten-tuesday-215/

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  8. I agree about the house sorting. It always seems like approved stereotyping/prejudice and that because it's a magical work it's okay. I've not read How It Went Down but I've read THUG and Dear Martin and liked Dear Martin WAY much more.

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  9. Love that pizza comment about love triangles! :D

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  10. I usually like the stories and characters in classics even if I don't like the writing style, there's got to be a reason they stuck around so long. And I'm with you on books about sports etc. (except Quidditch which is always exciting :D) Weirdly though I love Sports films even when I don't understand the rules.

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  11. Amusing as always, thank you for that. I am all over #8. That makes me nuts!!!

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  12. Yes to romance in YA! One of the reasons I don't typically enjoy YA is because the romance often unnecessary and to be honest I get no joy out of reading romance between teenagers. I've always thought the house thing seemed weird especially since the traits seemed so set.

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  13. I totally agree with #9, romance is too high a priority in YA books. I also agree with #9 and I tend to either not read or not enjoy many popular authors.

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  14. I've never read James Patterson but I see him EVERYWHERE and it just makes me NOT want to read him lol. And I'm so fine with dystopias- I definitely want more!! :)

    I wholeheartedly agree about love triangles. Pizza!!

    You're not wrong about high fantasy. Even in 2019 I still look at high fantasy books and the blurbs are so... the same??

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  15. Are you saying you don't like the Hobbit? Lol jk. I like J.R Tolkien's books and I was about to get The Fall of Gondolin today too but I absolutely and entirely agree with your conclusions. Hey! if you don't like the authors writings then that's ok. There are many authors that do appeal to you so no problemo. Great post!

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  16. I HATE when people rate books they haven't read yet! It drives me nuts... Wish I'd remembered that one while writing my list, lol.

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  17. People shouldn’t rate/review books they haven’t read on Goodreads ---- YES!!!!!! I 100% agree to this! I can't stand when people rate/review books they haven't read. I mean, how can you have an opinion of something based off someone's else's opinion? It just makes no sense to me!

    Cassandra Clare...... I read her books right after Twilight and before the Mortal Instruments were anything more than three books. I loved her back then. Now... ugh, I agree. I just can't get into her works.

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  18. I’m with you on Gayle Forman. I enjoyed If I Stay and the follow-up Where She Went, but everything else I’ve tried to read by Forman just hasn’t worked for me. I finally gave up on her. I could get so rants about GoodReads reviews. Like the people that start giving 5 stars the second the book is posted on GR (way been arcs are even released) just because it’s their favorite author. And the same can be said for those that give 1 star reviews and then the trolls come out and every starts giving 1 star, making the average rating plummet. Grrr.

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  19. I am extremely with you on being pro-classics and anti-reviews-of-unread books!

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  20. I disagree with you on sports book (I have read lots of baseball books), but I really agree with you about not reviewing books you haven't read--that is just wrong!

    www.thepulpitandthepen.com

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  21. AH I love this list SO much! I agree with you about reviewing books and rating books you haven't read, this frustrates me soooooooo very much. And yes for the romances in YA, if I love a good romance, they're not necessary in every story, I so agree with that :)

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  22. Interesting topic and great list! I agree with several, and yes sports related books are not my cup of tea. I like Virginia Woolf and James Patterson, but two popular authors I can't get into are Dan Brown and Terry Pratchett. I tried but nope.
    Enjoy your week!

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  23. Bwahahaha you made me laugh AJ except with the "pople should not rate" on Goodreads because ...I so agree with you!!! I am mad that people either give 5 stars (just because they are fans of the author) either 1 star (because they have something against the author or the title or ...) when they haven't read the book!!!!

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  24. These are all terrific, of course. I still need to read Dear Martin (this summer! I swear!) but I agree with you completely about How It Went Down > THuG. Did it just come out too early? Can people not handle multiple POVs?

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  25. I wasn't all that into the Divergent series either. How you feel about dystopias is how I feel about vampires. I'll never be bored of them, but I get bored of any genre if I'm just reading the same story over and over. I definitely agree people shouldn't rate or review books they haven't read. And man, you're right, the house system really is terrible lol.

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  26. Wow I agree with SO MANY of these! I don't quite get the Marissa Meyer/Cassie Clare thing- and most of the others I haven't read (though I did enjoy Divergent but we shan't talk about Allegiant). I LOVE dystopian and want more more more. I agree that SO many fantasy books feel like the same thing, and I think that is why I am just over them in general. CACKLING at the Hogwarts one because I have always wondered the same thing! And I absolutely tune out when I see art/music in books. Sports I can handle if it is done well, but sometimes that can be boring too. And YES with the Goodreads thing, it's so DUMB!

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  27. My number one pet peeve on Goodreads! 😱

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