Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Top Ten Tuesday: What Makes Me Pick Up a Book Take Two (or Three?)

Hosted each week by That Artsy Reader Girl, it's a meme for listing the top ten for everything bookish.

So, this week is actually Top Ten Books From Favorite Genre, but I don't have a favorite genre. I will read almost every genre within YA and if you have me choose only ten YA books then we're in trouble! As we have seen last week.

I decided to instead do the topic Ten Things That Make Me Pick Up a Book from a few weeks ago because I did not do that one. I think I remember doing that one before and I turns out that I have. I did that topic back in 2013 and I did a similar topic in 2014. I thought it might be interesting to compare what I liked then to now. 

What I am no longer interested in reading


Dystopian/Post-Apocalyptic Books

Boy, I used to love Dystopian books and while the books I mentioned in my 2013 post are still favorites of mine (Unwind, Cinder, Under the Never Sky, Legend, etc) I don't add books with dystopian settings onto my TBR anymore unless it is from an author I trust. There's just too many that don't take it a unique direction and I just got tired of the genre. 

Zombies
I will still read zombies books but zombies don't automatically make their way onto my TBR anymore. I think I'm oddly just more squeamish now than I was then. I don't know, but zombie books don't really have appeal for me anymore.

Aliens
Okay, so I still have a fascination with aliens, but not very many of the books I read anymore are about aliens. Mostly because many books with aliens go in the dystopian/apocalyptic direction which I don't have much interest in. Again, if I see a book from an author I trust featuring aliens or when the book takes a unique approach, I'm all for it.

Superpowers (of the Paranormal variety)
Full Disclosure: I'm all for books that feature superheroes and villains like Renegades and Vicious. What I'm not interested in are superpowers in paranormal books. Even in 2013 I was starting to get tired of this. To quote my 2013 post "I haven't been a big fan of this lately. I have always wanted superpowers, which is why I used to like this topic, but now this is getting overplayed in books."

Unicorns
I love unicorns, but the few YA books I have read with unicorns in them were not very good and I'm not sure if I would really want to read more YA books with unicorns.


What I am still interested in

Time Travel
I still love to read books featuring time travel. In fact, as of writing this post, I had just finished reading a time travel book. 

Ghosts
I'm not as big on ghost stories as I used to be, but when it comes to paranormal books, it's one of the few paranormal creatures I still like to read about. I get scared really easily, but I still find ghosts fascinating. 

Parallel Universes
This definitely has not changed. If a synopsis even hints at parallel universes, I'm going to want to read it.

I'm still not interested in reading Twilight copies
Ditto for books that copy pretty much any other popular MG/YA book.

The Afterlife
I just find it interesting how many different interpretations there are for the afterlife. 

YA books with little/no romance
Yep. I still like it when books have little or no romance. In fact, probably more so now. I think romance is fine in some books, but I don't think every YA book should have romance in it. 1. It's really easy for the romance to ruin the story (for example: insta-love, problematic/creepy romance, distracts from plots, makes zero sense for plot, etc.) 2. I don't like how it forces the idea that every teenager should want to be in a relationship


What else I'm interested in
Asexual Characters
I don't get to see asexual characters often and I didn't know until I saw some pop up in books how much I related to these characters. Now whenever there is even a hint of an ace character, I want to read the book.

Woman Pretends to be Man
Just blame Mulan for my interest in this trope. 

Takes Place in Kansas
I live in Kansas and I'm tired of the Wizard of Oz being the only book people relate to Kansas. It barely even takes place in Kansas (and originally, Dorothy wasn't going to be from Kansas)! There are plenty of other books, even YA, that take place in Kansas and I want to read them!


There's probably a whole lot more that I am forgetting about, but I mainly look for books with unique premises. Also, I'm definitely way past ten, but I think it was sort of fun to look back at my old Top Ten lists. 

How have your book interests changed over the years?










6 comments :

  1. My post this week was all about ghosts!

    Yeah, I've lost interest in zombies and post-apocalyptic reads, too. I need something happier.

    We seem to have a lot of the same reading interests. I wish there were more YA books out there with little/no romance, and I'm always up for checking out asexual characters, time travel, and women pretending to be men.


    My TTT.

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    1. That's probably one of the reasons why I don't read as much apocalyptic or zombie reads anymore, too much death, although some of the other books I read aren't any happier!

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  2. Great post! I still love zombies and ghosts are great too. I can fully understand why you have tired of some of these things!

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    1. Thanks! Yeah, I get tired of them sometimes, but I will still occasionally read them but not as much

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  3. Interesting spin on this week's topic. It seems like popular book genres seem to come and go.

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    1. Yeah. In a couple more years I'll probably be uninterested or interested in these topics again

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