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Top 5 (or 10) Wednesday


Athena

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This week's topic is: Book Trends You're Tired Of

 

Author's Note:

-- What are some things you are tired of seeing that are trends in publishing? Maybe something that pops up on a lot of covers these days, or the popularity of certain tropes in a particular genre? Let it out!

 

I'll have to think about this one.

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How is she liking her Christmas cat tree? Our cats love theirs, we even put some catnip on it :D

 

Aww. :D She`s using it more and more ; it has crunchies on it, to make it more enticing, and sometimes I trail her string over it, so she has to jump up for playtime. :)

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I don't think these are trends. Just what can annoy me.

 

The way teenagers are portrayed as been constantly stroppy, "I hate you, life is so unfair"

Yes we, I am sure a little like that at times, but I was never how most authors show them.

 

Despite been a fan of chick lit, and yes sometimes it does work, but boy and girl best friends and oh wait he loves her and wants to be more than that? No ... shocking!

 

When a book is written in third person the character will a lot of the time be attractive but then when it's written in first person the character has so many flaws.

 

Long and short chapters. Why have a chapter that is a nice easy 10 pages long and then have one that is 30 pages long? It's always when you're in bed and you think "just 5 more minutes"

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Books written from multiple viewpoints, and that switch between time periods. Like Jodi Picoult's (I like hers, she does them well, just an example). It seems everyone's doing it lately, and not everyone can do it well. Most of the time it's just very confusing.

Edited by bookmonkey
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Books written from multiple viewpoints, and that switch between time periods. Like Jodi Picoult's (I like hers, she does them well, just an example). It seems everyone's doing it lately, and not everyone can do it well. Most of the time it's just very confusing.

I just finished Our Song by Dani Atkins, written from viewpoint of two women, with a love triangle thrown in, went backwards and forwards in time, took me ages to get the names straight in my head!!

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As I posted on my current reading thread - I think I'm getting tired of the Reacher books by Lee Child. They are getting a bit samey now. They probably have been for a while, but I'm getting to the "jump the shark" moment.

 

If I can go back a week and post about something non-book I'm obsessed with - I've been watching the original Blakes 7 on You Tube. I haven't seen these since they were first on, I'd have been about 11 years old. What's surprised me is that underneath the dodgy, wobbly sets and non-existent special effects, is a really good basis storyline and some interesting characters.  

Seeing Servalan through adult eyes has been a revelation too!!

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I don't think there are really any book trends that annoy me, simply because I can ignore whatever what I don't want to read and read whatever I want.  I've tried a few psychological thrillers (right term?) such as Girl on the Train, Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, and found them massively lacking, but they're only popular because a lot of people want to read them, and they're free to do that - I'll stick to other things.

 

Having said that, there is one trend that worries rather than annoys me somewhat: the increasing infantilisation of children's reading.  Not what is written, but what is read at what age.  Even in the last decade, books that were popular with years 3/4 (8-9 years old) are now the mainstay of year 5/6 reading, and most of my year 5s can't physically read what most of my children lapped up a few years ago.  I suspect, but can't be sure, that it's partly down to an ever decreasing number of parents who are reading with and to their children: it's scary how few do nowadays.  Mainly because they are too busy (the children's own words!) it seems.  They're also too busy apparently to teach them the time, how to tie shoelaces, how to tie a tie, how to hold a knife and fork.........at the youngest end of the school, the Early Years teachers are reporting more and more children starting school not properly toilet trained, so it's not really a book issue, but I find that aspect dispiriting.

Edited by willoyd
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I agree, I feel love triangles are overdone. It can be done well in some cases, but in other cases it's just kind of annoying. It seems especially overdone in YA literature specifically.

 

Yes. This is exactly how I feel about love triangles. There are a handful of them that I enjoyed, but in general I think they just add unnecessary drama.... and they're almost always predictable. 

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I just finished Our Song by Dani Atkins, written from viewpoint of two women, with a love triangle thrown in, went backwards and forwards in time, took me ages to get the names straight in my head!!

One I've just read not only went back and forwards in time, and had multiple viewpoints, it also switched point of view with some of the characters. It was so confusing.

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If I can go back a week and post about something non-book I'm obsessed with - I've been watching the original Blakes 7 on You Tube.

 

Of course you can, thanks for sharing :)

 

Having said that, there is one trend that worries rather than annoys me somewhat: the increasing infantilisation of children's reading.  Not what is written, but what is read at what age.  Even in the last decade, books that were popular with years 3/4 (8-9 years old) are now the mainstay of year 5/6 reading, and most of my year 5s can't physically read what most of my children lapped up a few years ago.  I suspect, but can't be sure, that it's partly down to an ever decreasing number of parents who are reading with and to their children: it's scary how few do nowadays.  Mainly because they are too busy (the children's own words!) it seems.  They're also too busy apparently to teach them the time, how to tie shoelaces, how to tie a tie, how to hold a knife and fork.........at the youngest end of the school, the Early Years teachers are reporting more and more children starting school not properly toilet trained, so it's not really a book issue, but I find that aspect dispiriting.

I didn't know that this was going on in the UK (I can't say if it is here as well). It sounds very worrying. I loved it when my parents read books with me and to me as a child. My library here is undertaking some activities to get parents to read more often to their children - just recently they offered a short course for dads and how they can read to their children, and the library often has afternoons when they have a member of staff read to the children. It's not nice for the children that their parents are too busy for them, that they don't get the proper attention they need. Thanks for bringing this up. 

 

One book trend that I am so incredibly tired of is the book cover on a paperback book that doesn't reach the edge of the pages. Why in the world do they think this is a good idea? It drives me insane.

I totally agree with you! I don't like it when publishers do that.

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And of course, that perennial favourite - editions of books with the film poster as the cover. Just no!

I agree, I much prefer the original cover. It's such a shame the edition with the original cover sometimes becomes harder to find once the film edition is released.

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These Foolish Things was rebranded as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel after the film came out. A rare case when I actually preferred the film (which was quite different) to the book!

 

I hate film tie-in covers too.

 

I also hate it when they randomly change the style of covers.  I understand why, but I like it when my covers all match!

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I also hate it when they randomly change the style of covers.  I understand why, but I like it when my covers all match!

 

I agree, Janet, that can be a pain.  It's lovely having a series of books with different editions and that look nothing alike!  :rolleyes:

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It's even worse when the title of the book is changed. For example, Q and A was the original title, rereleased as Slumdog Millionaire after the film.

 

Ugh!

I agree, that is annoying. I don't think I own many books of which the title was changed, so I've not been affected by it so much to my knowledge (but I could be wrong!), but it is annoying! One example I can think of of books I've read, is that the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin is now often referred to as the Game of Thrones series based on the TV show title. Whereas A Game of Thrones is the title of the first book, not of the series.

 

I also hate it when they randomly change the style of covers.  I understand why, but I like it when my covers all match!

Me too, this annoys me so much. Especially in a series, but also for one author's work. Who likes non-matching covers.. no-one right?! This annoys me to no end.

 

I also don't like it when the size is changed throughout a series or author's works. I'm not talking about extra options (then you can just buy the one that matches), but when the next book in the series suddenly is ie. just half an inch / 1 cm shorter or taller than the rest.. It annoys me less than non-matching covers but it's still annoying. Gladly it doesn't happen much, but since we're talking about it, I wanted to point it out.

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There's also that thing of changing the titles of books in different countries.  - Harry Potter and the sorcerer's/philosopher's stone and Lee Child's The Visitor/ Running Blind for instance.

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That has caused me to accidentally rebuy a book because I thought it was a new release rather than a retitled book. You see both US and UK editions here. It's so annoying when a book is retitled for no good purpose, I would prefer it if books could just have one title in all countries that use that language (ie. in all English-speaking countries).

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