Category: Discussions

How I Read Seasonally

How I Read Seasonally
Posted April 6, 2024
Books, Discussions

Hello again! 👋🏻 It’s been a while since I last posted and I do want to get back into posting regularly, so hopefully this is the first in a lot of regular Saturday posts. For almost the whole time I’ve been blogging, I’ve been a seasonal reader rather than a mood reader. There’s nothing wrong with being a mood reader, especially since most book bloggers are mood readers, but I’ve just never been that way. I’ve always had a very methodical way of reading that has seen different phases (when I was in school, I read two chapters before bed, then in sixth form a quarter of a book every day, now I do about three a day or I divide a book into sevenths to read) so mood reading is something that doesn’t pop into my brain very often. I guess that my seasonal reading could be considered a form of mood reading since the seasons tend to dictate what kind of mood I’m in, but I’ll just stick to ‘seasonal’ for now. Before we get into the post, I have some housekeeping: first of all, I got my Twitter account back! I learned about a little “hack” you can […]

Dead Book Genres

Dead Book Genres
Posted June 10, 2023
Books, Discussions, Ramblings

Hi friends! 👋🏻 Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about genre trends and whether certain tropes or whole genres will make a comeback in the future. A lot of people claim that “elevated horror” is the current big thing thanks to directors like Ari Aster (Hereditery, Midsommar) and some horror movies becoming more cinematic and focusing on psychological elements instead of physical horror, but I don’t really think that’s true. The genres that are popular often reflect the world around us, with some genres being more trendy than others at certain times. Publishing and movie studios like money more than anything so they’ll pump out more and more of the current popular thing until general audiences get sick of it and want to see something else. Think the recent claims of “superhero burnout” or the resurgance in cosy crime books in the UK. There are also genres that die off because of sociopolitical reasons; the messages and tropes that they promote just aren’t considered acceptable to modern audiences and the genre looks stuck in the past. I wouldn’t say that there are a lot of dead genres since genres as a whole tend to be evergreen, but tropes and subgenres are […]

Book Things I’m Sick Of

Book Things I’m Sick Of
Posted June 3, 2023
Books, Discussions

Hello again! 👋🏻 It’s been a while since I made a post, but I’ve missed blogging regularly so now is as good a time as ever to make a comeback! I have never really considered myself to be a very active participant in online book spaces, but I do consider myself to be someone who is very easily annoyed. Almost 13 years of book blogging has made me into a bit of a grouch because I’ve seen so much crap that gets on my nerves. Is a vent post a good post to make for a first post back? Probably not, but this is my grump space and I will grump if I want to. Edit 13/06/23: Better late than never to throw my hat into the ring for 2023’s Book Blog Discussion Challenge! song title titles Usually, I would call this a fanfiction thing, and it’s something that I’ve been guilty of too, but there are so many books now that share their names with songs that I’m bored of them. Off the top of my head I can name You’re the One that I Want (Simon James Green), both Carry On and Wayward Son (Rainbow Rowell), Owner of a Lonely Heart (Eva Carter), Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami), You Should […]

How My Reading Has Changed Over Time

How My Reading Has Changed Over Time
Posted February 16, 2023
Books, Discussions, Ramblings

Hi friends! 👋🏻 Recently I’ve noticed that my reading habits have gone through a lot of changes. Naturally, there’s nothing wrong with reading habits changing but it is interesting for me to notice and compare them to how they used to be. Some of these changes are related to my job, some are down to changes in taste, and some are just because of me getting older. To me, none of these changes are bad or negative, just something interesting that I’ve observed about myself. i read a lot slower now I work five days and a week so I don’t really have the luxury to be reading all the time. I’m not saying that I’ve become one of those ‘I don’t have time to read’ kinds of people because I do still find the time (mainly on commutes, lunch breaks, and before bed) but while I could get through 100 pages in a day before, the amount I read in a day tends to fluctuate depending on how tired I am or whether or not I’m in the mood. It doesn’t really bother me at all because reading a little is better than just not reading at all. i […]

Things in Horror that I Don’t Want to See (and things that i’m glad are gone)

Things in Horror that I Don’t Want to See (and things that i’m glad are gone)
Posted October 27, 2022
Books, Discussions, Movies, Ramblings, Spooky Month

Hi friends! 👋🏻 Horror may be a wonderful genre that tells all sorts of different stories from different parts of the world, but it is not perfect or without its faults. We all have things that we don’t want to see in our favourite genres whether that’s tropes, cliches, character archetypes, or even technical things that don’t have much to do with storytelling. Sometimes we even look back on stories from our favourite genres and see how far they’ve come and we’re glad that some tropes have died out over time. These are some of the things that I’m tired of seeing in horror and some that I’m glad to have been phased out! As always, it’s important to remember that a trope is not an inherently bad thing, it’s just a storytelling tool. What I list here may be something that another person likes, so this is all completely subjective. disability = bad guy My usage of ‘disability’ here is very broad because so many different disabilities have been used as ways of ‘identifying’ the villain to audiences. It could be things like scars, congenital abnormalities, learning disabilities, mental illnesses, and so on. Sometimes it feels like horror writers […]