Tuesday, June 11, 2019

My Unpopular Bookish Opinions

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is unpopular bookish opinions. I probably have more, but I stopped at ten for the purposes of this post.

I don't like fantasy.

There are a lot of fantasy books I have liked (Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Tom's Midnight Garden, The Little White Horse, The Owl Service, The Dark is Rising, etc.), so this is not true in all cases, but in general, given a choice between fantasy and any other genre, I will take the other genre. It takes me a lot of time to settle into a fantasy world, and often I have to read and re-read world-building details before they sink in. I feel much more comfortable in reality-based stories.

I'm not interested in the Read-Aloud Revival.

I think I might be the only homeschooling mom in America who doesn't think this podcast/brand has anything to offer. My review of The Read-Aloud Family pretty much explains why.

I hate sexual content in books.

Basically, if there are a lot of sex scenes in a book, I will either a) not pick it up (if I can find out ahead of time), b) skip over those scenes, or c) abandon the book. I especially hate sex in YA because a lot of adults read it, and adults reading about kids in sexual situations is just plain creepy. I wrote a more in-depth post about this last year.

Wonder undermines its own message. 

It's hard to explain why I hate Wonder without spoiling the ending of the book. But if the point of the story is that Auggie is a human being with inherit dignity despite his atypical outward appearance, then it is just as patronizing to be kind to him solely because he has some differences as it is to be cruel to him for that reason.

I don't think kids should just read whatever they want. 

This is the popular opinion among librarians and many parents, but it is not the policy in my household. My kids are still little, but they don't read anything that I haven't approved. They read whatever they want from the shelves to which they have access, and from among the library titles I borrow for them, but they do not blindly select their own reading materials. I largely read whatever I wanted as a kid, and that meant I got to college with a brain equipped for reading the Baby-sitters Club and not much else. 

I don't care for (most of) Brian Selznick's books.

I think Brian Selznick's illustrations for The Doll People series are brilliant, and I loved Baby Monkey, Private Eye. But I was not at all impressed by The Invention of Hugo Cabret or Wonderstruck. After a while, his technique of dramatically zooming in on scenes, characters, and objects just gets repetitive.

The Inquisitor's Tale is offensive. 

Every time I see a glowing review of this book, I have to hold myself back from writing a comment ranting about how grossly offensive it is to Catholics. I'm still so disappointed in the Newbery committee for giving it an honor. My essay-length review of the book is here.

I don't think it matters if you read to your kids every single day.

There are many memes and infographics out there about the benefits of reading to your kids for at least 20 minutes every single day, and I ignore every single one. I read to my kids when it suits us. Some weeks that's every day. Some weeks it's every other day. Some weeks it might be once. And all three of my kids love books, and the oldest one was a very early reader. It matters that you read to your kids regularly but there is no magic schedule that makes it more beneficial.

I enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye

I read this in college for an Independent Study course on young adult literature, and I really liked it. I didn't always like Holden, but Salinger is such a distinctive writer and his style really appealed to me. I think I like his works about the Glass family better than this book, but I don't have the deep-seated feelings of hatred toward it that I see a lot of people expressing online.

It doesn't bother me to own unread books.

The concept of trying to read everything I own would never have crossed my mind if not for seeing so many other people posting their goals related to getting through their unread stacks. I have read a good number of the books we own, but I love that I am also forever surrounded by unread options. Having too many unread books will never be a reason that I don't buy more.

Do you share any of my unpopular opinions?


  1. I'm also not bothered by unread books.

    My TTT.

  2. Yes on the sex in YA! I don't get it and why so often YA has a strong romance. I mean I love romance but reading about teenagers navigating a relationship? No thanks! Unread books don't both me and I think you bring up an interesting point about kids reading whatever they want. I hadn't thought about it like that but definitely agree that there needs to be some moderation and more challenging books mixed in. Also, there are some things I don't think are appropriate for my 9 year old to read!