Well hello, Gentle Reader! I covered what I like in this post now I am going to talk all about what I really don’t like in terms of reading wheelhouses.
THINGS GAIL CARRIGER
ISN’T INTERESTED IN READING
I know I know, I don’t like putting negativity out into the world but I always want something I can direct people to who will persist in asking me to blurb/read books.
Ready? Here we go!
4 Systemic Issues That Really Turn Me Off
- Teams with only one woman
- Female protagonists with no female friends
- Skinned characters (biologically women, but they think and act like men)
- The Hero’s Journey
7 Plot Devices I’m OVER
- Amnesia
- Rape
- Issues that could be solved with one conversation
- Depressed main character
- Abusive/stalker Alpha males (AKA Alpha-holes)
- Killing your gays and/or minorities
- Sherlock Holmes retellings (more on that in this blog post)
4 Writer Ticks I No Longer Forgive
- Women characters only described by their appearance
- Early onslaught info-dumping
- Detailed descriptions of gore or glorification of violence
- Glaring and consistent misuse of vocabulary (thesaurus syndrome)
I Will Not Read It If It’s
- Dark/gritty or dystopian
- Zombie/plague focused
- First person present tense
- All white and/or all cis het
- Part of a long running unfinished series
- A cliff hanger
- Over 120k
Book Recs?
If you book recommendations from me (or to suggest books to me) I shout out favorites on Twitter & Facebook regularly and often talk about what I’m currently reading in the Chirrup.
If you want to know whenever I post a review, follow me on BookBub or Goodreads.
Want more?
http://gailcarriger.flywheelsites.com/2019/04/24/gail-carrigers-reading-wheelhouse-what-i-love-what-turns-me-on-what-i-yearn-for-books/
http://gailcarriger.flywheelsites.com/2015/07/13/authors-reading-tropes-gail-hates/
Yours in “stop trying to dump books on me that I’ve seen a million times before,”
Miss Gail
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Amazon | Elsewhere | Direct from Gail
Sci-fi queer romance meets cozy mystery in which a hot space station cop meets the most adorable purple alien ever (lavender, puhlease!) from a race with 5 genders.
GAIL’S DAILY DOSE
Your Tisane of Smart . . .
See an Octopus Change Color as It Sleeps, Perchance Dreams
Your Writerly Tinctures . . .
To Join or Not to Join a Professional Writers Organization: That is the Question
Book News:
Quote of the Day:
Ok so…. Sorting Pratchett
- The Luggage = Slytherin
- The Librarian (oook) = Ravenclaw
- Sam Vimes = Gryffindor
- Nanny Ogg = Hufflepuff
~ Self on Twitter
Your Moment of Gail
“I suspect it may be like the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic; the one merely reads books, the other needs books to make it through the day.”
(Interview with The Booklovers blog, September 2010)” ~ Gail Carriger
Questions about Gail’s Parasolverse? Wiki that sheez!
will you read first person past tense or just not first person perspectives at all?
I’m open to other versions. It’s just first present wigs me out for soem reason.
Patting the table and murmuring, “Hear! Hear!”
The real world has more than enough dystopia, angst, violence, etc.; I don’t need to get more of it in a book. I read for entertainment. I am not entertained by Stürm und Drang, Angst, Schadenfreude, or any of those other dreary German psychological concepts. I read to have a little mental dalliance, to take a breather in a land where the clothes are frilly and colorful, one can be consensually naughty behind closed doors, there is exactly sufficient clotted cream for the scones, and dirigibles rule the skies!