Happy Sunday Bibliofriends,

It’s the end of January and strangely this feels like such a short month in some respects (Lockdown 3.0 I’m looking at you 🙄) but then in others it seems to have gone at a nice tranquil pace…! The snow has kickstarted my love for the great outdoors so I’ve been making sure to take myself out for a walk as soon as I get home from work. Our village has these lovely trees along the High Street which are all lit up with beautiful white fairy lights so it’s very pretty to walk around in the evenings.

This week’s Six for Sunday was quite a tricky one for me as I found the theme very broad. Today we’re thinking about Bookish Hates and I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go for tropes I found annoying, bookish pet peeves or other random things I don’t like to do with books – so this might all be a mish-mash! For those who don’t already know, Six for Sunday is weekly meme hosted by Steph over at A Little But A Lot.

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Bookish Hates!

1. Reading with the dust jacket on!
   I cannot read a hardback book and keep the dust jacket on it while reading. It just keeps moving around and then I worry about finger prints all over the artwork, or ripping/creasing the cover and I’m just so pedantic over it all that I end up taking the cover off to read the book. My pernickety-ness gets even worse if the hardcover is foiled because then I have to hold it so carefully to try not to rub the foiling off! 🙈
   
   
2. Deja-Vu
   Now this one is probably by own fault because I read so much fantasy, but do you ever have that feeling when you’re reading a book and you’re sure you’ve read it before but you know you can’t have done as the book you’re reading only just came out…? There are so many times I’ve read a plot which is just like another plot and it just puts me into a reading slump. I end up needing to go to a different genre just to get my reading mojo back.
   
   
3. Trending Titles
   Similarly to the above, ever since a book series seems to have gone interstellar there always seems to be releases afterwards which border on plagiaristic titles. Things like ‘A Court of…’ or ‘A ___ of ___ and ___’ (insert various birds, animals, collective nouns, weapons or weather elements here).
   
   
4. The De-Facto Romantic Interlude
   Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the odd swoon every now again when a writer does romance and does it well. But I just can’t help from eye-rolling everytime the MC suddenly falls in insta-love with their sidekick who they’re now suddenly seeing in a new light… it feels like the romance is just shoved in as a tenuous sideplot because there’s clearly nothing else those characters can do in their story anymore. Whatever happened to mutuality and just great friendships?!
   
5. The Cover-Swap
   Yes I am that person that has to have matching editions of a series. It really bugs me when cover designs change halfway through a series and it makes me not want to order the books anymore – either that or secretly order a new set with all matching covers and pretend that they looked like that all along! I have also been known to trawl eBay checking ISBN numbers before I buy – damn those stock photos! 😂
   
   
6. The Photo Cover
   Don’t ask me why but I really don’t like it when there is a photograph of a real person on the cover of a book. It puts me right off and freaks me out a little bit for some reason. Drawings on the other hand, I can totally cope with! 🙃

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What are your bookish hates? Feel free to rant and offload, get all that angry angst about spilled tea, cracked spines and mis-matched book series out… you know you want to! 😂
As always, leave your links below to your own posts or drop me a comment to chat!

T xx