Side Bar #1: How I Prefer my Books

Some may find that a lot of the books I recommend and review might not be books up to their taste. Now, while this may be true, I probably have a different criteria than you do. For example, I prefer books that don’t base their plot upon just romance. It’s like choosing between Bridgerton and Pirates of The Caribbean, both loved by many but while one has that hint of romance it also has many other things to look forward to. I’m not saying one is better than the other, you may prefer romance over action, but in my case that simply is not the truth. For the record, a lot of the books I like to read tend to have more friendship type relationships rather than the typical romantic relationships that are oh so common in the past, present, and likely future literature.

To continue with the idea of characters, I like reading stories where I can relate to the characters on some level. It is impossible for me to enjoy reading a book when there is no character I would like to see in any of the situations provided within the novel. I mean, most books are built upon their characters and if I can’t even get through a quarter of the book because I don’t like the characters than what does that say about it? I mean nobody watches a movie because the backgrounds look cool, I mean maybe you marvel at a few views and such, but not the entire movie. It would be like watching Jurassic Park except the screen just moves across the sets like it’s a museum for a jungle. A book just isn’t good without good characters. Though I will say, others may like characters that I did not, so before I say I didn’t like the characters maybe check and see if you do first before you completely writing it off. Of course, choosing a book is always up to the reader.

Another thing I tend to look for is information, obviously this depends on the style. I mean, a fantasy novel is going to have different facts than that of a biography. However, I rarely read biographies or other non-fiction pieces because they do get boring. Memoirs are pretty interesting in that category though. Back to information though, if I read a book I want to take away something that doesn’t have to do specifically with the book. I mean, I was reading a book the other day and I learned that the longest javelin throw was just under one hundred meters. So when I pick a book, it will likely be high on my list if it has information about random things because that’s what usually stays in my head.

There’s certainly more things that make up a wonderful book in my mind but, I’ll likely get to those on another post.