Top 5 Wednesday February 8th- Book Trends I’m Tired Of

Hi Guys! This week’s Top 5 Wednesday is Book Trends I’m Tired of and although to start with it was difficult, by the time I had started thinking, I actually had too many for this post. So these are the ones I went with today. (Also if this post is a bit dodgy i apologise, i’m not feeling great and my editing might be off/ i might ramble a bit)

Top Five Wednesday is hosted by Sam at Thoughts on Tomes and If you want to join in checkout the Goodreads page!

Cheesy Romance Covers

Although the covers for romance books are getting better, they are still way behind all the other genres out there. They always seem to have people on the cover, which I hate because I don’t want real people on my book, I want pretty covers and to be able to imagine what the characters look like on my own. Colleen Hoover’s covers are getting better, and the Anna and the French Kiss trilogy had bright covers, let’s hope other romance books follow (I’m so over shirtless guys!).

 

Males Being Experienced in Sex

Personally I think sex in YA books shouldn’t happen because to me it just doesn’t seem realistic. But apparently it’s a thing that has to happen after two people have been through a terrible ordeal and lover each other to the ends of the earth. I just think 16 and 17 is unrealistic and sends a bad message.

Putting that aside though, it really frustrates me how when characters do have sex for the first time the male is always the experienced one, and the female is the timid, shy virgin who has to learn. I really want this to change as it too is unrealistic and makes females look like less of human beings. Lady Midnight is one of the only book I’ve read where the female was the experienced one and it made me very happy. I hope more books will follow.

 

Perfect for Fans Of…

I hate it when on the front of books it says things like “Perfect for Fans of the hunger games” or “The perfect combination of Throne of Glass and the Selection” as well as “If you liked Paper Towns, You’ll love this”.

Firstly, I think that these are sometimes very inaccurate and leave me feeling disappointed, and other times I’m hesitant to read a book because of it and then end up loving it because it was nothing like what the suggestion said.

I also think that it’s really unfair to the book it’s written on. Can’t that book be a wonderful, unique piece of fiction in it’s own right? Something that is completely it’s own, with a wonderful story to tell?

I hope they stop doing this at some point but I have a feeling they won’t.

 

Smaller Paperbacks Being Released after the Big Paperbacks

When I started reading Cassandra Clare, it was a few years after she’d started writing books. So when I first bought some of the Mortal Instruments books, they were the smaller paperbacks, which were the only ones I could find. Later on however, the series was still being released, so when I bought these books, they were the first edition paperbacks, which are considerably larger than the later released ones.

This means that my whole Cassandra Clare collection is mismatched because some I’ve bought a while after they were released and others I’ve bought as soon as they came out.

I don’t see why they need to have two sizes. Or if they are, don’t discontinue the first editions ones so I can have a matching set. I’ve gone looking for the larger paperbacks but can’t find them anywhere and I’m not going to wait to read the new release books until the smaller ones come out. I’m also not going to rebuy them in the smaller size (although I am tempted). This issue needs to be fixed now!

 

“Curvy Girls”

I feel like YA fiction needs more ‘sizes’ of girls. I feel like whenever I read a book the main character is either tiny and an acrobat/assassin in really good shape, or is quite thin and ‘ordinary sized’ but never exercises? I don’t really see how this is possible. And whenever a character doesn’t fall into these two categories, she is often portrayed to be ‘very’ curvy and accentuated, and when I see fan fiction for these characters they are often quite large, the curves are out of proportion or she is overweight.

I feel like we need more of the girls who aren’t overweight but naturally are bigger boned, have curves/boobs but are still fit. Is it just me who feels like these girls don’t really exist in YA? Because I am one of these girls and I never really see a female character that is similar to me in shape and size. The closest would probably be Nina Zenik or Cath from Fangirl, but even those two aren’t quite right. I want girls who are actually curvy and not the over exaggerated version we get in YA. But to be honest, just more of all types of bodies would be nice.

 

Sorry for ranting a bit today, this topic really got me thinking. I hope you enjoyed this post and could relate to some of my picks. Are there any trends that you are tired of in books? (Also i may add another one later as an extra, i had a trend that really bugged me but forgot to right it down and now i’ve forgotten. Let’s hope I remember soon!)