Friday, April 4, 2014

What's Your Reading Quirk?

You may already know this, but I am very open-minded about what I will read or try to read. If someone recommends it to me personally, I'm going to give it a shot. I may not like it in the end but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt in the beginning. There are very few reasons I will absolutely refuse to try a book. These are the few that I came up with:

  • It's written by Ernest Hemingway
  • The main plot is about animal/children abuse
  • It has been optioned for a movie starring Kristen Stewart
  • And that's about it. Seriously, I can't think of any other reasons.

Now, let's talk about my 14 year old sister. After seeing the first Hunger Games movie with me (which I forced her to go see), she read the entire series 3 times front to back within a month or so. So it's safe to say she enjoys a good dsytopian, right? After she devoured those, I (and my dad) suggested that she try Gone by Michael Grant or Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. We knew she would really enjoy them if she gave them a chance. But she refused to even go past the first page. Why, you ask? Because they were by male authors? Nope. Because they hadn't been optioned for movies (yet)? No. Because they were both written in third person.

Is that the most oddly specific reason you've ever heard to not read a book? I asked her what her reasons were for this and here's what she said: "I like thinking from the main character's view. I like thinking like them and hearing their thoughts. If it's romance, I don't wanna know that the dude likes the girl early on, I like getting in her or his shoes and think what I would've done. And it just bothers me. I want to read 'I' not 'Anna' 'walked across the room'." And I get that. I really do. It's fun knowing all the main character's thoughts and feelings. But sometimes you need that element of surprise. That shocker moment when a character does something seemingly out of nowhere and you wonder what their motivation is.

I'll be honest...I had to really think about what exactly 3rd person was. I've been out of school way too long for that kind of stuff to stick. I gave her this lovely stack of books the other day after she requested new stuff to read and specifically "horror and romance" lol. And I didn't pay attention to the "voice" at all. She's already zoomed thru Anna & The French Kiss and is "totally addicted to it" as I knew she would be. :) I also gave her a list of books, including Eleanor & Park, which is in 3rd person. I'm hoping she will still give it and others a chance, because she's going to miss out on some amazing books if she doesn't.

And here's where you come in! How do I convince her to give 3rd person a chance? What's your favorite book written this way? Or are you like me and don't even notice it? And...what's your reading quirk? What makes you say, "No way, I am not reading that ever ever ever." Is it male authors born in 1852? Books with green covers? Plots about vampire unicorns? (I'd totally read that lol.) Let's discuss!
(Thank you, B, for your help with this post! <3)

8 comments:

  1. Did she read The Vampire Diaries series? Totally up her alley! Written in first person, and it's about vampire love ;-)

    Personally i don't have a reading quirk, but i had to laugh about yours and will adopt your number 2 and 3 XD Although to me, the hunger games fall under your number 2 category. I must admit i haven't read the book, but i felt sick for days after watching the movie. So horrible, to make kids (they are all minors, so they are all kids in my eyes) fight to the death. The idea made me really, really sick. I haven't watched Catching Fire yet for that same reason. I probably should give it another chance, because everybody seems to like it, but i'll wait till i'm in the right mood (the look at me wrong and i'll rip your throat out-mood). Since my annoying co-worker has been sacked, i've been in a real mellow mood though, even on the very busy days, so it might have to wait for a while ;-)

    Oh and another series written mostly in first person is the Septimus Heap series. Did she read those? I'm listening to the audio books now, they're very funny in my opinion.

    But... you wanted 3rd person books. Sorry, can't think of any now. For some reason i have only read and listened to first person books lately.
    Oh wait! The mortal Instrument series are in 3rd person i believe! Or a mixture of both anyways. I really liked those too.

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    1. I read the Vampire Diaries back when they were new lol, but I'm not sure if she's read them. I know she loved Twilight at the time, but may have "moved past vampires". I'll ask her.

      Yeah, I can definitely see how HG is a hard one to enjoy. Especially the movies. Oh, I'm so glad you got rid of your ACW! I'm still working on mine lol.

      I will ask her about those other series too...thanks for the recs and as always thanks for stopping by and commenting! :)

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    2. Haha thanks! In the end my boss got rid of her ;-)
      Why 'especially the movies'? Are they worse in that than the books? If so, i could try the books.
      And my pleasure, thanks for writing! ;-)

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    3. I've only seen the first one so far and I think it was pretty faithful to the book, but I would think seeing the images on the screen is a lot harder than reading about it. Maybe you're a more visual person. I really want to reread them again soon actually.

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  2. Oh, I just came up with a 4th deal breaker... after trying to start a freebie book on my Kindle, I realized it was about angels and I have realized that I just can't do that. I don't know what it is, but if it's about fallen angels or nephilim or whatever, I can't do it.

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    1. That's a shame! I love The Mortal Instruments series. But if you don't want to read about nephilim, it's not for you ;-)
      Have you seen City of Bones though? Maybe the movie will change your mind hehe.

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    2. Uh oh lol...I might still give them a try, because you recommended them so highly. :) Maybe this is a case where I should start with the movie instead of the book?

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    3. It's what i did. People on facebook were talking about the movie and the books, and i got curious so i started reading up on it and i really liked the idea of the story. Then on Amazon they had a preview of a few pages, where i could see that the writing style didn't bother me, like with the Twilight series (even though i read them all). I didn't think they were bad, i just didn't like how she underestimated her readers (or at least that's how it felt to me) by repeating everything over and over and over again. From 2 pages of City of Bones i knew the writing stye was okay and i liked the story idea. So those 2 combined made me buy the whole set, as they were on sale and i am anal about buying the same books in a series ;-)
      Then they were just piled on the bookshelves because i have a huge backlog of books and i'm a very slow reader. But then i went to see the movie.... I came home friday night, stayed home all weekend to finish the book i was reading so i could start with City of Bones on monday. I read the first 3 books in not even 2 months, which is very fast for me (i'm not often home, combined with the slow reading). Definitely a series i could read again :-)
      Besides, it's not just Nephilim, it's all kinds of supernatural beings ;-)
      Personally i think the books are way better than the movie, but if you're not sure, start with the movie. It didn't spoil the book for me, even though the movie has a few spoilers you'll only find out in the 3rd book when you read them first.

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