Dust Jackets

Do you know what I hate?  Dust jackets.  Yep those paper/plastic covers placed over books (mostly hard cover) that are there to protect and add color and pictures to our tomes.  I usually take them off the minute the book is purchased.  Usually 'cause the sound and the slipperiness of it drives me crazy when I am trying to read, but also 'cause the book underneath is usually so much more elegant looking.  I also like how my series that are in hard back look all similar without the dust jacket and even the most ludicrous of books looks awesome on my book shelf when in it's naked glory.

The funny thing is that as much as I hate dust jackets...I can't bear to throw them away...yep I'm a weird one folks.  I don't know if I feel guilty throwing away any part of a book, or feel at some point I might regret getting rid but for some reason they all get kept.  So I now have a big giant pile of dust jackets stashed on the bottom of on of my book shelves just waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.  If any of you have any ideas let me know.  Until then I've gotta go take all the dust jackets of my new books and add them to my stash.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Edits

After reading over 1000 books I have come to realize something...a good editor is critical to a good book.  Seriously one of my biggest book peeves is when a book could have been great...if a good editor had gotten a hold of it before publication.  As a creative person, and as the daughter, sister, friend, wife, and aunt to some insanely wonderfully creative people I have come to realize that knowing when to stop is not always our strong point.  An objective eye is needed to really sell the dream/idea/concept to the rest of the world (I'm sure my blog posts are a perfect example of why we need good editors).  Editors perform any number of tasks, but the main was is making sure the story the author is trying to get across is readable and coherent.

This is never more obvious then the new ability to self-publish online.  Sites like Amazon even provide publishing and outlet services for new authors.  While this is really in cool in that people we would never get to read are now available, for example Andy Weir and his book The Martian.  That being said, I have to mostly avoid reading these tales because the lack of editing is excruciatingly evident.  I firmly believe that no matter how good or how experienced an author you are, a good editor is what takes the book that final step.  Most authors get to close to their story, or forget that the reader is not in their heads and don't have all the information to tie the story together when the author forgets to put whats in their heads onto the page, this is where a good editor is invaluable.  To this end I actually have favorite editors (just in case my super bookworm nerdishness was in question), mostly in relation to short story collections (I'm looking at you Datlow, Windling, and Adams I'll read anything edited by you), but in other capacities as well.  So next time you read a book that has spot on pacing, makes sense, and has minimal typos remember to look on the editor page on give them a quick nod because they have helped your favorite author bring their book to life.  On that note, any volunteers to edit my incoherent ramblings?  Happy Reading Everybody!

Good Writer Bad Books

I have been noticing something in a couple of the books I have read recently.  The writing has been pretty good...the books have been pretty bad.  What do I mean by this?  Hmmm, how to explain.  Well lets take for instance the Divergent Trilogy, I loved the character of Tris, in fact I liked how pretty much all of the female characters were written.  I thought the how the Dauntless faction was written was wonderful and interesting.  But, the books overall were not good, poorly thought out premises, trite and convenient plot twists,and lead males written like 14 year old girls.  To me there were flashes of brilliance, of a competent

writer and it frustrated me that I did not like the book more.  A book I just finished called Gone Girl (rambling coming very soon) which had a similar problem.  The book was page turningly well written, but the book itself was pretty awful.  I get this some times where I am trying to explain why I don't like a book to somebody.  A lot of the times it has nothing to do with the author and everything to do with it is just a bad book, or story, or premise, or characters or something.  I think these books annoy me so much because I want to read something good by these writers.  I see the potential, enjoy the way they write or their style but just cannot stomach a lot of the actual book.  I doubt I am explaining myself very coherently (what else is new : -) ), but hopefully I am getting some of my frustration across.  I just want these authors who are really good writers to write good books!  

Did this post make any sense?  What book have you read that has a good writer, but you still don't like the book?  What about a good book by a bad writer?  How insanely picky am I?

It's Just Like (Insert Name Of Currently Popular Book Here)

Sometimes I hate blurbs, and I almost always hate comparisons in blurbs, you know the ones that go, "If you liked the Hunger Games read this book (Even though the book is about a nursing home where they put on a bake sell to raise money for their hair salon every year, but hey they play Bingo at some point so that's a game so yeah)".  Seriously people not every book has to be compared to the Hunger Games, or Twilight or Harry Potter or Charlaine Harris!  This is most prevalent in YA, with publishers who I am sure are trying to capture some of the magic and big bucks that the popular titles bring in.  I understand that dollars are tight,

but when it is a misleading comparison, I think it just hurts the books credibility.  I know that the author's have very little say on what goes on the cover of their books, and I am sure many hate that their books are being compared or touted as the next (insert currently popular book here) which makes it even worse!  When it comes to genre books people seem to think that the only story set in these is the one that made it currently popular.  Every YA dystopia is now "just like the Hunger Games" when we all know that is just not true.  We have series like The Maze Runner which was in my opinion not only less well written then the Hunger Games, but other then being a dystopia and centering on teenagers (as YA is wont to do) it is completely different.  On the other end of the scale we have excellent books like The Giver (which is being made into a movie, I am partly totally excited and partly terrified they will ruin it!) which was written long before the Hunger Games and other then being a dystopia has very little in common with it.  Yet both of these books have been touted to be similar to the Hunger Games.  It was the same with vampires for a while, forget the original (and scary and disgusting and dangerous) Dracula, nope all vampires now have to be sexy  and brooding and in love with 17 year old girls.  Not every book that has magic in it is the same as Harry Potter (though to be fair those books were/are constantly being compared to The Lord of the Rings and Narnia, which again while all are fantasy are not the same type of story at all!  I guess I understand trying to draw in audience in because 

they read a certain type of book before, but there is so much more to most books then their genre and sometimes plastering another books name all over can be detrimental as well.  I personally did not enjoy the Twilight series very much, so when a book said "for fans of Twilight" all over it, it made me reluctant to pick it up, which potentially sucks 'cause I now know there are some great books (some not even about vampires) that have that blurb stuck all over it.  I understand I am being picky, that this is a marketing technique that obviously works, but still it annoys the crap out of me and makes me want to scream THERE ARE OTHER GOOD BOOKS BESIDES THE CURRENT POPULAR ONE OUT THERE!  But I don't, I try and get past the blurb and read the book on its own merit, loving it, mehing it, or hating it regardless of what the cover says.

What is one of your book pet peeves?  Is it overly picky book bloggers?  How much do the blurbs influence your book buying?

My Literary Pet Peeves

I have finally gotten some time to actually finish (or almost finish) a bunch of books I had started YAY ME! I have also discovered I am a bit of a book snob, expecting the near impossible of my beloved books.  Once again I am going to have to put in a bit of a disclaimer here, this post is in no way bashing books or authors, it's just a post about the part of the whole experience of reading, and to my fellow addicts out there you all know the more you read, the more there is to nit-pick.  OK disclaimer portion of our tour is out of the way on to the whining.  Yep today's post is about my book pet peeves, my literary Achilles heels, my biblo-flys in the ointments if you will.  See the more books I read the more a pattern emerges of things I love about books, and things that really annoy the heck out of me.  Let us explore some of them shall we.

Napkindad

Deus ex machina- this literary device as defined by Wikipedia.org is " 'god out of the machine'; plural: dei ex machina) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object."  This is one of those things I absolutely HATE in books, I can be cruising along, really enjoying a story, thinking what a great author this is when BAM you realize there are only 10 pages left in the book and not a single thing has been resolved.  All of a sudden your long-lost mother who just happens to be an all powerful zombie god-mother who has access to unlimited funds and is also the lead singer in that awesome band you promised your friends you could get tickets to appears and everything is all better...even though the story was about film noir mystery solving monkeys?!?!? (Not a real book but seriously that actually sounds like a kinda cool book)  A word to authors, not everything has to end epically (is that a word?)  not every tiny detail needs to be gift wrapped, and yes we want the end of the book to actually make us feel like reading the whole book was worth it, because to me when you fix something last second with a curve ball that has little or nothing to do with the rest of the book it feels like a waste of time to read the last 200 or so pages.  All that being said I would guess that trying to end a story would be extremely difficult and I myself would have no idea how to write a satisfactory ending to half the books I complain about.

Series that won't end- I hate, hate, hate it when you get almost done with a great story, the author has given you a beginning, middle, and once on little detail is revealed and end...you get to the last couple pages when all of a sudden a bunch of weird characters show up, or the situation just kinda peters out when you realize OH NO they are going to make this into a series!  Now I have nothing against series, if they are either a) planned that way (like Harry Potter) or b) the material is obviously episodic (like Nancy Drew).  When a story feels like it is complete and ESPECIALLY (I really like my caps lock today) when the next books are not anywhere near as good as the first one it feels like the author (and/or publishers) just want's to squeeze extra money out of us.  Along the same idea, I hate it when a series that starts good goes on to long.  I have read triliogies that are awesome then at the back of the last book you see and excerpt for the next book and I'm always bewildered 'cause I thought the story wrapped up nicely.  I have also seen authors who feel there books should be trilogies (what is with the love of trilogies?) when you could usually very easily combine the second two books into a much better story.

Unclear writing styles- this is what I call books that feel like they were written with more then one voice or writer.  There is only one author listed, but it feels like there are disparate viewpoints or styles mixed into one book.  I am not talking about books that have several points of view, but for example, I finished a book about a month ago that the premise was very interesting and the world building came across complete, inventive and mature.  The story itself however seemed very simple and childish, the descriptions were trite and stereotypical.  I am not sure if the author took somebody elses idea's and built a story around them, or if there were actually multiple writers, or if the editors just really screwed up.  These books usually drive me insane because I want to like them so bad, as certain parts are so well written, but the hacky parts are made just that much worse!

To much blatant politicizing-I understand that a book is an expressive art form for an author, and when it is done correctly I don't mind when they try to get a personal ideal or belief into there books, but when it starts to take away from the story, or go into blatant preaching/politicizing to me it just gets obnoxious.  I have read books and series that I love and have been able to mix in these idea's almost flawlessly, and I have read books and series I love where on second reading I skip whole pages and chapters that contribute nothing towards the story.  The exception here obviously is when the book is supposed to be about whatever topic the author is pontificating on.

I want to like a book, but I can't- sometimes I'm not sure why I don't like a book.  The story is fine, there are none of my biggest pet peeves, nothing to offensive, but for some reason I just can't get into the book.  This is usually the most frustrating for me because I always want to like a book, I always go in looking for ways to love a story and when I can't tell you why I don't I feel like maybe it's just me.  Sometimes a person will recommend a book to me and I will be very excited because it seems like my type of genre, or the premise sounds exciting and I crack it open...and nothing.  I keep reading because on many occasions once I get a couple chapters in I can really get into it...but still nothing...kinda like a bad blind date, it looks great on paper but no chemistry in reality.

What are some of your biggest pet peeve?  Can you figure out what books I am referring to with my complaints?  Am I really being too nit-picky? Should the 14 chapter camping scene in the last Harry Potter get it's own special peeve?