(a very late) top 10 tuesday | revealing all my unpopular bookish opinions
Hello again, dear friends! I hope all is well for you, and if not then I hope brighter days head your way soon! Today we have a juicy topic of discussion! In response to this past Tuesday’s Top 10 Tuesday prompt, I’ll be sharing my unpopular bookish opinions with y’all! I know I’m almost a week late in posting this, but I really wanted to join in and I didn’t want to give half-baked opinions.
Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is…
unpopular bookish opinions
Book Subscription Boxes Full of Merch Are Typically Wasteful
I don’t subscribe to any book boxes because I can’t afford them, but I do watch plenty of monthly unboxings for ones like Fairyloot and Illumicrate, and, in all honesty, most of the items included are cheaply made junk that ends up going unused and/or tossed away. Like, I once saw a Fairyloot or Illumicrate (I don’t remember which but I know it was one of those two) box that included socks, a water bottle with a really simple design stamped on it, and an apron with a downright ugly design. Most months, the booktubers I watch who receive these book subscription boxes with merch have openly said “I’m never gonna use this” about the merch. What’s worse is the merch isn’t just cheaply made and a total waste of money, it’s bad for the environment both in how it was manufactured and in how people just tend to toss it.
Audiobooks Obviously Count As Reading
If I have to explain this to another person one more time, I will simply lose it, my friends. There is ample scientific research proving that reading via text and reading via audio are the same process. Google is free and so is access to said research (I’ve looked it up before and all of the research is free and open access). Stop trying to prove your worth as a reader by dunking on disabled readers. It doesn’t make you look cool or intellectual, it makes you look like an ass.
The Book Community Often Willfully Ignores Disability As A Marginalization
Speaking of disability, it’s an area of marginalization that the book community often ignores even when disabled readers and writers bring up ableism in books and/or in the book community. As a disabled, queer BIPOC reader myself, I find it incredibly frustrating, disheartening, and othering that the concerns of the disability community and the dangers and difficulties we face within and outside of the literary community so often go ignored and/or are brushed off as “unimportant.”
How Romantic A Story Is And How Much Smut Is In A Story Aren’t The Same Thing
This is something that seems fairly obvious to me as a demisexual person, but apparently a lot of people don’t realize that sex and romance are two different things. Sex is about a physical connection, whereas romance is about an emotional one. Now, obviously, sexual relationships and romantic relationships aren’t mutually exclusive and for most people those types of relationships heavily overlap and interact…but they are different from each other. And I worry that with the internet’s current preoccupation with “but does [this book] have spice???” we’re starting to forget that distinction. Which is concerning, to say the least, because being aware of that distinction can help make people more aware of their physical and emotional boundaries and less susceptible to manipulation and abuse (both physical and emotional).
The Average Reader Isn’t Aware of Online Discourse Regarding Which Authors and Books Are Problematic, and, for the Most Part, That’s Okay
In all honesty, most people got bigger fish to fry than researching every single book they pick up and every single author they enjoy. They’re busy, ya know, surviving daily life, which often includes a hell of a lot of time and energy consuming tasks that have a million different deadlines. Which is why when I come across a reader in the wild and they’re reading a problematic book/author, I typically don’t give my thoughts unless it happens to naturally come up in conversation. Look, the reality is that once a book has been published, it’s out in the world and people are gonna buy it whether or not it’s “problematic,” largely because they just aren’t that clued in and they don’t have the time or energy to start. It doesn’t make them a bad person, or even someone who’s not “woke enough” or whatever, it just means that they don’t live and breathe books. And that’s okay, there’s a lot going on in the world right now and in people’s daily lives. If books and literary analysis are things they have the time, energy, and desire to learn about, they’ll eventually get there.
Young Adult Is A Marketing Category, NOT A Genre!!!
I don’t understand how this became such a big misconception. People don’t think the Adult, Middle Grade, or Children’s categories are genres. A lot of time I hear the argument “well Young Adult is written a certain way to appeal to teens.” Yeah…and Adult fiction is also written a certain way to appeal to adults, Middle Grade fiction is written a certain way to appeal to middle grade readers, and Children’s fiction is written a certain way to appeal to children. That’s why Adult, Middle Grade, Children’s, and Young Adult are marketing categories—because they’re written a certain way to appeal to a certain audience. Also, just like Adult Fantasy is vastly different from Adult Thriller is vastly different from Adult Romance, because it’s a marketing category with genres within that category, the exact same thing goes for Young Adult.
Just Because A Fantasy Novel Is Written by A Woman Doesn’t Mean It’s Automatically A YA Novel
I’ve seen this happen so often and so casually, even among other book influencers who have been around for as long as I have (if not longer). Stop it. There is no educated, intellectual reason to just flat out assume that because a fantasy book is written by a woman that it automatically falls in the YA demographic. It’s misogynistic and gross, plain and simple.
Bully Romances Shouldn’t Be Marketed To Teens (*Cough* The Cruel Prince *Cough*)
We all love to say that literature has such a big impact on our individual and communal lives, and then the minute someone points out that teens shouldn’t be reading something for that exact reason and for the reason that teens can be really impressionable without even realizing they are, the pitchforks come out. Look, I’m not advocating for censorship. The point I’m trying to make is purely one I want to apply to the marketing of a book. There’s a reason that dark romance isn’t generally marketed to a YA audience. The same should go for bully romances. Not only can these romances be triggering for people who are still in an environment where rampant bullying typically takes place, it also excuses, normalizes, and even romanticizes abuse. The fact that books like The Cruel Prince are in the YA marketing demographic makes me kinda ill for this reason, tbh. Like, I get that the main characters are teens and they’re both mean to each other, but the power dynamics at play and the abuse displayed in that book…I’m just gonna leave that there for y’all to consider…
spill the beans, friends!
So, those are my unpopular bookish opinions! Do you have any you agree or disagree with? What are some of your unpopular bookish opinions?
Yep I do agree with you!
Everybody is problematic nowadays.. i feel like especially “famous” people tend to do stuff- maybe because they feel above everyone else? Idk- but it’s really hard to track! 🥲 there’s different degrees of problematic too.. ithink the biggest one we should all stay away from is Jk rowling as she actively puts her money into harmful anti-trans activists. However.. she’s a big one that means alot for a lot of people too..
I also feel the same for the book boxes. Yes theyre pretty but sometimes they put stuff inside that I wouldnt really use.. i do prefer looking for afar 🙈
I definitely agree that “problematic” is more of a spectrum than a definite label, haha! I also think it’s a “label” that people should have the opportunity to outgrow, if they choose to. At the same time, I also agree about authors like Rowling—there are some authors who do continuous harm even when called out/called in and who use their money and fame for negative purposes, and when they’re massively known of (like JKR or even Neil Gaiman at this point), those issues and their consequences can’t (and shouldn’t) be overlooked.
Yes to the book boxes! All it added was clutter and as much as I love a good knick knack…. I have no room for it lol
Yeah, as much as I love a good trinket (and I do, lol!), I can’t justify having so many that end up not meaning much to me
I agree with all of your opinions and I really don’t seem any of them mentioned enough, I wish everyone could see this post. Thank you for sharing.
I can definitely relate to the book subscription boxes… I’ve had three boxes in my life and the only think I wanted to see was the book. It does seem very wasteful to have so many random merch that most people won’t use.
Thank you so much, Sophie, that means the world to me! <3
Nice post, thought-provoking! I cannot agree with all of them, but most. “Young Adult Is A Marketing Category” – Oh my, isn’t this the truth? When will the world and the bookshops know it? Of course, it is a marketing category. I am a millennial, and when I was growing up (outside the US), there was no such thing as “young adult” – they were books designed for teens on shelves, as there were books designed for pre-school children, children, etc. What is so special about “young adult” that it has to have the genre? its proliferation? harry potter influence? popularity? They should take a grip on themselves 🙂
Thank you! I think a large part of the reason people miscategorize YA as a genre rather than a marketing category honestly comes down to elitism, along with a large helping of sexism and a dash of racism. A lot of women write YA books, and many YA books are aimed at girls. I think many literary snobs feel (subconsciously and consciously) that if they can label a book/series as “female-focused” or “teen focused” (or—gasp!—“teen girl-focused!) then that somehow degrades the quality and value of it—“oh it’s just for teen girls, it can’t *really* have anything important to say!” This is why so many women who are Adult fantasy writers (and especially women of color who are Adult fantasy writers) are miscategorized as writing YA books—saying their works are “YA” is meant as an insult, both to the author and their work *and* to the YA category, because if those books are “just YA” then it must be aimed only at girls, and thus must be less important and less impactful, at least for society at large. It really is a shame for such literary elitists—YA is a category full of meaningful, important, and beautifully written works (just look at The Hunger Games or Strange The Dreamer or any number of other books!). I suppose it’s ultimately their loss.