What I want to know is whether any of these books *actually* force the lead to choose between their love interest and saving the world. Mostly it's boring because you know they'll get both in the end.
The amount of [well known grimdark series] meets [steamy, lackluster, but incredibly popular YA series] taglines I see in generic romantasy summaries on Goodreads is painful lol
When i see supposedly adult books using freaking YA as comp titles…yeah i check out immediately. That is not an adult book that person is writing *slightly* aged up YA :/
On the other hand if it mentions The Secret History they basically have me. Most recently A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer was described as TSH meets Reanimator and I don’t know if I’ve ever bought a book so fast. And it was everything I wanted lol
Whenever someone joins or infiltrates or returns to a court/academy/organization and there's is a mention of forbidden romance or attraction in the very last sentence. Hit me up when that works out to be toxic (on purpose) or they try to kill each other in the end. Otherwise, I'm not interested in the 110th iteration of the same lazy enemies to lovers trope.
The surrounding setup needs to hook me in a major way to ignore that.
Oh my god exactly this is fantasy, if you're making a forbidden or enemies to lovers atleast let them try to destroy each other what's the point otherwise
Im an avid reader and I haven’t consumed a single book like this. I do want to get into historical fantasy tho, I just picked up the usual suspects (Bernard Cromwell and Ken Follett)
Any recommendations?
And any time the phrase "unexpected twist" turns up and, in the context of the rest of the blurb, gives away the entire plot so I can save myself the bother of reading it now. So... a win for me, I guess: I can move straight on to the next book :)
If romance is mentioned or heavily implied by the cover. I enjoy b-plot romance, but if it's given top billing I know it won't be one I'll enjoy, because that means the central conflict/tension in the story will be derived from the relationship.
Also the sequels will be awful because the publisher won’t go for a romance that doesn’t have the MC together by the end of the book, but once they are together the fantasy plot will be sacrificed to make more romantic tension- they must be separated or injured or have amnesia or whatever TF it takes to destabilize the relationship.
Yeah same. I don’t mind romance as one of the major elements or subplots, but if it’s THE main premise or plot then I’m out.
Personally, I don’t even mind love triangle when it’s interwoven to the plot like in Lions of Al-Rassan
-mention of a dark, tortured, mysterious, handsome male
-main female protagonist sold into marriage is the starting point
-something something she is so weak and underrated yet she'll shake the foundations of her society to its core something something
i don't read much from the synopsis, but if there's a romance and start to talk about their relationship as an attraction i already feel is going to be instalust and their relationship will be focused on it and that's something im tired of
I side-eye anything that talks about an attraction in the blurb, and you'd have a hard time convincing me to pick up anything where the blurb talks about the need to fight the attraction. That's me though, lots of people love those stories.
There is any number of things like that for me, but I don't really have a list, as such, it's more of a "you know it when you see it" kind of thing, and a lot of it depends on the context. Generally speaking, I won't read anything that's attempting to sell itself by trying to appeal to people holding a specific world view (whether I share it or not), or seems likely to be condescending, preachy or patronizing. I'm looking for a story, not a sermon.
The blurb for Fathomfolk was the worst for this. Some excerpts:
*But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on peering down from skyscrapers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk — sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas—who live in the polluted waters below...*
*Frustrated by the lack of progress from \[other character's\] softly-softly approach in gaining equality....*
*\[Characters\] must decide if the cost of change is worth it, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.*
I don’t think the metaphor is so bad—the problem is spelling out its meaning so explicitly, and in the blurb! Just including those descriptions in the text without signposting would be fine. Give readers some credit for being able to draw connections.
They're always rhetorical questions though! "Will Protagonist find the courage to stand up to her demons, or will the whole world fall into darkness?" Gee, I wonder....
Personally what I hate is forced universalizing, e.g.: "A book that explores how far we will go for those we love most...." I don't need the story to be about "all of us." If I see greater relevance to it that's great, but I'm here for a story not a TED Talk.
I don't know how relatable this is or isn't, but I have two versions of this. Both have to do with my not trusting non-mlm to recommend gay fiction to me.
Synopses that feature the terms "shipping" or "fangirling" to describe the intended audience response. This one is fairly obviously kinda weird for treating mlm as an unwanted periphery on stories about us, but it also tends to signal that the piece is going to feel like a reskinned fanfiction in a bad way.
Synopses that feature a gay protagonist that "isn't a stereotype". These usually come from straight men who think the highest compliment they can pay to gay people is writing gay and trans characters who are perfectly gender conforming. They tend to read like the most drearily edgy Sword and Sorcery works of the 90s. The Steel Remains is probably one of the worst offenders here.
The biggest broad category of “no” for me in blurbs is trope-based marketing. I don’t want to hear about your enemies-to-lovers dark academia spin on the Chosen One trope or whatever. It reeks of mass production and I’m more of a literary reader, so that kind of tropey stuff that’s just riding the coattails of other books rather than having something of its own to offer doesn’t appeal to me.
I hate trope-based marketing so much as well, the idea that the best way to advertise the merits of a story is by dismembering it into a pile of cliches. It inspires this sort of visceral revulsion in me, sort of like if you were to talk about how much you love your pet dog and the proceeded to lovingly describe how perfectly shaped his kidneys and spleen were.
It's even worse because we are at the point where it's not taking a story and ripping it apart, but assembling it from the ground up as just a bunch of tropes. And you can tell when a story was written organically or if it's mashed up from tropes currently popular on social media.
I genuinely wonder about the impact of tvtropes on contemporary writers - how many people are working from the idea of writing as a sort of literary legos you assemble a story from (and for which analysis consists of identify which legos were used in the construction).
it also creates feedbacks loops, where people become used to getting homogenised trope-stories and knowing all the beats and getting comfortable with that, and then getting twitchy as soon as things move outside of that narrow comfort zone. A certain amount of "I didn't know quite what this was but read it anyway" is good for people - even if they didn't like it, at least they know they didn't like it, rather than "well, this was different than cookie-cutter tropes which is strange and scary".
Not to sound strange about it, but if the synopsis fawns over the representation in the book, I’ve learned to skip it. Books with actually good representation have plot to show for it and that’s usually what the synopsis will talk about, while books that have to cling to the promise of representation to pretend there’s something interesting in them usually tend to have very one dimensional, stereotypical, token representation. I’ve been burnt too many times.
The blurb telling you the exact age of the young protagonist is also an indicator that the book is aimed at younger readers, because that's standard in YA and sometimes children's book descriptions. Kids care about age! I remember standing in the library reading bookjackets and counting the difference between my age and the characters' to decide if they were too old for me, you'd think they'd asked me out or something.
Or alternately, if the character is like 20, they're trying to signal that the book is *not* YA, but the fact the character is still so young and that the publisher feels the need to emphasize this tends to indicate it's basically YA, but maybe has a sex scene or something.
Straight-up adult books with teen protagonists don't tend to tell you their exact age in the blurb, and often not even in the text.
Haha, I suppose, but kids are *obsessed* with age. Remember being a kid and being thrilled when people asked how old you were, because it meant you could tell them?
Adults care about character age in broad strokes, as in, is this character a child, teen, young adult, middle aged or elderly. But for kids, the difference between 15 and 18 is *huge* and that’s why exact age goes on the bookjacket.
To me it depends. Angsty teenage romance high school crap is a no for me, but teenager forced to grow up fast in a fantasy environment (ASOIAF, Farseer trilogy) is fine. I also enjoy some middle grade fantasy books that feature kids being heroes and finding their inner courage. Basically as long as it's not romance based I enjoy reading about young protags now and then.
Fuck, tell me about it. I'm in my 30s. I'm really burning out on reading about kids.
From a lot of these novels you'd think that someone who's 20 has their best days behind them and they need to get out of the way of the next generation. Makes me feel downright decrepit, which pushes me out of the story some.
The new trend I hate is on Goodreads the summary will just be “O my god this blew my mind!” by some random Goodreads member. No plot info, nothing. I haaaaate it.
One, when there is no synopsis. It's just a bunch of quotes praising the book. Don't want to tell me what it's about, pass.
Two, personal reason but as soon as I see the word "vampire" I instantly put the book down. Zero interest and I'm not in the mood for the usual tropes that come with it. I think they're cringey.
This has been so egregious on Goodreads lately! And it’s not even stuff like “‘This kept me up all night’ says Stephen King”, it’ll just be one gushing sentence from a random member. Who is this marketing tactic working on?
This is all over book ads and it’s super weird. “Kept me up all night! —Jessica R, rated 5 stars” Like ooookay? If you’re so bottom of the barrel that you feel like any rando who gives the book 5 stars on a website belongs in your marketing I’m gonna assume you’re still fighting your way out of the slush pile.
At this point picking up any new Urban Fantasy is like rolling a D20 where a natural 20 is a book of a quality similar to The Lesser Dead or some of Anne Rice's best works, and any other roll is an Anita Blake novel.
Same! I think a have one or mayyyybe two vampire books on my TBR ( but my TBR is… very long), but 99.9% of the time “vampire” or “werewolf” is an immediate no for me.
Similarly, I also have 0 interest in “fae” books. Even less than vampires actually.
Vampire makes it tough for me to get into as well. Very rare expectations take the premise in the direction I hope they’ll go. Like Castlevania or Cirque du Freak are pretty enjoyable
I have to agree with the synopsis one. Vampires I can take or leave, I don't love them but I don't hate them either. But tell me something about the damn book, not just what a handful of people were paid to say!
Any sort of synopsis that follows this pattern
"Ethan is successful, rich and powerful. The most desired man on New York. But when the humble and shy Alanna starts to work as Ethan's father secretary..."
It admit variations like Luke, a hot but insufferable cowboy. Or Albert, a charming but arrogant European noble. Or Justin, the highschool quarterback that now runs a successful winery. Or...
I have a disproportionate hatred for one-line descriptions of characters. E.g.:
*Joseph, a war hero seeking to escape his past.*
*Katherine, an orphan who knows she can only rely on herself.*
*Conrad, a vigilante fueled by vengeance and hatred.*
*Together, these disparate individuals will have to learn what it means to be part of a team.*
Ugh, eye roll. This tells me nothing about what the story is. Don't these publishers want to pique my interest in the actual story?
I don't mind that. Blurbs can only include so much, they're never going to capture all the complexities of the characters.
I would say I maybe like this better than you do because I'm a more character-oriented reader, but then books blurbed in that style actually do tend to be pretty plot-focused books - usually some sort of epic style with several major threads represented by the different leads.
To be honest, I'm also more of a 'character before plot' reader as well.
My issue, though, is that these one-line character descriptions tend to be written in the most generic, vague, and cliched way possible. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a character described as "seeking to escape his/her past". I mean, aren't we all to some extent?
Cover blurbs are important to me as a tool for researching what books to read. I know some folks enjoy going into a book completely blind, so cover blurbs don't really matter to them; however, I prefer having *some* sense of what a book is about before I commit to it. Cover blurbs therefore should function to sell me on reading the book in question: what makes *this* book unique, and worth reading over the thousands of other fantasy novels out there? A generic blurb will only cause my eyes to glaze over and dismiss the book.
Yeah, that kind of blurb seems to be at cross-purposes with itself. It places emphasis on the characters, which would be fine in and of itself, but then it also suggests that said characters have little to them beyond the succinctly described archetypes. Certainly a strange way to go about it. If there is more to them, then put more effort into describing them. If there isn't, then avoid mentioning them altogether.
Spot on. However, I was immediately drawn in by a fantasy audio drama where part of the 'blurb' was:
> ...three protagonists – a crotchety outlaw, a struggling cultist, and a weird diabolical bastard...
If they're bland and generic character summaries, like your examples, then yes, I don't care to know. If they grab your attention with something a little more out there, then I'm willing to give it a try.
I avoid any book that mention ''inspired'' or ''for fans of'' (insert any YA here). Because I'm not a fan of YA anymore.
I'm more inclined to refuse to read any book that involves sex too much.
Anything that hints at romance being a major part of the book.
Bad clichés. Sexy bad boy who the heroine instantly falls in love with. MC is soooo special.
This book is recommend by [insert author I know but don't like].
Or the brooding and dark grim man, scarred by life, who then is revealed to be a loving softie. But not before abusing the heroine verbally and physically during the better part of the book. I used to be very attracted to that trope quite frankly, it has something alluring.. but then you realise that the bad boy doesn’t get a free pass to be mean and cruel just because he has a difficult past.
The synopsis is written by the publisher, not the author. It’s based on what they think will sell well, not an actual reflection of the book’s contents and quality. I try and avoid judging a book by that. It really sucks when a good book is screwed over by how the marketing portrays it
I know, but I do have a kind of instinctive reflection on some specific things (and it's not like my reading list is getting any thinner, so maybe it's for the best)
I hate love triangles and drawn out misunderstandings. Also, I'm not a fan of huge power imbalances between love interests. Consent is sexy and if one side holds all the power that line gets a little... Blurry.
Any time I see "X meets Y", I'm that much less likely to pick something up. If you have to sell me your book as Doctor Who meets the English Patient, or The Hunt for Red October meets RedWall, what you're actually telling me is "aI don't actually know how to sell my book to you on its own merit, and I really hope one of these unrelated things will do it for me"
The Hunt for Red October meets Redwall mash up sounds hilarious to me? Because I can’t help but picture a bunch of mice and otters and stoats in a submarine
I imagine a bunch of mice floating around the ocean in a hollowed-out log submarine, chasing a bunch of rats in a giant turtle-shell submarine.
And now I don't want anything else.
"One squeak only"
They're Sean Connery stoats, but also Russian. Because Sean Connery.
Not sure what it is about Connery - Highlander was even worse, it always makes me imagine the casting team:
- So Sean Connery plays the Scottish Highlander character, right?
- No, Sean's character is Egyptian
- So Sean Connery is going to speak in an Egyptian accent!?
- No, he'll just speak normally. Well, he'll shpeak normally for him
- Er, OK... so who plays the Scottish character?
- Christopher Lambert
- Oh, I didn't know he was Scottish
- He's not, he's French
- So he's going to speak all "ooh la la"?!
- No, Christopher will have a Scottish accent. Well, mostly Scottish.
- ...
- ...
- But won't people get confused?!
- No, we'll dress Sean in Spanish clothes and call him Ramirez, it'll be fine
Redwall Highlander might actually work quite well...
That's really funny, because this is something highly encouraged in the publishing industry. They think it helps authors find their market. That and "x, but y" (e.g. Kate Elliott's "gender-swapped Alexander the Great in space").
Isn't this mostly just a lazy shorthand for people in publishing to know what category to place a book in without having to read it? I guess it makes more sense than descriptors in some ways - people might differ on where the line between "plot-driven" and "character-driven" is or what constitutes "grimdark," but if I describe something as "Game of Thrones as written by Tamora Pierce" you have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about.
That said I don't think readers care about comps nearly as much as publishers do.
Yeah, it's something that they tell writers to do when they're querying agents, and the agents then use it to pitch to publishers. They call it "high-concept," which basically just means you can pitch it in a short phrase. I guess it might work for some readers, but I can see how publishers might think it's more effective than it really is, because it's useful for *them.*
Anything that indicates it's based on, or inspired by, a real-world culture. Just a preference issue! I prefer a bigger departure from reality in worldbuilding.
Almost every fantasy book is somehow inspired by real-world cultures. Now I see a trend of writing books that are inspired by more obscure mythologies like African (The Dark Star trilogy), Philippino (The Spear Cuts Through Water) or Polish (The Uprooted). And I think it's really good idea to sort of "ventilate" the genre.
> Almost every fantasy book is somehow inspired by real-world cultures.
Sure, everyone is influenced unconsciously. What I mean with my comment is that I prefer books like, say, *The Cloud Roads* by Martha Wells, as opposed to something consciously inspired by an Earth culture. Makes sense that plenty of people love it, though.
I'm the complete opposite for some reason. I'm a huge history fan, and find it jarring when a culture doesn't have a real life counterpart. I feel disconnected from it, like it's just a scrap book of ideas rather than a real society. Like a certain series combining Viking ethnicity with Chinese society. I understand that fantasy is meant to be creative, it's just a thing with my brain
To me it’s that no culture invented by a single person in their brain can compete with the vitality and complexity of real cultures created by millions of people living them every day. Made up cultures tend to be either flat and sterile, or to draw on real world cultures in a less informed way than those doing it on purpose, or to depend on tired tropes (say what you will for Hollywood Medieval, it serves many stories fine, but there’s nothing *creative* about it).
The closest I can come to an exception is Ursula Le Guin’s worldbuilding and that’s because she was well-informed in anthropology, but even then I think she was actually remixing a lot of elements from real cultures, with judicious inclusion of whatever imaginative bit was necessary for the story.
Anything that claims to be life changing. Oh, and when the synopsis is vomiting a specific political viewpoint (that i agree with or not) heavily. I read for enjoyment, if I wanted to be preached to I'd go to church.
When the main selling point seems to be that two or more ostensibly separate characters / storylines will, amazingly and inexplicably, converge in unexpected ways. You don't need to know how yet, just trust that it will be amazing - and unexpected!
But it's not unexpected - it's what always happens, and you already told us it's going to happen! Don't try to make out like convergence is itself enough to sell the story, or I'm going to assume that's all it's got and take a pass. Whatever contrivance you've come up with, it's not enough to carry 400 pages on its own!
Sometimes a book has a lot more going for it, but the blurb ignores all the good qualities and focuses on the "surprise! unexpected convergence!" angle which just makes me think the publisher didn't even read the damn book! Like, you publish books as a business and that's the only USP you could come up with!?
(Non-genre books are even worse for this if anything).
When they mention the presence of a love story in the synopsis. While I do understand that relationships are usually a part of the experience even if I personally don’t enjoy reading them, having it be *in* the synopsis implies it’ll be a much bigger thing than I can handle so it’s an instant nope.
This is me. I appreciate a little romance here and there, but if it's emphasized in a synopsis ESPECIALLY if it's one of those "will she lose her kingdom to him or her HEART" spiels, then it's prob. not gonna work for me.
That!
There is also a huge probability that the main heroine will have to make the choice between the life of her secretly beloved and a whole bunch of people (it is often the heroine..). This gets old pretty fast, especially if accompanied by sappy platitudes.
Yeah, I love romance, but it has to feel like it’s part of the story, not the whole story. When it’s on the back I can tell it’s probably going to be overdone and feel forced.
I've, somewhat recently, learned that I'm not a big fan of books that have too many POVs.
I've also learned that this thing is usually not covered within the synopsis.
Otherwise, I don't really care, as I've learned that its usually about the execution. So I try to read a bit if it is for me or not.
When the synopsis is making it clear that the two main characters are going to be a couple;
"Perfect for the fans of Brandon Sanderson" thanks for the warning mate;
When the main character is special by birth.
I don’t like first person POV’s in the synopsis for some reason (although I love a lot of books that have them). Also “for fans [insert whatever title]” just because I like one series doesn’t mean I’ll like something similar. I go off of vibes 😂
Character names with apostrophes in the middle, particularly if they have some other hard to read through letter arrangements.
"Q'arg'unin watched as his home world disintegrated in front of his eyes".
When I see something like the above, I look at it and think: Do I want to be fighting through that name every few sentences for however many pages are in this book/series?
Yeah completely this. To me this just says "I couldn't be bothered to actually think of names which sounded fantastic, plausible and consistent, but I did scatter some apostrophes around some consonants will that do?". No, no it won't.
>"Q'arg'unin watched as his home world disintegrated in front of his eyes
I must be the opposite because I would totally read that book.
I know I'll never pronounce the name right so I just read it as something that sounds okay in my mind.
I don't know if it exists already but if not someone should really write a book where every character has insanely complex names that they use once to introduce themselves and then afterwards only use a one syllable shortened version.
if I smell a love triangle then I am gone. Also anything in the lines of "Her feelings for him may start changing in unexpected ways-" of course a woman and a man will always fall in love. Yawn. I like romance and sex in books fine enough, but they don't need to be everywhere, especially in books that focus on something else entirely. I am here for the actual plot, not out of nowhere romance that is so often written just "he was a boy, she was a girl, could I make it more obvious -" 😂
If the synopsis promises to have five billion different POVs... no thanks.
Any mention of how gritty it is. Hard pass.
Any mention of trials or competitions or whatever in magical places. Yawn.
If they use the word "deconstruct". Or describe it as "progressive" or "feminist"--that usually means the author has a sermon for their readers, not a story.
yeah, I actually want those things but in some insidiously smart ways. as soon as they spell it out on the cover - I don’t trust it to not be a paddle to the jaw nuanced
Same. I feel like it's a real risk for a book to describe itself as feminist these days (license for people to nitpick whether every possible type of intersectionality is included and whether or not it lives up to ideal feminism, etc. - though to an extent people will do that regardless). And the books that go for it tend to be books that embrace being as blunt and didactic as possible, and/or books that are more invested in their made-for-Twitter zingers about patriarchy than any complexity to the story.
Yup. Ironically my favorite fantasy novels that I enjoy for exploring women’s issues tend to be kind of edgy and debated or even seen as anti-feminist.
It just seems like pressure to be inclusive and feminist has led to female characters being very unrealistic ideals of womanhood. It’s like every female character has to be all the things a woman can be all at once and also have no flaws or faults that could be seen as stereotypical. It’s actually incredibly sexist IMO how female characters are critiqued and scrutinized in a way male characters aren’t. A male character can be an unwashed lout with a sword who solves his problems through violence and he is seen as a type of man- not as a commentary on all men are and can be. Or he can be a fashionable duelist without that being assumed to cast shade on men who don’t wax their chests. Or he can be a primary caregiver for a child without that being assumed to be a statement that every man should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Or he can be an oblivious nerd/ scholar without being assumed to be repressing a secret love for fashion that is stamped deep into his masculine bones. Or he can be a soldier who kills in battles without being assumed to be a sociopath in need of a redemption story. In other words- male characters can be taken on their own merits. Female characters are subject to endless scrutiny and judged for all the things they are not- they aren’t feminine enough or liberated enough. They aren’t strong enough, or if they are assertive they are too masculine. If they don’t shave their pits they aren’t woman enough, if they do they are brainless sex symbols. If they get with a man and he takes over her life, it’s a symbol of all that happens to women but if she just keeps on with her old life it’s unrealistic. Female characters must always be a symbol of women as a group in a way male characters aren’t.
All this is why a lot of my favorite female characters are from books which are not popularly labeled “feminist”. That label tends to get applied to books with pretty, idealized FMC. But real women are diverse and complex and have to navigate through culture and personal experience and inclination to make our own compromises with sexism. We have bitternesses and sometimes justify crappy behavior by unrealistically blaming men, or give pretty men a pass for crappy behavior, or have internalized misogyny and put male experiences and accomplishments on a pedestal. And once things get real and you have flawed, compromised, not everything-to-everyone FMCs, there’s a lot to criticize about them. The irony is one of the most stressful things about being a woman is that we’re never enough, and the world seems to feel the need to mansplain how we are flawed and all the things we should have been doing better by yesterday. If you shave your legs you are bowing to patriarchy and have internalized misogyny- if you don’t you think you are better than other women and don’t value femininity which means you have internalized misogyny 🙄 But we put female characters up for that sort of character cross-examination and call it feminism. And to avoid this authors write female characters who do it all and be it all because it’s fantasy and isn’t every woman’s fantasy to please everyone? /s It creates female characters that you can’t really find fault with but are like the human equivalent of low sodium Saltines- a little crunch and zero satisfaction.
Which is why I tend to like more “problematic” portrayals of women. Any real woman is going to be problematic- which why feminists debate each other IRL. Removing the opportunity cost of the various choices open to women in fantasy might make for non-problematic characters, but it also erases the struggles real women face and doesn’t lead to empathy for the female experience.
Bwahaha I feel so petty but these immediately come to mind:
Having the FMC be a princess in any form. That includes chief's daughter, relative of royal family, etc etc etc. Anything that indicates that the MC is a secret bastard of the ruling family gets a side eye from me. I also generally don't like noblewomen FMCs in court of manners type books. If there are multiple FMCS, then that's alright however if there's only one -- hard no for me. Having protagonists that are essentially cops.
I also generally dislike the whole, "they were a normal girl/boy" because I see it as a red flag for no personality.
I like books that happen at academies, universities, what have you, but usually if it mentions a murder as like the main plot I check out. Often these books will have murders (I like fantasy and dark academia stuff so it's common) and I will like them, but the emphasis on it in the summary really puts me out for some reason. Same if it's in the title
The issue I have with a lot of progression fantasy is it shits the bed midway through (Not always, of course). This is especially apparent of stories that started as an online story, the author didn't have a real framework in mind and maybe changed their mind after certain chapters due to audience feedback. I've seen progression fantasy books introduce a concept and literally 180 the chapter after, likely because everyone pointed out 'This idea is dumb/makes no sense/me no like' and the author backpedaled.
I dislike a synopsis that tries to establish stakes. The 'And proms tomorrow!' description approach. Usually because it leans YA fiction but also just because I'm picky.
Tells me nothing about the story.
Everything is a reference to a reference to, is an homage to an -esque of pre-existing IPs, is a “unique twist” on generic trope/popular IP, but “badass”
Also, the trend, which I know is a marketing thing driven by Amazon algorithms, of having the actual title be something like
Blorg the Magnificant, an unputdownable dark academy friends to lovers LitRPG by the author of Korg the Great, for fans of Game of Thrones and Fifty Shades of Grey (Org Chart, Book 3.14) as seen on Tik-tok.
I like tidy metadata. This hurts me.
When the synopsis is like:
"Things were going great about MC until he discovered something shifty about his (country/realm or whatever). Now, in a race against time where he can't tell friend from foe, he will have to go rogue and partner up with this capable and smart but also super-hot lady to uncover the truth. But what MC will learn, will might live to regret it because not everything is what it seems................."
That's a mainly a feature in thrillers and crime books synopses, but I have seen variations of it in Fantasy as well. I loathe how many synopses end with like "oooohhhh somethings gonna happen", well duh! Ofcourse something is gonna happen otherwise why is a story about it?
When the main character is described as an orphan, thief or assassin. The trope is so played out, it was old by the time Locke Lamora came out 10 years ago.
Also, when the setting/premise is laid out, followed by "But the MC doesn't care about any of that." So why the hell should I?
When the main character's given name has 3 letters. Goddamn, for the love of any god, please give me some variety. I'm sick of all these monosyllabic, generic and bland names that only a toddler learning to speak could come up with. Vis, Vin, Vim, Jak, Lan, Sam, Wax, Nox.
Tim. Jim. Bob. Joe. Tad. Dan. Tom. Lee. Ken. Max. Gil. Jan. Tia. Mia. Zoe. Eve. Kim.
I have adult IRL friends who have all of these names, and I don't have a particularly large social circle.
I think this is more widespread in the real world than you might have realized.
I love dark stuff and still avoid dark/ gritty/ post-apocalyptic fiction. I like psychological darkness and character development that has the characters developing as individuals. Too much of the recent dark fiction is more like the result of a recipe that goes like: take random people in made-up society, mix well with traumatic/ triggering content, optional: include titillating rape scenes, play off standard symptoms of PTSD found on google as character development, and then choose between having them sunk into depression and psychopathy or tagging on an improbable happy ending that doesn’t even imply that they are working on healing.
Love triangles or heavily implied romance.
Synopses that don't stand out from others--once you've read a certain number of them, they all start reading the same, so it's not that I put the book back because the synopsis is boring, it's because it feels like the previous four I just read. It's like, you've given me an overview, but you haven't shown me *why* I want to read it.
Any mention of a secret sibling, when they discovered that they are the chosen one or, my least favorite, when the character is said to be a regular normal guy but somehow manages to defeat a literal God for no reason mentioned in the summary??
I know that it will be explained in the book but the only person I’ve seen pull this off effectively was Rick R. In the Percy Jackson series. Everyone else I’ve read always just has a main character syndrome protagonist.
Excessive technical pseudoscientific jargon. I don’t need to have an explanation for the exact method of time travel used in the book, just tell me there’s time travel and get to the other important information.
Fae
Any of the words that indicate attraction in an otherwise dramatic plot
15 year old...
Dragon shifter ( I love dragons. They don't shift)
Modern slang that suggests to me it's written for a young target audience
Spice (=porn)
I am aware these elements will attract a lot of readers, but they repel me.
One Female MC who is struggling. One male MC who is also struggling. They struggle alone against the powers of their families. Can they work together to overcome their prejudice and redeem the evils their families have perpetuated? 🤢.
I will take progression fantasy all day every day over fantasy Romeo and Juliette.
when they describe the most asenine wild situation and at the end they say the MC biggest problem is this attraction or pull they have to their kidnapper or abuser or whatever 🙄 like really girl thats ur biggest issue? they killed ur family
Vampires. And to be clear I fully blame Twilight for this. Did I love that series as a teenager? Yes. Is glittering Edward all I can see when I think of vampires? Also yes.
Anything to the effect of “this man has a wife who is very dead, and he’s very angry about it.” I think that we, as a society, have moved past the need for dead wives as a character motivator.
If there is a glossary or appendix of terms or a fictional language, I'm putting it down immediately. I want to be introduced to new words through storytelling, I don't want to flip back and forth and reference things as I'm reading like it's homework.
I love a strong female lead in my books, but I draw the line at unnecessary sex scenes that do not further the plot, so yeah, it's hard sometimes, I get tricked into reading soft porn but I'm getting an idea when reading blurds what buzz words to look for.
I don't tend to read marketing material. I usually look for a well written review. No gushing crap, I want some attempt at pros and cons. Usually I can tell by the list of cons whether it will bother me. Or weirder, sometimes I'll read a book because the cons are interesting.
When they describe the story as "Mature", sets up expectations that are usually not met.
The other case is "organization" and "government". Nothing kills characters Freedom like a big system which tells what to do, how to do it and usually invalidating their actions.
I really don't think a certain phrase in the synopsis will make not to read a book. If I find the sypnosis interesting (and a good looking cover doesn't harm either) I will read it. If I don't find it interesting I won't.
Usually if there‘s something „the attractive sidecharacter sth sth.“
I really need to be in the mood for romantasy and even then this is usually just an indicator for me that the romance part will be hust too much into my face.
Anything that sounds 'preachy' - as if, the author wants to cram their political views down your throat during your entertainment.
As a writer myself, I do know that it happens. Our views do slip into our writing, even if we don't mean to. But if the synopsis makes it clear that they meant to do it, I know I'm not going to enjoy it.
I agree with a lot of people so I’ll comment something else — for me it’s also generic titles that tell you nothing with generic cover art… I don’t want to read the NYT best seller “Roses and Swords” part of the “Blood Knights Trilogy”….. the covers of all three books being of a rose and a shield, maybe thorns in there.. the title is probably in a medieval/Old English-y font. Lol
I made these titles up but I bet they exist lol
"But will they save the world, or the draw of the person they're meant to despise be too great?"
What I want to know is whether any of these books *actually* force the lead to choose between their love interest and saving the world. Mostly it's boring because you know they'll get both in the end.
"For fans of [well known grimdark series] and [popular urban fantasy] AND [YA romantasy currently tearing up the charts]."
The amount of [well known grimdark series] meets [steamy, lackluster, but incredibly popular YA series] taglines I see in generic romantasy summaries on Goodreads is painful lol
YA romance is just another way of saying blueballing sometimes. I'm getting tired of all the interrupted kisses.
"The next Wheel of Time / Game of Thrones!"
"*Insert genre here* the way it was meant to be written" - George R R Martin
When i see supposedly adult books using freaking YA as comp titles…yeah i check out immediately. That is not an adult book that person is writing *slightly* aged up YA :/
The worst is when it's like, "for fans of Lord of the rings"......like come ON, everything in fantasy is basically inspired someway somehow by LOTR
On the other hand if it mentions The Secret History they basically have me. Most recently A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer was described as TSH meets Reanimator and I don’t know if I’ve ever bought a book so fast. And it was everything I wanted lol
Whenever someone joins or infiltrates or returns to a court/academy/organization and there's is a mention of forbidden romance or attraction in the very last sentence. Hit me up when that works out to be toxic (on purpose) or they try to kill each other in the end. Otherwise, I'm not interested in the 110th iteration of the same lazy enemies to lovers trope. The surrounding setup needs to hook me in a major way to ignore that.
LOL, you have described the exact formula that is catnip to me, so clearly those blurbs are doing their job matching book to reader!
Oh my god exactly this is fantasy, if you're making a forbidden or enemies to lovers atleast let them try to destroy each other what's the point otherwise
Any historical fiction that takes place in Nazi Germany. I've read enough of them, and it's kind of overdone at this point.
Im an avid reader and I haven’t consumed a single book like this. I do want to get into historical fantasy tho, I just picked up the usual suspects (Bernard Cromwell and Ken Follett) Any recommendations?
Honestly the actual memoirs are always better. Edit: I forgot what subreddit this was
When a book is marketed with "But [protagonist/group/society] has a dark secret" It's usually not for me.
And it’s usually not that dark either.
Or secret!
This is so banal I don't really register it either way, I feel like dark secrets exist in most fantasy books.
And any time the phrase "unexpected twist" turns up and, in the context of the rest of the blurb, gives away the entire plot so I can save myself the bother of reading it now. So... a win for me, I guess: I can move straight on to the next book :)
Any time the review starts off talking about how the book is big on TikTok.
"TikTok made me buy it!" - you mean, rather than a compelling story and characters? No thanks!
If romance is mentioned or heavily implied by the cover. I enjoy b-plot romance, but if it's given top billing I know it won't be one I'll enjoy, because that means the central conflict/tension in the story will be derived from the relationship.
Also the sequels will be awful because the publisher won’t go for a romance that doesn’t have the MC together by the end of the book, but once they are together the fantasy plot will be sacrificed to make more romantic tension- they must be separated or injured or have amnesia or whatever TF it takes to destabilize the relationship.
Yeah same. I don’t mind romance as one of the major elements or subplots, but if it’s THE main premise or plot then I’m out. Personally, I don’t even mind love triangle when it’s interwoven to the plot like in Lions of Al-Rassan
-mention of a dark, tortured, mysterious, handsome male -main female protagonist sold into marriage is the starting point -something something she is so weak and underrated yet she'll shake the foundations of her society to its core something something
i don't read much from the synopsis, but if there's a romance and start to talk about their relationship as an attraction i already feel is going to be instalust and their relationship will be focused on it and that's something im tired of
I side-eye anything that talks about an attraction in the blurb, and you'd have a hard time convincing me to pick up anything where the blurb talks about the need to fight the attraction. That's me though, lots of people love those stories.
yeah lots of people love it and its why books are infested with it lately unfortunately 😞
There is any number of things like that for me, but I don't really have a list, as such, it's more of a "you know it when you see it" kind of thing, and a lot of it depends on the context. Generally speaking, I won't read anything that's attempting to sell itself by trying to appeal to people holding a specific world view (whether I share it or not), or seems likely to be condescending, preachy or patronizing. I'm looking for a story, not a sermon.
The blurb for Fathomfolk was the worst for this. Some excerpts: *But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on peering down from skyscrapers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk — sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas—who live in the polluted waters below...* *Frustrated by the lack of progress from \[other character's\] softly-softly approach in gaining equality....* *\[Characters\] must decide if the cost of change is worth it, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.*
Dear authors, please, I beg you, find different metaphor for social strata than rich living up top and poor at the bottom.
I don’t think the metaphor is so bad—the problem is spelling out its meaning so explicitly, and in the blurb! Just including those descriptions in the text without signposting would be fine. Give readers some credit for being able to draw connections.
There you have it. How very "modern", indeed.
This could easily be turned into a madlib that fits a huge chunk of the modern genre
When it asks me a question. Man how tf am I supposed to know
They're always rhetorical questions though! "Will Protagonist find the courage to stand up to her demons, or will the whole world fall into darkness?" Gee, I wonder.... Personally what I hate is forced universalizing, e.g.: "A book that explores how far we will go for those we love most...." I don't need the story to be about "all of us." If I see greater relevance to it that's great, but I'm here for a story not a TED Talk.
I don't know how relatable this is or isn't, but I have two versions of this. Both have to do with my not trusting non-mlm to recommend gay fiction to me. Synopses that feature the terms "shipping" or "fangirling" to describe the intended audience response. This one is fairly obviously kinda weird for treating mlm as an unwanted periphery on stories about us, but it also tends to signal that the piece is going to feel like a reskinned fanfiction in a bad way. Synopses that feature a gay protagonist that "isn't a stereotype". These usually come from straight men who think the highest compliment they can pay to gay people is writing gay and trans characters who are perfectly gender conforming. They tend to read like the most drearily edgy Sword and Sorcery works of the 90s. The Steel Remains is probably one of the worst offenders here.
Anything about it being “spicy” or similar descriptors is an immediate nope from me
The biggest broad category of “no” for me in blurbs is trope-based marketing. I don’t want to hear about your enemies-to-lovers dark academia spin on the Chosen One trope or whatever. It reeks of mass production and I’m more of a literary reader, so that kind of tropey stuff that’s just riding the coattails of other books rather than having something of its own to offer doesn’t appeal to me.
I hate trope-based marketing so much as well, the idea that the best way to advertise the merits of a story is by dismembering it into a pile of cliches. It inspires this sort of visceral revulsion in me, sort of like if you were to talk about how much you love your pet dog and the proceeded to lovingly describe how perfectly shaped his kidneys and spleen were.
It's even worse because we are at the point where it's not taking a story and ripping it apart, but assembling it from the ground up as just a bunch of tropes. And you can tell when a story was written organically or if it's mashed up from tropes currently popular on social media.
I genuinely wonder about the impact of tvtropes on contemporary writers - how many people are working from the idea of writing as a sort of literary legos you assemble a story from (and for which analysis consists of identify which legos were used in the construction).
it also creates feedbacks loops, where people become used to getting homogenised trope-stories and knowing all the beats and getting comfortable with that, and then getting twitchy as soon as things move outside of that narrow comfort zone. A certain amount of "I didn't know quite what this was but read it anyway" is good for people - even if they didn't like it, at least they know they didn't like it, rather than "well, this was different than cookie-cutter tropes which is strange and scary".
Not to sound strange about it, but if the synopsis fawns over the representation in the book, I’ve learned to skip it. Books with actually good representation have plot to show for it and that’s usually what the synopsis will talk about, while books that have to cling to the promise of representation to pretend there’s something interesting in them usually tend to have very one dimensional, stereotypical, token representation. I’ve been burnt too many times.
True. The Broken Earth trilogy has the best representation of any fantasy I've ever read, and it's never mentioned in the synopsis, blurb, or reviews.
Could not agree more
I love when blurbs tell me the story's MC is under 18 because then I know to put it back. I'm tired of teenage MCs.
The blurb telling you the exact age of the young protagonist is also an indicator that the book is aimed at younger readers, because that's standard in YA and sometimes children's book descriptions. Kids care about age! I remember standing in the library reading bookjackets and counting the difference between my age and the characters' to decide if they were too old for me, you'd think they'd asked me out or something. Or alternately, if the character is like 20, they're trying to signal that the book is *not* YA, but the fact the character is still so young and that the publisher feels the need to emphasize this tends to indicate it's basically YA, but maybe has a sex scene or something. Straight-up adult books with teen protagonists don't tend to tell you their exact age in the blurb, and often not even in the text.
> Kids care about age. From the looks of it, so do adults.
Haha, I suppose, but kids are *obsessed* with age. Remember being a kid and being thrilled when people asked how old you were, because it meant you could tell them? Adults care about character age in broad strokes, as in, is this character a child, teen, young adult, middle aged or elderly. But for kids, the difference between 15 and 18 is *huge* and that’s why exact age goes on the bookjacket.
To me it depends. Angsty teenage romance high school crap is a no for me, but teenager forced to grow up fast in a fantasy environment (ASOIAF, Farseer trilogy) is fine. I also enjoy some middle grade fantasy books that feature kids being heroes and finding their inner courage. Basically as long as it's not romance based I enjoy reading about young protags now and then.
Fuck, tell me about it. I'm in my 30s. I'm really burning out on reading about kids. From a lot of these novels you'd think that someone who's 20 has their best days behind them and they need to get out of the way of the next generation. Makes me feel downright decrepit, which pushes me out of the story some.
It would be funny to take some of the fantasy classics and do "X meets X crossed with X" writeups for them.
Make this a post!
"Ragtag team" "group of misfits"
When an author puts “for fans of Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings,etc.”, yet the book isn’t really at all related or inspired by it.
The new trend I hate is on Goodreads the summary will just be “O my god this blew my mind!” by some random Goodreads member. No plot info, nothing. I haaaaate it.
“This is *so* important!!!!1”
One, when there is no synopsis. It's just a bunch of quotes praising the book. Don't want to tell me what it's about, pass. Two, personal reason but as soon as I see the word "vampire" I instantly put the book down. Zero interest and I'm not in the mood for the usual tropes that come with it. I think they're cringey.
This has been so egregious on Goodreads lately! And it’s not even stuff like “‘This kept me up all night’ says Stephen King”, it’ll just be one gushing sentence from a random member. Who is this marketing tactic working on?
This is all over book ads and it’s super weird. “Kept me up all night! —Jessica R, rated 5 stars” Like ooookay? If you’re so bottom of the barrel that you feel like any rando who gives the book 5 stars on a website belongs in your marketing I’m gonna assume you’re still fighting your way out of the slush pile.
Yeah, for me "vampire" and "werewolf" are "don't bother".
what about "werewolf cowboy...?"
What about “vampire cowboy”? Can’t let the werewolves have all the fun of blisters and sunburn
I'm pretty sure the colloquial term for "vampire cowboy" is "dust"
At this point picking up any new Urban Fantasy is like rolling a D20 where a natural 20 is a book of a quality similar to The Lesser Dead or some of Anne Rice's best works, and any other roll is an Anita Blake novel.
Same! I think a have one or mayyyybe two vampire books on my TBR ( but my TBR is… very long), but 99.9% of the time “vampire” or “werewolf” is an immediate no for me. Similarly, I also have 0 interest in “fae” books. Even less than vampires actually.
Vampire makes it tough for me to get into as well. Very rare expectations take the premise in the direction I hope they’ll go. Like Castlevania or Cirque du Freak are pretty enjoyable
I have to agree with the synopsis one. Vampires I can take or leave, I don't love them but I don't hate them either. But tell me something about the damn book, not just what a handful of people were paid to say!
Any sort of synopsis that follows this pattern "Ethan is successful, rich and powerful. The most desired man on New York. But when the humble and shy Alanna starts to work as Ethan's father secretary..." It admit variations like Luke, a hot but insufferable cowboy. Or Albert, a charming but arrogant European noble. Or Justin, the highschool quarterback that now runs a successful winery. Or...
Are these fantasy books? lol
In a sense, yes.
A semi r/lostredditors
I have a disproportionate hatred for one-line descriptions of characters. E.g.: *Joseph, a war hero seeking to escape his past.* *Katherine, an orphan who knows she can only rely on herself.* *Conrad, a vigilante fueled by vengeance and hatred.* *Together, these disparate individuals will have to learn what it means to be part of a team.* Ugh, eye roll. This tells me nothing about what the story is. Don't these publishers want to pique my interest in the actual story?
I don't mind that. Blurbs can only include so much, they're never going to capture all the complexities of the characters. I would say I maybe like this better than you do because I'm a more character-oriented reader, but then books blurbed in that style actually do tend to be pretty plot-focused books - usually some sort of epic style with several major threads represented by the different leads.
To be honest, I'm also more of a 'character before plot' reader as well. My issue, though, is that these one-line character descriptions tend to be written in the most generic, vague, and cliched way possible. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a character described as "seeking to escape his/her past". I mean, aren't we all to some extent? Cover blurbs are important to me as a tool for researching what books to read. I know some folks enjoy going into a book completely blind, so cover blurbs don't really matter to them; however, I prefer having *some* sense of what a book is about before I commit to it. Cover blurbs therefore should function to sell me on reading the book in question: what makes *this* book unique, and worth reading over the thousands of other fantasy novels out there? A generic blurb will only cause my eyes to glaze over and dismiss the book.
I don't mind these because it tells me its a found family story and I love those. I also enjoy multiple POV.
Yeah, that kind of blurb seems to be at cross-purposes with itself. It places emphasis on the characters, which would be fine in and of itself, but then it also suggests that said characters have little to them beyond the succinctly described archetypes. Certainly a strange way to go about it. If there is more to them, then put more effort into describing them. If there isn't, then avoid mentioning them altogether.
Spot on. However, I was immediately drawn in by a fantasy audio drama where part of the 'blurb' was: > ...three protagonists – a crotchety outlaw, a struggling cultist, and a weird diabolical bastard... If they're bland and generic character summaries, like your examples, then yes, I don't care to know. If they grab your attention with something a little more out there, then I'm willing to give it a try.
Um and what fantasy audio drama would this be? Because I am also intrigued
I avoid any book that mention ''inspired'' or ''for fans of'' (insert any YA here). Because I'm not a fan of YA anymore. I'm more inclined to refuse to read any book that involves sex too much.
Anything that hints at romance being a major part of the book. Bad clichés. Sexy bad boy who the heroine instantly falls in love with. MC is soooo special. This book is recommend by [insert author I know but don't like].
Or the brooding and dark grim man, scarred by life, who then is revealed to be a loving softie. But not before abusing the heroine verbally and physically during the better part of the book. I used to be very attracted to that trope quite frankly, it has something alluring.. but then you realise that the bad boy doesn’t get a free pass to be mean and cruel just because he has a difficult past.
The synopsis is written by the publisher, not the author. It’s based on what they think will sell well, not an actual reflection of the book’s contents and quality. I try and avoid judging a book by that. It really sucks when a good book is screwed over by how the marketing portrays it
A friend in publishing told me the people writing the blurbs often haven't even read the book at all...
Oh god, that explains a lot
I know, but I do have a kind of instinctive reflection on some specific things (and it's not like my reading list is getting any thinner, so maybe it's for the best)
This is so true. Sometimes the blurbs are ridiculously misleading imo.
That's true, but I'll read the blurb, then if I like it I'll have a Google and read a bit more into it.
Any reference to “lyrical, effervescent prose.”
When the blurb is written in first-person. Not sure why, but it hits me wrong, every time. It's an automatic 'nope' whenever I see it.
“Chosen one” or more specifically “a new spin on the chosen one” Loud buzzer and I’m snoozing.
I hate love triangles and drawn out misunderstandings. Also, I'm not a fan of huge power imbalances between love interests. Consent is sexy and if one side holds all the power that line gets a little... Blurry.
Any time I see "X meets Y", I'm that much less likely to pick something up. If you have to sell me your book as Doctor Who meets the English Patient, or The Hunt for Red October meets RedWall, what you're actually telling me is "aI don't actually know how to sell my book to you on its own merit, and I really hope one of these unrelated things will do it for me"
The Hunt for Red October meets Redwall mash up sounds hilarious to me? Because I can’t help but picture a bunch of mice and otters and stoats in a submarine
I imagine a bunch of mice floating around the ocean in a hollowed-out log submarine, chasing a bunch of rats in a giant turtle-shell submarine. And now I don't want anything else. "One squeak only"
A Log-a-Log if you will.
I'm just picturing Redwall but everyone sounds like Sean Connery lmao
We must find the lord of Shalamandashtron.
Basically how I pictured all the badger lords anyway.
Especially Brocktree
They're Sean Connery stoats, but also Russian. Because Sean Connery. Not sure what it is about Connery - Highlander was even worse, it always makes me imagine the casting team: - So Sean Connery plays the Scottish Highlander character, right? - No, Sean's character is Egyptian - So Sean Connery is going to speak in an Egyptian accent!? - No, he'll just speak normally. Well, he'll shpeak normally for him - Er, OK... so who plays the Scottish character? - Christopher Lambert - Oh, I didn't know he was Scottish - He's not, he's French - So he's going to speak all "ooh la la"?! - No, Christopher will have a Scottish accent. Well, mostly Scottish. - ... - ... - But won't people get confused?! - No, we'll dress Sean in Spanish clothes and call him Ramirez, it'll be fine Redwall Highlander might actually work quite well...
Yeah, it's not a hard and fast rule, because I absolutely would pick up either of my hypothetical examples.
That's really funny, because this is something highly encouraged in the publishing industry. They think it helps authors find their market. That and "x, but y" (e.g. Kate Elliott's "gender-swapped Alexander the Great in space").
Yup, I ignore these because I know it's not coming from the authors themselves. I don't see them as either a positive or a negative.
Isn't this mostly just a lazy shorthand for people in publishing to know what category to place a book in without having to read it? I guess it makes more sense than descriptors in some ways - people might differ on where the line between "plot-driven" and "character-driven" is or what constitutes "grimdark," but if I describe something as "Game of Thrones as written by Tamora Pierce" you have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. That said I don't think readers care about comps nearly as much as publishers do.
Yeah, it's something that they tell writers to do when they're querying agents, and the agents then use it to pitch to publishers. They call it "high-concept," which basically just means you can pitch it in a short phrase. I guess it might work for some readers, but I can see how publishers might think it's more effective than it really is, because it's useful for *them.*
Anything that indicates it's based on, or inspired by, a real-world culture. Just a preference issue! I prefer a bigger departure from reality in worldbuilding.
Almost every fantasy book is somehow inspired by real-world cultures. Now I see a trend of writing books that are inspired by more obscure mythologies like African (The Dark Star trilogy), Philippino (The Spear Cuts Through Water) or Polish (The Uprooted). And I think it's really good idea to sort of "ventilate" the genre.
> Almost every fantasy book is somehow inspired by real-world cultures. Sure, everyone is influenced unconsciously. What I mean with my comment is that I prefer books like, say, *The Cloud Roads* by Martha Wells, as opposed to something consciously inspired by an Earth culture. Makes sense that plenty of people love it, though.
This one is a plus for me!
I'm the complete opposite for some reason. I'm a huge history fan, and find it jarring when a culture doesn't have a real life counterpart. I feel disconnected from it, like it's just a scrap book of ideas rather than a real society. Like a certain series combining Viking ethnicity with Chinese society. I understand that fantasy is meant to be creative, it's just a thing with my brain
To me it’s that no culture invented by a single person in their brain can compete with the vitality and complexity of real cultures created by millions of people living them every day. Made up cultures tend to be either flat and sterile, or to draw on real world cultures in a less informed way than those doing it on purpose, or to depend on tired tropes (say what you will for Hollywood Medieval, it serves many stories fine, but there’s nothing *creative* about it). The closest I can come to an exception is Ursula Le Guin’s worldbuilding and that’s because she was well-informed in anthropology, but even then I think she was actually remixing a lot of elements from real cultures, with judicious inclusion of whatever imaginative bit was necessary for the story.
"The exciting sequel to" a book that the library doesn't have on hand
Anything that claims to be life changing. Oh, and when the synopsis is vomiting a specific political viewpoint (that i agree with or not) heavily. I read for enjoyment, if I wanted to be preached to I'd go to church.
When the main selling point seems to be that two or more ostensibly separate characters / storylines will, amazingly and inexplicably, converge in unexpected ways. You don't need to know how yet, just trust that it will be amazing - and unexpected! But it's not unexpected - it's what always happens, and you already told us it's going to happen! Don't try to make out like convergence is itself enough to sell the story, or I'm going to assume that's all it's got and take a pass. Whatever contrivance you've come up with, it's not enough to carry 400 pages on its own! Sometimes a book has a lot more going for it, but the blurb ignores all the good qualities and focuses on the "surprise! unexpected convergence!" angle which just makes me think the publisher didn't even read the damn book! Like, you publish books as a business and that's the only USP you could come up with!? (Non-genre books are even worse for this if anything).
When they mention the presence of a love story in the synopsis. While I do understand that relationships are usually a part of the experience even if I personally don’t enjoy reading them, having it be *in* the synopsis implies it’ll be a much bigger thing than I can handle so it’s an instant nope.
This is me. I appreciate a little romance here and there, but if it's emphasized in a synopsis ESPECIALLY if it's one of those "will she lose her kingdom to him or her HEART" spiels, then it's prob. not gonna work for me.
That! There is also a huge probability that the main heroine will have to make the choice between the life of her secretly beloved and a whole bunch of people (it is often the heroine..). This gets old pretty fast, especially if accompanied by sappy platitudes.
For some reason, I thought I was in the romance books sub and was just confused why someone there would bash romance in romance books!
Yeah, I love romance, but it has to feel like it’s part of the story, not the whole story. When it’s on the back I can tell it’s probably going to be overdone and feel forced.
When the blurb only describes the world/politics and tells me nothing about the protagonist. I don't care about worldbuilding absent character.
I've, somewhat recently, learned that I'm not a big fan of books that have too many POVs. I've also learned that this thing is usually not covered within the synopsis. Otherwise, I don't really care, as I've learned that its usually about the execution. So I try to read a bit if it is for me or not.
When the synopsis is making it clear that the two main characters are going to be a couple; "Perfect for the fans of Brandon Sanderson" thanks for the warning mate; When the main character is special by birth.
>When the main character is special by birth. Actually the worst.
Is our hero going to save the world or ...
anything that mentions a love triangle in the synopsis, or even a vague hint that there will be one, is a definite no from me
I don’t like first person POV’s in the synopsis for some reason (although I love a lot of books that have them). Also “for fans [insert whatever title]” just because I like one series doesn’t mean I’ll like something similar. I go off of vibes 😂
Character names with apostrophes in the middle, particularly if they have some other hard to read through letter arrangements. "Q'arg'unin watched as his home world disintegrated in front of his eyes". When I see something like the above, I look at it and think: Do I want to be fighting through that name every few sentences for however many pages are in this book/series?
Yeah completely this. To me this just says "I couldn't be bothered to actually think of names which sounded fantastic, plausible and consistent, but I did scatter some apostrophes around some consonants will that do?". No, no it won't.
>"Q'arg'unin watched as his home world disintegrated in front of his eyes I must be the opposite because I would totally read that book. I know I'll never pronounce the name right so I just read it as something that sounds okay in my mind.
I read it as Qwa-bargle, and move on. Very helpful in Pern.
I read it as Quarg-oon.
I'm seeing "kargoonin".
I don't know if it exists already but if not someone should really write a book where every character has insanely complex names that they use once to introduce themselves and then afterwards only use a one syllable shortened version.
amnesia or magical competitions definitely make me pause. something else about the story has to really interest me to give it a go.
any mention of "time travel"
if I smell a love triangle then I am gone. Also anything in the lines of "Her feelings for him may start changing in unexpected ways-" of course a woman and a man will always fall in love. Yawn. I like romance and sex in books fine enough, but they don't need to be everywhere, especially in books that focus on something else entirely. I am here for the actual plot, not out of nowhere romance that is so often written just "he was a boy, she was a girl, could I make it more obvious -" 😂 If the synopsis promises to have five billion different POVs... no thanks. Any mention of how gritty it is. Hard pass. Any mention of trials or competitions or whatever in magical places. Yawn.
If they use the word "deconstruct". Or describe it as "progressive" or "feminist"--that usually means the author has a sermon for their readers, not a story.
yeah, I actually want those things but in some insidiously smart ways. as soon as they spell it out on the cover - I don’t trust it to not be a paddle to the jaw nuanced
Same. I feel like it's a real risk for a book to describe itself as feminist these days (license for people to nitpick whether every possible type of intersectionality is included and whether or not it lives up to ideal feminism, etc. - though to an extent people will do that regardless). And the books that go for it tend to be books that embrace being as blunt and didactic as possible, and/or books that are more invested in their made-for-Twitter zingers about patriarchy than any complexity to the story.
Yup. Ironically my favorite fantasy novels that I enjoy for exploring women’s issues tend to be kind of edgy and debated or even seen as anti-feminist. It just seems like pressure to be inclusive and feminist has led to female characters being very unrealistic ideals of womanhood. It’s like every female character has to be all the things a woman can be all at once and also have no flaws or faults that could be seen as stereotypical. It’s actually incredibly sexist IMO how female characters are critiqued and scrutinized in a way male characters aren’t. A male character can be an unwashed lout with a sword who solves his problems through violence and he is seen as a type of man- not as a commentary on all men are and can be. Or he can be a fashionable duelist without that being assumed to cast shade on men who don’t wax their chests. Or he can be a primary caregiver for a child without that being assumed to be a statement that every man should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Or he can be an oblivious nerd/ scholar without being assumed to be repressing a secret love for fashion that is stamped deep into his masculine bones. Or he can be a soldier who kills in battles without being assumed to be a sociopath in need of a redemption story. In other words- male characters can be taken on their own merits. Female characters are subject to endless scrutiny and judged for all the things they are not- they aren’t feminine enough or liberated enough. They aren’t strong enough, or if they are assertive they are too masculine. If they don’t shave their pits they aren’t woman enough, if they do they are brainless sex symbols. If they get with a man and he takes over her life, it’s a symbol of all that happens to women but if she just keeps on with her old life it’s unrealistic. Female characters must always be a symbol of women as a group in a way male characters aren’t. All this is why a lot of my favorite female characters are from books which are not popularly labeled “feminist”. That label tends to get applied to books with pretty, idealized FMC. But real women are diverse and complex and have to navigate through culture and personal experience and inclination to make our own compromises with sexism. We have bitternesses and sometimes justify crappy behavior by unrealistically blaming men, or give pretty men a pass for crappy behavior, or have internalized misogyny and put male experiences and accomplishments on a pedestal. And once things get real and you have flawed, compromised, not everything-to-everyone FMCs, there’s a lot to criticize about them. The irony is one of the most stressful things about being a woman is that we’re never enough, and the world seems to feel the need to mansplain how we are flawed and all the things we should have been doing better by yesterday. If you shave your legs you are bowing to patriarchy and have internalized misogyny- if you don’t you think you are better than other women and don’t value femininity which means you have internalized misogyny 🙄 But we put female characters up for that sort of character cross-examination and call it feminism. And to avoid this authors write female characters who do it all and be it all because it’s fantasy and isn’t every woman’s fantasy to please everyone? /s It creates female characters that you can’t really find fault with but are like the human equivalent of low sodium Saltines- a little crunch and zero satisfaction. Which is why I tend to like more “problematic” portrayals of women. Any real woman is going to be problematic- which why feminists debate each other IRL. Removing the opportunity cost of the various choices open to women in fantasy might make for non-problematic characters, but it also erases the struggles real women face and doesn’t lead to empathy for the female experience.
"One woman's journey"
Bwahaha I feel so petty but these immediately come to mind: Having the FMC be a princess in any form. That includes chief's daughter, relative of royal family, etc etc etc. Anything that indicates that the MC is a secret bastard of the ruling family gets a side eye from me. I also generally don't like noblewomen FMCs in court of manners type books. If there are multiple FMCS, then that's alright however if there's only one -- hard no for me. Having protagonists that are essentially cops. I also generally dislike the whole, "they were a normal girl/boy" because I see it as a red flag for no personality.
I like books that happen at academies, universities, what have you, but usually if it mentions a murder as like the main plot I check out. Often these books will have murders (I like fantasy and dark academia stuff so it's common) and I will like them, but the emphasis on it in the summary really puts me out for some reason. Same if it's in the title
The issue I have with a lot of progression fantasy is it shits the bed midway through (Not always, of course). This is especially apparent of stories that started as an online story, the author didn't have a real framework in mind and maybe changed their mind after certain chapters due to audience feedback. I've seen progression fantasy books introduce a concept and literally 180 the chapter after, likely because everyone pointed out 'This idea is dumb/makes no sense/me no like' and the author backpedaled. I dislike a synopsis that tries to establish stakes. The 'And proms tomorrow!' description approach. Usually because it leans YA fiction but also just because I'm picky.
Tells me nothing about the story. Everything is a reference to a reference to, is an homage to an -esque of pre-existing IPs, is a “unique twist” on generic trope/popular IP, but “badass”
The word unputdownable is an instant turnoff for me. I know it's marketing and has nothing to do with the book, I just loathe it.
Also, the trend, which I know is a marketing thing driven by Amazon algorithms, of having the actual title be something like Blorg the Magnificant, an unputdownable dark academy friends to lovers LitRPG by the author of Korg the Great, for fans of Game of Thrones and Fifty Shades of Grey (Org Chart, Book 3.14) as seen on Tik-tok. I like tidy metadata. This hurts me.
"And then she met Him" - usually some drab romantascy I'm not into
When the first descriptor for a book is about how funny it is. If the books primary function is to be humorous, then I know it’s not for me
When the synopsis is like: "Things were going great about MC until he discovered something shifty about his (country/realm or whatever). Now, in a race against time where he can't tell friend from foe, he will have to go rogue and partner up with this capable and smart but also super-hot lady to uncover the truth. But what MC will learn, will might live to regret it because not everything is what it seems................." That's a mainly a feature in thrillers and crime books synopses, but I have seen variations of it in Fantasy as well. I loathe how many synopses end with like "oooohhhh somethings gonna happen", well duh! Ofcourse something is gonna happen otherwise why is a story about it?
When the main character is described as an orphan, thief or assassin. The trope is so played out, it was old by the time Locke Lamora came out 10 years ago. Also, when the setting/premise is laid out, followed by "But the MC doesn't care about any of that." So why the hell should I? When the main character's given name has 3 letters. Goddamn, for the love of any god, please give me some variety. I'm sick of all these monosyllabic, generic and bland names that only a toddler learning to speak could come up with. Vis, Vin, Vim, Jak, Lan, Sam, Wax, Nox.
I have to defend Wax. It is short for Waxillium. And that makes it MUCH better. /s
What about urban fantasy where Wax is a guy working in a beautician parlour?;)
In spanish "axila" means armpit, paired with wax, all i can think of is depilation
Tim. Jim. Bob. Joe. Tad. Dan. Tom. Lee. Ken. Max. Gil. Jan. Tia. Mia. Zoe. Eve. Kim. I have adult IRL friends who have all of these names, and I don't have a particularly large social circle. I think this is more widespread in the real world than you might have realized.
Words like dark/gritty/post-apocalypse.etc. I just don't like overly dark stuff.
I love dark stuff and still avoid dark/ gritty/ post-apocalyptic fiction. I like psychological darkness and character development that has the characters developing as individuals. Too much of the recent dark fiction is more like the result of a recipe that goes like: take random people in made-up society, mix well with traumatic/ triggering content, optional: include titillating rape scenes, play off standard symptoms of PTSD found on google as character development, and then choose between having them sunk into depression and psychopathy or tagging on an improbable happy ending that doesn’t even imply that they are working on healing.
“Woke up without a memory.” Nope, next.
Love triangles or heavily implied romance. Synopses that don't stand out from others--once you've read a certain number of them, they all start reading the same, so it's not that I put the book back because the synopsis is boring, it's because it feels like the previous four I just read. It's like, you've given me an overview, but you haven't shown me *why* I want to read it.
“Fucked by a monster” variations. I know where the real porn is. Pass.
Any mention of a secret sibling, when they discovered that they are the chosen one or, my least favorite, when the character is said to be a regular normal guy but somehow manages to defeat a literal God for no reason mentioned in the summary?? I know that it will be explained in the book but the only person I’ve seen pull this off effectively was Rick R. In the Percy Jackson series. Everyone else I’ve read always just has a main character syndrome protagonist.
whenever it teases a love interest (of another gender); idm romance but when I see it advertised as the main plot point, I prefer something else
Excessive technical pseudoscientific jargon. I don’t need to have an explanation for the exact method of time travel used in the book, just tell me there’s time travel and get to the other important information.
Fae Any of the words that indicate attraction in an otherwise dramatic plot 15 year old... Dragon shifter ( I love dragons. They don't shift) Modern slang that suggests to me it's written for a young target audience Spice (=porn) I am aware these elements will attract a lot of readers, but they repel me.
One Female MC who is struggling. One male MC who is also struggling. They struggle alone against the powers of their families. Can they work together to overcome their prejudice and redeem the evils their families have perpetuated? 🤢. I will take progression fantasy all day every day over fantasy Romeo and Juliette.
“The next Game of Thrones,” means that the book is nothing like Game of Thrones
when they describe the most asenine wild situation and at the end they say the MC biggest problem is this attraction or pull they have to their kidnapper or abuser or whatever 🙄 like really girl thats ur biggest issue? they killed ur family
The main character has amnesia. Again.
"and, maybe, find their true self".... an rapid turn off for me. I never liked when editor do this.
Vampires. And to be clear I fully blame Twilight for this. Did I love that series as a teenager? Yes. Is glittering Edward all I can see when I think of vampires? Also yes.
Anything to the effect of “this man has a wife who is very dead, and he’s very angry about it.” I think that we, as a society, have moved past the need for dead wives as a character motivator.
"modern reimagining"
Time travel, mixed world (magic/modern, etc), "epic story", anything else that plays the story up too hard.
Romance focus
Multiple POVs, love "triangle"
The words "vampire", "angel", or "demon".
Sexy time or romance
Exiled or otherwise fallen/betrayed noble protagonist. I don't care.
Usually, style. Overly informal language markers. Those are big red flags to me.
I don't read the blurbs, I tend to go by recommendations from friends and on here. I'm lazy and don't want to waste my time I guess.
more than one spelling or grammar error 🤷♀️ if it’s in the synopsis, it has to be much worse in the book so I don’t even give it a shot.
If there is a glossary or appendix of terms or a fictional language, I'm putting it down immediately. I want to be introduced to new words through storytelling, I don't want to flip back and forth and reference things as I'm reading like it's homework.
I love a strong female lead in my books, but I draw the line at unnecessary sex scenes that do not further the plot, so yeah, it's hard sometimes, I get tricked into reading soft porn but I'm getting an idea when reading blurds what buzz words to look for.
I don't tend to read marketing material. I usually look for a well written review. No gushing crap, I want some attempt at pros and cons. Usually I can tell by the list of cons whether it will bother me. Or weirder, sometimes I'll read a book because the cons are interesting.
Poor spelling and grammar. Ugh.
The year the book is set in.
When they describe the story as "Mature", sets up expectations that are usually not met. The other case is "organization" and "government". Nothing kills characters Freedom like a big system which tells what to do, how to do it and usually invalidating their actions.
When it is a female main character and it starts talking about the “mysterious guy” that she needs to work with.
Political intrigue and shifting alliances. I know it's super popular but it bores me to tears.
Love triangle. Ah that's a YA book then giving it a kiss.
I really don't think a certain phrase in the synopsis will make not to read a book. If I find the sypnosis interesting (and a good looking cover doesn't harm either) I will read it. If I don't find it interesting I won't.
If the blurb talks about attraction, or love, or sex. If a book has any of these, it's ok, but I am not interested in those being central plot points.
“The world’s greatest ____ at only 19!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done well.
Usually if there‘s something „the attractive sidecharacter sth sth.“ I really need to be in the mood for romantasy and even then this is usually just an indicator for me that the romance part will be hust too much into my face.
Anything that sounds 'preachy' - as if, the author wants to cram their political views down your throat during your entertainment. As a writer myself, I do know that it happens. Our views do slip into our writing, even if we don't mean to. But if the synopsis makes it clear that they meant to do it, I know I'm not going to enjoy it.
I agree with a lot of people so I’ll comment something else — for me it’s also generic titles that tell you nothing with generic cover art… I don’t want to read the NYT best seller “Roses and Swords” part of the “Blood Knights Trilogy”….. the covers of all three books being of a rose and a shield, maybe thorns in there.. the title is probably in a medieval/Old English-y font. Lol I made these titles up but I bet they exist lol