Category: Uncategorized
Discussion: Insta-Love
If there’s one thing I hate about YA (and depending on the day, there are multiple things) it’s the fact that all of the main characters seem to fall in Insta-Love. There is, of course, no formal definition for Insta-Love so I usually define it as: “A type of attraction in which the main character becomes obsessed with another character within a short amount of time, usually in under a week. Can result in ridiculous declarations of being ‘soulmates’ or some other variation of the word.”
Okay, I get that you can be very strongly attracted to someone you just met. It’s happened to me before. However, you can’t proclaim ‘love’ on the basis of someone’s looks alone, as seems to happen in YA so much. The (usually) female main character will look at a boy and immediately think of him as ‘cute’, ‘hot’ or ‘handsome’ and spend the next few days mooning over him and generally making a fool of herself. Then, when the boy seems to return her interest, she proclaims that their love is real and everlasting.
Yuck.
Teenage love can be more than a little obsessive because of hormones and a general lack of life experience. But really, not all teenagers are immediately going to fall in love with the nearest good-looking person. That’s why it baffles me why Insta-Love seems to occur in so many YA novels. Of course the polar opposite of Insta-Love is the now cliché Slap-Slap-Kiss when main characters hate each other and then suddenly start making out and proclaiming their love. But that’s a discussion for another time.
Now I want to hear from you: What do you think of Insta-Love? Is it healthy for novelists to portray this as a legitimate type of love when their books are aimed at a teenage audience? Are you as tired of Insta-Love as I am? Or do you think a little Insta-Love is okay?
One Month to go in The Mad Reviewer Reading Challenge!
Yes, it’s November 30th and almost the end of another year. My second blogging anniversary is coming up in January, but more importantly my reading and reviewing challenge will be coming to an end at 11:59pm on December 30th. I’m hoping to announce winners the very next day, but it may be a couple days afterward as I collect the names and enter them into my draw.
So I’m basically finished. I’m going to review a few long books (Cleopatra’s Memoirs, 11/22/63, etc.) and then add any of the long books I didn’t count from the rest of this year. I’ve read and reviewed far more than 104 books this year and although I won’t reach my 500 review goal I’m pretty happy with how this blog has been running.
My question for you guys now is: If you’re participating in the challenge, do you think you’re going to finish? What level are you finishing? Will you try again next year?
And if you’re not involved in the challenge, read all about it here and tell me this: would you like to participate in the 2014 version? Why or why not?
Discussion: Book Memes
A lot of bloggers do memes and book bloggers are no exception. Waiting on Wednesday, Musing Mondays, Top Ten Tuesdays, the list goes on and on. But memes are interesting in that not all bloggers do them or even like them.
As you guys have noticed, I’ve kind of stayed away from memes (other than my failed attempt at a Spotlight one). This is not because I hate them but rather there are other things I want to talk about. I want to do my own thing; I always have. If I want to post a discussion on a Friday rather than a Saturday, I can do that. If I want to do a top ten list, I can do it whenever I feel like it. I know you’re not obligated to post memes weekly, but it is sort of expected.
As for other blogs, I don’t mind memes. If someone does only memes that gets rather annoying, yes, but for the most part I see nothing wrong with them. I just don’t want to do them. They’re not for me.
But what I want to know now is: If you’re a blogger (particularly a book blogger), do you do memes? Why or why not? As a reader, do you like reading meme posts?
“Why do People Hate Naked Men?” and Other Weird Search Terms
*warning possible sexual assault triggers*
I talk a lot about statistics here on my blog, mainly because when I started blogging I noticed very few bloggers do. It confused me and I would like for new bloggers to be able to see what realistic expectations are when they start blogging. That, and sometimes I just love hearing your thoughts on statistics and the way I analyze them.
But there’s one type of statistic I haven’t covered: search engine terms.
On an average day I get around 100 referrals from search engines and a lot of them make sense. Terms like ‘hunger games and ancient rome’ or ‘game of thrones women’. I’ve written a lot about these topics and I like to think that I wrote about them quite well, which is why more people find them. Terms like the examples I’ve provided make sense, but every blogger knows that along with the logical terms you’re going to get some really weird and/or scary search terms. Here are a few of the weirdest:
why do people hate naked men?
explicit sex scenes
mad concubine
really scary people
how to make your kids look like nerds
rape girls
nerd mode
illinois child support disbursement
mature rape
nude actress
Okay, my blog is what I consider to be family-friendly. I don’t swear often and I try not to explicitly discuss things like gore or sex. And yet, what search terms do I get? ‘rape girls’, ‘mature rape’, etc. Yes, I have touched on the topic of rape when it comes up in novels. So now I have reaffirmed my faith that the internet is dark and full of terrors.
As for some of the other stuff, it doesn’t even make sense. ‘illinois child support disbursement’? I’ve never, ever written about Illinois, child support or disbursements that I know about. I can’t fathom how many pages someone had to go through on Google to get to my little blog.
Of all of these search terms, I think the strangest one I’ve ever had is “Why do people hate naked men?” Um…I really have no reply or explanation for that. Especially since I’ve never written about hating (or loving, for that matter) naked men. I’ve mentioned naked men and how people seem to be such prudes about naked bodies in my Game of Thrones article, but I just find it odd that someone would even search that question. Personally, I have nothing against naked men. Or women, for that matter. Obviously someone somewhere does.
So what do you guys think of some of these terms? If you’re a blogger, what’s the weirdest search term you’ve ever had show up?
Discussion: Do Reviews Affect Your Book Buying Decisions?
Due to the fact that I’ve had a lot of free time this week, I’ve been thinking about my blog a lot more. What is the point of reviewing? Do people read my reviews? Is having a lot of reviews from book blogs a plus for self-published authors?
Of all of these questions, one really stuck in my mind. Do reviews affect your book buying decisions? For example, if you see that a book has a lot of five star reviews on Amazon that sound legitimate and offer reasons for their praise, does it make you more likely to read the book? Or, if you find that your favourite book blogger has reviewed a book do you go check it out and maybe buy it?
Personally I look at books that interest me and then look at the reviews on Amazon and/or Goodreads. What were some of the pluses? What were some of the things reviewers didn’t like? Reviews aren’t the be-all end-all factor in my book buying decisions, but they sure do have some influence. Another thing I’ve noticed is that if one of my book blogger friends has reviewed a book and I think it sounds cool I am much more likely to go out and buy that book because I become aware of its existence. Maybe that’s just me.
So my question for you guys is this: Do reviews affect your book buying decisions? Why or why not? And if so, to what extent?