It's time for Whatcha Thinking Thursday, hosted by me! Here's how it works. Each Thursday I'll simply blog about something book related that's weighing on my mind. Feel free to comment away if you agree or disagree (just keep it clean, okay?), or if you want to post to your site either on the same topic or about whatever it is you're thinking about go right ahead. I just ask that you link back to here. Also, make sure you let me know in the comments if you've participated so we can find you!
This week is a kind of continuation of last weeks post, where I talked about genre's. It got me thinking about why you get caught up in a genre to begin with. Which made me think of gateway books. Much like gateway drugs, these are books that get you hooked and lead to more and more books. finding the next great book in the genre is almost like an addiction, it keeps you reading.
I'll pick just one genre to run with here, but I can pinpoint the book for each of the genre's I talked about last week. I'm going YA here, because that's what I'm reading most of right now. For me, the gateway book was Twilight. I suspect that the same can be said for many other readers. I read Twilight while on bedrest for a week. I devoured it. All four books (twice) and the first movie (several times) and then I thought "now what". Luckily I found TwilightMoms and the lovely ladies there were generous with their recommendations. Pretty soon I was grabbing everything YA I could get my hands on. I was hooked. Looking back, after reading alot of YA, I have to admit that Twilight is not the best book out there, it's not the best written book and the plot is not tops either. However, it give you a bit of everything and does a phenomenal job at hooking you, sucking you in and making you want more. I LOVE Twilight for those reasons. It opened my eyes to a whole genre of books I was ignoring and not only have my reading habits changed, but my whole life is changed (which is a seperate and lengthy story- but to summarize, it made me quit my job and become a librarian).
Do you have a gateway book that sucked you in and made you want more of a particular genre? Sound off in the comments!
You know, "gateway book" sounds an awful lot like "gateway drug!" Just kidding ... just struck me as funny, that's all. I kind of go all over the place in genres, so I can't really point to a particular book sucking me in. (Well, I guess I can go back decades and point to Mary Stewart as fueling a love of gothic romances! No wonder I still love mysteries!)
ReplyDeleteAnd how cool that you are now a librarian. I think if I had to live my life over again, that's a profession I definitely would have looked at. (That and the law -- isn't that crazy?)
Just have a YA fantasy recommendation for you: "Principled Destiny" by David Cleinman. Strong female character, battling her father and brother to take her rightful place on the throne. This strong heroine is compassionate and kind, yet driven to excel and willing to risk everything to bring about the changes she desires and that she believes need to be made. I like the slightly anachronistic time period -- and the supporting characters are very strong and add some great life to the story.