Grey Tags // I Hate Classics & I Used to Hate Romance – The Book Snob Tag

It’s Thursday Tag Time!

I was tagged by Jillian @ The Bookish Butterfly to see just how much of a book snob I am.

I wouldn’t call myself a book snob, I’m not going to judge people for what they want to read, go crazy! But I know what I like, and I know what I don’t like for the most part and so I tend to not take people’s book recs seriously unless they are also part of this book world I’ve stumbled in.

The truth is, most people who do read, don’t take it as seriously as us book bloggers do, they likely to look into books too much before reading it. They might read the synopsis or look at the cover or pick up a book by an author they already know they enjoy.

I can say this with some conviction because that was me for most of my reading life, until a few years ago.

And then I fell down the Goodreads hole and now I’m here, spending hours going through my TBR with a fine tooth comb, reading review, after review to make sure this is my kind of book and relying very heavily on the few trusted reviewers with my exact taste in books.

So when someone IRL discovers I read a lot, and they tell me I just have to read [insert hyped, mediocre book here] I politely tell them I’ll look into it and never think about it again.

Okay so maybe I’m a little book snobby but only about my own reading. Which is fine right?

If you would like to buy any of the following books please consider using my Book Depository Affliate link!

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Past Grey Tags

⛈ Grey Tags // Book Adaptations, The Dreaded Classics & Audiobooks – I Should Have Read That

⛈ Grey Tags // My Longest Tag EVER! – TBR Alphabet

⛈ Grey Tags // My Dream WIP Book Cover – Book Bucket List Tag

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The Questions

Do you always read the book before you see the movie?

Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different.
– Stephen King

No. If I haven’t read the book before the film is announced then I’ll usually wait until I’ve watched it before I read the book.

This was my once fool proof plan for always enjoying both, since adaptations were rarely better than the books.

Doing it in this order meant that I enjoyed the film for what it was and couldn’t compare it to the source material yet.

But now they’ve only gone and ruined my plan because the adaptations are getting better and better, some I would argue, are better than the book.

So I don’t know what order I should do it anymore.

The second To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before movie is coming out early next year and I’ll probably read the book for that before the movie comes out but only because I can’t wait until February for more of the story.

And I do want to watch Good Omens before I read the book to work out if I want to read the book.

I guess it’ll just have to be a case by case basis now.

You can only choose one format in which to read books for the rest of your life. Which do you choose: physical books, e-books, or audiobooks?

Life without a Kindle is like life without a library nearby.
– Franz McLaren

This is a cruel question.

I love them all for different reasons and I don’t want to chose dammit.

I guess I gotta pick physical books, but only because I dream of having my own library one day.

Otherwise it would be e-books since they are the most useful since I can read them anywhere and I’m not restricted by genre (audiobooks I can only listen to non-fiction for some reason, fiction just doesn’t sink in).

Would you date or marry a non-reader?

We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows opens and the stars bright.
– Ernest Hemingway

Yes but only if they don’t judge or make fun of me for reading and accept that I will choose books over them more often than is probably acceptable.

But I really would prefer to be in a relationship with a reader, I want to be with someone who gets that part of my life because it is one of the biggest parts.

You have to ditch one genre—never to be read again for the rest of your life. Which one do you ditch?

Good writing is good writing. In many ways, it’s the audience and their expectations that define a genre. A reader of literary fiction expects the writing to illuminate the human condition, some aspect of our world and our role in it. A reader of genre fiction likes that, too, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the story.
– Rosemary Clement-Moore

I don’t like this question either because I read across all genres and I think my life would be any better without one of them. I’m not huge on Scifi but if I can’t read Scifi than I can’t read Schwabs Villains series and I’m not about to do that to myself.

No, I’m not choosing, no one will ever make me choose, it’s not life or death. I’m not doing it.

You can only choose to read from one genre for the rest of your life. Which genre do you choose?

What I wanted were the adventures.
I wanted to wander the world of the dead, wanted to cast spells, and wear battle armor, fight spies and topple empires, and tap into the well of magic I knew was inside me, waiting to be woken, the same way I knew the world was big and strange, even if I couldn’t see it yet.
That is the power of fantasy. Of fiction. Of story. Of words.
–  Victoria Schwab

Again, I hate this question and the only reason why I’m choosing is because I’ve made my own loophole.

So I choose fantasy.

I figure I can read any book as long as one of the genres is fantasy and fantasy can be linked with any genre so there. Fuck your rules.

Which genre do you think receives the most snobbery from the bookish community?

The romance genre is the only genre where readers are guaranteed novels that place the heroine at the heart of the story. These are books that celebrate women’s heroic virtues and values: courage, honor, determination and a belief in the healing power of love.
–  Jayne Ann Krentz

Romance. That’s a no-brainer.

And it’s totally undeserving and sexist and yes I totally contributed to the snobbery for years because internalised misogyny is a fucking dick.

But I’m a changed woman and apparently I have become a romantic in my old age HA. Apparently all it took was to go through another parent separation, and I’m cured.

Have you ever been snubbed for something you have been reading or for reading in general?

It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they liked to read about.
– Sally Rooney

I don’t think so?

I’ve definitely felt my own self inflicted pressure to read classics even though I never like them very much and sometimes just can’t understand them, but I don’t remember ever being judged by others.

I’m also not great at reading social cues so who the fuck knows.

Although in the office I’m working in now, everyone seemed a bit shocked when they asked what I was reading and I said it was a book about women in history because I like learning about history. I guess they were expecting the name of some popular novel everyone’s read.

Also when I said I liked graphic novels, I get the feeling they didn’t know what I was talking about.

I tag

⛈ Annemieke @ A Dance With Books

⛈ Mari @ Musings of a (Book) Girl

⛈ Steff @ Little Booky Nook

⛈ Carrie @ Carrie’s Book Reviews

⛈ Lashaan @ Bookidote

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Past Awards

⛈ Tag // The Blogger Recognition Award

⛈ Tag // The Versatile Blogger Award

⛈ Grey Tags // Shockingly Intelligent and Mind Blowingly Stupid – The Entertaining Blogger Award

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I think there’s one great take away from this tag.

If you come across a book snob, do the world a favour, and throw them in the bin.

What book genre can you not live without?
Which genre do you refuse to read?
Would you date a non-reader?

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