When hype kills a book
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| My tower of expectations |
Now one might make an argument for personal preference and say that both the book and the character just weren't for me but I honestly believe that if I had picked up this book knowing nothing about it, I would have been pleasantly surprised. Maybe I wouldn't have loved the book, but I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more because I wouldn't have been waiting impatiently for that great thing to happen that would knock my socks off.
Just so we're on the same page, this isn't something that's uncommon with me. I get this way about movies and TV shows, too. Back when The Dark Knight hit the theaters, everyone (EVERYONE) kept telling me that I would absolutely LOVE the movie and they couldn't wait to see my reaction. The movie was so built up in my head before I ever watched it that I was completely disappointed when I wasn't in orgasmic movie heaven withing the first minute or two. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I've never managed to watch that entire movie because of this. (although now that I'm talking about it I'm tempted to give it another try)
On the opposite side of the coin, I had some fears when I was getting ready to read Paris' book in the Lords of the Underworld series. His story was so tragic and the buildup had already spanned so many books that I worried that he wouldn't get the story I thought he deserved. I'm very, very pleased to say that my fears were unfounded in this case because Paris' book was everything I needed it to be and more. Gena Showalter took his story and wrote the shit out of it and I loved every minute of it. Don't you love it when authors do that?
So, tell me your dirty secrets - What book did you find lacking (that you might have otherwise enjoyed) because the hype around it left you expecting the moon and the stars? Alternately, what book did you end up loving because you had no expectations?
Not to set any expectations but if you spill your secrets, I'll spill mine.
Usually when books are hyped a lot, my natural reaction is to: a) avoid all the hype and/or b) assume that I'll have the opposite reaction. You know, like it's an odds game. When everything goes one way, it can't last that way forever. I think this allows me to balance out the hype whenever I go into a book.
ReplyDeleteHa! I did neither of those and ended up disappointed. I think I'm going to take a page from your book in the future. Although, The Avengers kinda rocked my socks off and everyone was talking about (and still is) that movie for a while.
DeleteIt's kind of a reaction that I can't stop. I'm currently feeling this way about The Immortal Rules. Everyone has loved it SO MUCH that I'm beginning to think that I'm not going to fall into that category. I think all the hype makes me go, "Can a book really be THAT good?"
DeleteAmanda, Small didn't love it. In fact, she DNF'd it. http://smallreview.blogspot.com/2012/06/dnf-immortal-rules-by-julie-kagawa.html
DeleteI've been having the same feelings about The Immortal Rules. I don't want to start it because I'm afraid of the disappointment. There's also the fact that I wasn't a great fan of the Iron Fey series. Of which I've only read one.
Amanda: I'm a huge sucker for a well-written broken society and The Immortal Rules delivered that for me. I think I was lucky that I read it before it came out because I really had no expectations toward it. I hope you end up giving it a chance eventually (and I assume you will since you own a copy) and it doesn't totally let you down. If not, I will totally (TOTALLY) bear the burden of taking your copy off your hands.
Deletelol. Kelly, if I don't like The Immortal Rules, my signed copy is ALL YOURS.
DeleteDude. You rule! I still hope you end up liking the book, though.
DeleteMassive build up that killed the book? That has Twilight written all over it. I think I would have found it a lot more enjoyable if I wasn't waiting for Edward to turn into the sex god everyone said he was.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite a lot like Amanda now, I try to avoid most of the hypes. Unless someone I really trust has read the book and thinks I will like it, I'm staying away from it.
*pauses* Edward was a sex god? I... uggh. All I can envision is RPattz as Edward when I read that and I do not find him attractive so ... ewwww.
DeleteThe book in question was a book that a lot of people who have similar reading tastes as I do had been talking about. I thought it would be a good fit for me. Alas, it was not.
The Hunger Games and Lola and the Boy Next Door. Two of the biggest let-downs for me. In the case of The Hunger Games, I'd held off from reading it for as long as possible. I had both family and friends telling me how utterly AMAZING it was, so I finally caved.... and was severely disappointed. In the case of Lola, I'd been still riding out the hype of Anna and the French Kiss, and it didn't help that so many bloggers had gotten ARCs and been going on and on about its greatness. I'd LOVED Anna, though, so I'd also created my own hype about Lola. And it just didn't live up to any of my expectations. :/
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, I had no expectations for Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and holy cow did that blow me away. One of the best reads EVER.
Lola is on my To-Read list right now and I'm very excited for it just because I loved Anna so much. Lol. We'll have to see how that turns out.
DeleteOMG! Daughter of Smoke and Bone was AMAZING. I hadn't heard much about it except that Amanda told me that she thought I'd like it and I was BLOWN AWAY LIKE WHOA. Fantastic, fantastic book!
This exactly describes my disappointment with the Kate Andrews series. I expected MASSIVE THINGS based on others reactions and it just didn't deliver for me. :(
ReplyDeleteAnd your disappointment is always why I generally try not to push books on people. It's an expectation thing.
DeleteI will say that the series gets better with every book. However, I totally understand what you're saying. Some books just don't resonate with others the way they resonated with us.
DeleteI own the next three books of the series (even got my mom reading them) so I'll probably read them... eventually. When I'm in a book funk, I'll probably pick it up. Especially since I definitely need to impose a book-buying ban on myself.
DeleteAhhh. The book buying ban. How well I know thee!
DeleteI honestly have not been affected, to my conscious knowledge, by other's opinions of books. While I will definitely push a book up the list if my trusted book friends loved it, I will also read a book I want to even if the majority of my friends did not enjoy it. I'm am of the mindset that we all bring different life experiences and reading standards/likes to the table, so we can't possibly always agree. You've heard this from me before. I shall leave now. :)
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely correct about this. I totally love that you have this attitude and that you're vocal with it. We are all shaped by different experiences and they make us wonderfully unique.
DeleteMy let downs were Fairy Metal Thunder. It just rung in at nice middle grade type. Maybe it was because I hadn't read Jenny Pox yet. I'm looking around at the fact that all these other blogger friends loved it. *hangs defected head*
ReplyDeleteI was also a little disappointed at Shade & Shift. I'm not to Shine yet. Like the premise. Like the characters most the time. But the whole virginity thing had me wanting to gouge my eyes out.
Pleasant surprises. These were talked about, but I'd pretty much ignored it for whatever the reason. I went into Daughter of Smoke & Bone, The Scorpio Races & The Fault in Our Stars pretty blind and they rocked my face off.
The Songs of Magic series is definitely more middle grade/early YA. I'd have to say that the books get stronger as the series progresses, though. Fairy Metal Thunder was probably the weakest of the bunch. However, I still enjoyed it. And you're right, it might be because I *really* loved Jenny Pox. I don't know.
DeleteI haven't read Shade and the rest of that series but that's another one that I've heard so much about that I'm almost afraid it can't live up to my expectations.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone was *flail flail* fantastic! I was blown away by it. Didn't see that one coming AT ALL!
It's funny - I find that I rarely read reviews anymore, for exactly this reason! If I see a book *being* reviewed a lot I'll look it up on GoodReads, and usually the summary is enough to tell me whether I would like it or not. If I'm still undecided THEN I'll start looking at reviews. It's a pretty good system, though it does mean I get a few duds that I probably could have found out about beforehand. But yeah, I'm like Smash on this - I know we're all different, and I want to form my own opinion, so I try not to be affected by hype. "Try" being the operative word there... lol
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, I'm pretty similar to you. I don't really read reviews on books I haven't read beforehand (I had a terrible experience with being spoiled on a plot point for a book I had been DYING to read once and it RUINED the book for me) unless I'm torn on whether or not I'll like it. With the book in question, it was more general buzz about how much people had loved it than anything else. I just kept expecting something momentous to happen while reading it and it never did.
DeleteHype is awful and seriously, potentially ruinous. BUT. I actually had a pretty positive experience with the hype for Die for Me. I expected to love it. After all, some of my favorite bloggers did. When I read it, however, I thought it was terrible. After my initial feelings of "What's wrong with me?" I remembered that not everyone's taste is the same, and that just because everyone else loves a certain book doesn't mean I will.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, hype can get you to consider reading an author or genre or book in general that you might not have known about. So there's definitely a plus side to having people be excited about a book. In this case, the hype worked against me. *sad face*
DeleteI tweeted last night cause I was no where near my computer so you already knew my book choices but I 140 characters couldn't catch my thoughts LOL. Sometimes I do think that to much hype can lead to a downfall for me especially if I am struck with moodiness at the same time. I am lucky in that I am primarily an adult book reader and it seems "huge over the top hype" doesn't happen much. However, it happens a LOT in the YA realm because it is the hot thing right now.
ReplyDeleteUsually to combat this, I read them WAY after everyone else aka Divergent or I just skip it all together aka The Immortal Rules. :)
I have Divergent sitting unread on my bookshelf and I'm both excited and a little scared to read it. I'll give that one a little more time, I think.
DeleteHmm... since I'm one of the people who 'hyped' the book in question, I'm not exactly sure where I fall in this discussion.
ReplyDeleteI don't 'bully' nearly as often or as well as even some of the people who have commented here. *cough* Amanda - Kelly - Smash *cough*
I do understand the hype logic though. I don't jump into a series just because everyone else loves it. There are some series that I still haven't started. Divergent is one of them. Just like there were 3 books released in the MI series before I started it. I really do like that series, but ID is still my favorite Cassie Clare series.
So, has hype ruined any books for me? Not really, but hype also hasn't made me read a book either. I think Felicia is right, it happens more with YA books than adult. Maybe that's a topic for another time ;)
Once again Kelly, thanks for giving us something to think about.
Heh. No worries, Shirley! I actually owned the book for quite a while before I sat down to read it. I did expect that it would be something I liked (let's face it, vampires aren't all that far out of my comfort zone!), but I never quite caught the fever. Although, maybe if I had read it when I first picked it up I wouldn't have had all the expectations about it. I don't know.
DeleteWhat about the more subtle, though? If you see that a dozen of your blogging pals rate series A as a must read series, don't you expect to like that series simply because so many people whom you trust with similar taste liked it? That's not the glitzy hype, but it's still hype.
I know a lot of people who LOVE the Midnight Breeds series by Lara Adrian. I read book 1 and wasn't that impressed. However, as I'm getting farther into the series, I'm enjoying it more so I can understand why people said that they loved it. That said, I also think I expect more of an established series that I'm just stepping into than I do of brand new series, regardless of author.
True, the subtle hype really does influence my choices. I depend on a lot of my blogging pals to help me find the 'next great read.' I mean really, how many books have you and Amanda lovingly suggested I read? If a bunch of you are chatting a book up, I've just got to pick it up. Sometimes it's literary love and sometimes I just like it, but I've never been really disappointed that I picked any of them up either.
DeleteI also find myself gravitating toward familiar authors even when I start a new series. Which is why it was an easy choice to pick up Immortal Rules. I already knew I liked Kagawa's writing, so it was safe. That's really the only reason that I eventually picked up City of Bones. I loved Clockwork Angel and I wanted more. I'm not sure I would have picked it up when I did, if it weren't for CA. I guess that's reverse hype because the MI books definitely get more than the ID books get.
Sometimes it takes me a while.... do you know how long I had Dark Lover sitting in my shopping cart at Amazon before I finally bought it? Look where that got me. ;)
There are still series that I haven't started and I'll probably wait on. I've got enough books on my shelf that I have no problem waiting until a series has a couple of books 'under its belt' before I pick it up.
I'm with you on all of this. I have plenty of books/series that I'd like to try at some point, but I'm overwhelmed by the number of books I currently own that I haven't read yet. So, those "want to try" books get pushed to the back. Regardless of hype.
DeleteI'm avoiding "50 Shades of Grey" like it's a plague victim! In this instance, the hype is a MASSIVE turn-off for me. It's not just the hype though, this book has gotten rave reviews from people who read, like, 3 books a year and probably have considerably lower standards than I do. IF I ever did read this book (which is highly unlikely), I would not only expect to blown away, but I will scrutinize the shit out of it and frankly, that's just too much pressure!
ReplyDeleteI think there's only been one book that I read expecting to love it and ended up disappointed and that was "The Scorpio Races" by Maggie Stiefvater. I had read her some of her other books and enjoyed them and since that one has gotten good reviews, I figured "why not?" *insert buzzer sound* I had to concede that it just wasn't for me.
I don't mind some hype though, particularly if it comes from bloggy pals who I trust! Sometimes it does in fact pay off...I was "hyped" into read "Jenny Pox" and that one actually did blow me away.
♥Isalys / Book Soulmates
I'm avoiding 50 Shades of Grey also. Beyond the hype, which has reached the point where I want to stab myself in the eye whenever I see people talking about it, I've read a couple of excerpts that did not impress me. The writing felt stiff and clunky. I've had people tell me that the writing's not that good and that's a big turn off to me when EVERYONE'S talking about the damn book. You know? If the only reason these people are excited about it is because it's about a forbidden yet suddenly mainstream topic (which also annoys the shit out of me because BDSM has been around a fuck of a lot longer than this book), why don't I just go read a well-written BDSM book instead? I OWN SEVERAL AND THEY'RE ACTUALLY GOOD!
DeleteLet me quietly climb down off my soapbox now.