Happy Top Ten Tuesday over at That Artsy Reader Girl! Unpopular bookish opinions--I feel like we've been down this road before! Do I have any unpopular bookish opinions I haven't already shared? Hi, I'm Miriam, and I hate Mr. Darcy (really. hate. him.) 😛. Let's see if I can conjure up some unpopular bookish opinions for the 2020s.
- I'm not a big fan of enemies to lovers--in fact, it makes me NOT want to read a book (I do anyway sometimes because there are so dang many of them, but fortunately, a lot are mislabeled).
- I AM a big fan of friends to lovers--these don't seem to be as popular, but I love seeing friendships deepen into relationships, and I think these are a lot more realistic anyway!
- I'm not a Sarah J. Maas/ACOTAR fan *gasp*--To be fair, ACOTAR is the only one of her books that I've read, so I wouldn't write her off entirely and would maybe try Throne of Glass or something else. But 1) I'm tired of the "the series gets better as it goes on" party line. Yes--that is very often true, of many fantasy and other series. But there are also plenty of series I can read where I actually enjoy the first book--AND then also get to enjoy better second, third etc. books. And 2) My actual issue with ACOTAR is the power imbalance in the relationship between Tamlin and Feyre, and yes I know she ends up with the other guy, but that doesn't preclude similar power imbalances and/or consent continuums that I'm not here for popping up in later books, and I don't need to worry about it when I can just...read other books.
- I'm done with dystopias--Probably not actually an unpopular opinion, seeing the rise of cozy fantasy and hopepunk (which I am 100% here for), but some people are still reading/watching Station Eleven, The Handmaid's Tale etc., and you'd have to pay me a lot of money to do that right now.
- I'm not especially worried about AI "authors"--I think this will probably end up panning out like ebooks--there will be a craze, we will have a lot of AI kids' books, coloring books, cookbooks, and similar "low-content" books flooding the market. However, right now, AI isn't sophisticated enough to write coherent novels or even short stories, and even when it is, it lacks the--you guessed it--human element. Part of the appeal of books, especially these days, is connecting with the author, online, yes, which AI could maybe technically do, but also at events. Hearing the author speak. Imagining the author's life, thought, and writing process. That's no fun if we know it was randomly generated by a bot. I think AI books will have their place, but they won't replace the demand for books by real human authors.
And that's all for now, folks!
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