Unpopular Opinions Book Tag

Thank you Irena at Books and Hot Tea for tagging me – you can read her unpopular opinions (many of which I completely agree with) here.

1. A popular book or book series that you didn’t like

It’s very rare that I don’t like a book, but I would say The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath is the closest I’ve come to disliking a book that I thought I would really enjoy. I tried to read this a few years ago now, but I never managed to finish it. Unfortunately, the story just didn’t draw me in.

2. A popular book or series that everyone else seems to hate but you love

The closest book I can think of is Melinda Salisbury’s The Sin Eater’s Daughter. I wouldn’t say everyone else seems to hate this book, but it has a lot of negative reviews. I really enjoyed the first book in the series, and devoured it within two days. It may have been slow, but I loved the setting, the writing, and I even liked the romance. I’ve also heard a lot of people say that they didn’t like John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, but I loved the humour and the nerdiness. It’s one of my favourite young adult novels.

3. An OTP that you don’t like

Triss and Four in Divergent. When I read Divergent, I did not understand this pairing at all. Four went from barely speaking to Triss to becoming a love interest, and as far as I can tell, the pair had very little in common.

4. A popular book genre that you hardly reach for

Since I’m mainly drawn to sci-fi and fantasy books, there are a few genres I rarely reach for. Crime is definitely one of these: there are so many crime books out there, so a book of this genre rarely leaps out at me. Similarly, romance doesn’t hold a lot of interest to me (although I do make exceptions for young adult books).

5. A popular/beloved character that you do not like

Gale in The Hunger Games. By the final book, I felt that his character had become aggressive and lacked compassion. I have nothing against the way his character was written, but I simply didn’t like his personality by the final book.

6. A popular author that you can’t seem to get into

I like to think I’m led by the books that sound interesting to me, rather than the books that are popular, so I only tend to pick up a popular book if it interests me in the first place (and I’ll completely ignore those that don’t). I recently read Stephanie Garber’s Caraval, and for me, it just didn’t quite live up to the hype surrounding it. It was pretty in both appearance and content, but I didn’t love it as much as I’d hoped (you can read my review for more details here). For that reason, I would have to say Stephanie Garber.

7. A popular book trope that you’re tired of seeing

I’m so tired of seeing characters fall in love after only a handful of meetings. I’m even more tired of characters falling in love with someone who was unkind to them at the start of the book. In fact, I’m tired of a lot of tropes, and you can read more about them in this blog post.

8. A popular series that you have no interest in reading

There are a lot of contemporary young adult books I have no interest in reading. For one, the Anna and the French Kiss books. While I’ve read a lot of really positive reviews and know this is a popular series, the theme just doesn’t appeal to me.

9. The saying goes “the book is always better than the movie”, but what movie or TV show adaptation do you prefer to the book?

But the book is always better than the movie! I think there were times that Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal series was better than Thomas Harris’ novels. The Silence of the Lambs in particular is one of my favourite books, but Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen were so fantastic in the series that there were times I loved it far more than the work it was based on.

I’m tagging:

Kiersten at Once Upon a Spine

Erik at The Past Due Book Review

Crystal at Lost In A Good Book

Bentley at Book Bastion

Sarah at Between the Pages

Let me know your unpopular opinions!