Bookish Pet Peeves – Part 2

Just another rant about things that annoy me when it comes to books. Check out part one here.

Random paperback sizes

Can you please decide on a standard, universal format for paperbacks? Pretty please? Or have two formats, like they have for hardcovers. The large one and the small one. But please stop it with the 20 different types of slightly different formats. Sometimes, they literally differ by a couple millimeters. Why? How much difference can that possibly make? On the other hand, it’s frustrating as hell to try to find them places on shelves. Because it looks like shit if there’s a smaller or bigger one every once in a while. Sometimes, they even have different formats within the same series. Why? Please stop. And that brings me to the next one on the list.

When they change covers, formats etc in the middle of a series

You are ruining the aesthetic of my bookshelf and I hate you! Like, if you want to re-release a series with new covers or a new format, fine. But please do not discontinue one cover/format and use another in the middle of the series! Release all of them in whatever format you started with and then re-release all of them with the new one. The only exception that I accept is the Throne of Glass series, Because they only had one book released in the first format and the second one was so much better. Plus, they re-released ToG to match the others. But I digress.

New kid in school type plots

They just annoy the bejeebies out of me. It’s just lazy writing in my opinion. You don’t need to think of any sort of interesting way for your characters to be introduced to each other. Plus, I don’t remember ever having read a book with this type of plot that was good. It’s just lame. Stop doing that.

Excessive recaps

I do not suffer from short term memory loss. I am not Dory. Please stop telling me what happened in the last books every other page. I get that you want to refresh your reader’s memory because maybe they’ve had to wait a year since reading your previous book. And I appreciate small reminders of a detail here and there myself. But it’s got to be done in moderation. Think of those who are binge-reading your series. As a good rule of thumb, if your “recaps” can be used as a synopsis for your previous book, stop it.

Love polygons

These days, it’s not even love triangles anymore. It’s a geometry problem from hell. MCs be hopping from love interest to love interest, to love interest, to magical frog, to love interest like it’s a game of hop-scotch. And then one of the love interests sort of has an admirer who is is really good friends with the MC. And then, the poor, tortured MC! What will they do? Who will they choose? Who will they betray? Ugh, stop it! If I wanted a soap opera, I’d visit my grandmother.

This post is again getting pretty long. I will probably have a part 3 sometime. I am easily annoyed. What are your bookish pet peeves?