I discovered this tag on BookTube and, because I find myself avoiding many of the most popular books, thought it would be the perfect blog post for me to write! So without further ado, here are 5+ popular books I’ll (probably) never read.
A Really Hyped Book I’m Not Interested in Reading
Anything by Sarah J Maas, Leigh Bardugo, Maggie Stiefvater… I’m just not into the whole supernatural/fae thing that seems to be a hallmark of these authors, not to mention I don’t have much interest in dark books.
That said, a friend gave me a copy of A Court of Thorns and Roses once and I came pretty close to reading it. If I had to read any of these authors’ books, it would probably be that one. But I ended up giving away ACOTAR when I cleaned out my room at the end of my second year of university, before I read it, and I’ve never regretted that decision. As for Six of Crows, I’ve heard a lot about how Kaz is apparently a pretty toxic guy, and I can’t handle toxic relationships—so I have a feeling I would just be totally frustrated throughout the book. I’ve also heard from some bookstagram friends about how dark and gritty the book is in general, which, like I said above, isn’t my thing.
I also wanted to try A Curse So Dark and Lonely but read some reviews and it sounded kind of sketch in the same way as ACOTAR and SOC so I abandoned that idea. It, however, is one that I may well cave on in the future and give it a try anyways—mostly because, ya know, fairy tale retellings. And I do love its cover!
A Series I Won’t Start/Won’t Be Finishing
If you’ve been following my Instagram for a while, you might’ve seen my rave review of Red Queen. I loved that book, but when I started Glass Sword I couldn’t get into it. It felt like my relationship with The Hunger Games: the first book had a great premise and felt fresh, but the moment I returned to those characters in the second book, it just felt dull and overdone. I think the problem is I don’t enjoy the revolt-against-an-oppressive-government storyline, at least as it’s typically done in YA fiction. That’s one of the reasons I enjoyed The Selection, because it never got to the point of the main characters actively revolting per se. The entire Selection series held onto its original freshness, whilst both Red Queen and The Hunger Games lost it, at least for me, after the first book.
A Classic I’m Just Not Interested In
Although I love the classics, Charles Dickens is an author I’ve never been able to fully get into. My dad read A Christmas Carol aloud to us every holidays growing up, but when I tried reading some of his other books they simply didn’t click with me. That said, there are several that do appeal to me more than others, so I actually can’t promise by any means that I’ll never read more of his work! But I can honestly say I’m just not actively interested in Charles Dickens’ books.
A Genre I’ve Never Read
Vampire fiction. *shudders* I never read Twilight because, after reading A LOT about the series (so it’s not like my opinion is uninformed! 😉 ), I came to the conclusion that the relationship is toxic and unrealistic and the writing is underwhelming at best, so it’s just not something I want to spend the time on. And with four fairly hefty books, it would be a pretty big time commitment! The other reason I’ll never read Twilight is because, like I mentioned above, I don’t care for supernatural creatures in fiction, which is why vampire fiction in general is not my genre. The genre also tends to be rather sexualised from what I’ve heard, so that’s just one more reason I’m not comfortable with it.
A Book on My Shelves I’ll Probably Never Read
Because I don’t have all the money in the world, I buy books sparingly, so I’ll probably get around to reading most of my owned books eventually. The only one I can think of that I have barely any interest in is Glass Sword, for the reasons listed above. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get around to it someday, but I have a feeling I won’t bother.
I feel like this was a really negative post and I feel bad about that, so I’ll soon do a post on books I didn’t expect to love as much as I did. My next post, though, will be writing-related, reviewing a writing tool I’m trying out!
Benita J. Thompson 