Hello readers! I was scrolling through Booktube the other day and found a new tag, so I thought I’d go ahead and do it. This one is all about how you interact with books and your personal reading taste, so let’s jump into it!
The Get to Know My Taste Tag was created by Marines on Booktube. I’m adding the word reading in the title so anyone who sees this post will know it’s about books.
How do you rate books? Give a quick rundown of how you do your star ratings (or if you don’t use star ratings, how you evaluate books).
I actually made a post about this a long time ago and I’ve been meaning to update it. I always feel like I struggle to put into words what I feel about a book, but I really try my best.
A 5 star for me is just a book that I really enjoyed. It doesn’t even have to be a book that I thought was flawless or was a favorite.
A second reason is that the book made me cry. If I feel like I grew a lot as a person or was just really moved by the story, it’s automatically a 5 star. I love books that bring me to tears.
The last one is that it just felt like a five star read. You guys probably know what I mean. I have to have that five star feeling or I won’t give a book 5 stars.
Usually I will give 4 stars to books I liked, but didn’t absolutely love. This is my most common rating.
I also give 4 stars to a book I really loved, but it had one big thing I didn’t like. For instance, an open ending. Or the reveal of a thriller just didn’t make sense. Another could be the main character was insufferable, but I still enjoyed the book a lot.
3 stars is just a book I didn’t really have a lot of feelings about. When books are just okay, they end up with 3 stars for me. It wasn’t bad or good, just middle of the road.
This is the star rating I dread more than anything because it just feels like a waste of time to read a book I didn’t really feel anything for one way or the other.
There are two different ways a book is getting two stars from me. One is that I DNF’d the book. If I read enough of a book to add it to Goodreads, I am giving it a 2.
The second is that the book was really frustrating for me. Wuthering Heights is a good example. I just found all the characters so frustrating. If I didn’t read this because I had in high school, I wouldn’t have made it to the end.
I usually will leave some sort of review on Goodreads when I give two stars. And it’s usually because of the characters being so frustrating.
I’ve only given 11 books in my entire life 1 star. The only reason I give out a 1 star rating is if the book is offensive in some way. If the book was really racist or something like that, it is getting a 1 star read.
If I can’t find a single thing that I believe anyone could like about it, I’ll give it 1 star. Thankfully this hasn’t happened many times in my life.
How do you approach reviewing books? What’s your review style? Are you analytical, emotional, casual, or structured?
I try to give positives and negatives along with other things I think people are looking for. I think it’s important to try to find a positive in a negative review and vice versa when I can. It depends on the genre, of course. I’m not super analytical when reading books and I know most people are not either.
I find that many readers prefer shorter over longer and more detailed reviews. So, I try to keep my thoughts concise.
If it’s a romance book, I like to comment on the pacing of the romance along with naming tropes in the book. One thing that will always grab my attention in other people’s reviews is if a book has a trope I like. I will also add if the book is spicy or not because a lot of people have a preference for one or the other.
For a thriller or mystery novel, I’ll try to talk about the twists and pacing of the book. I think it’s important when reviewing a non-fiction or even a literary fiction book to talk about the emotional impact of the book. For fantasy books, I want to mention if I thought the world building made sense to me.
I recently started mentioning what the overall consensus seems to be about a book. If I hated a book and a lot of people loved it, I like to say that in my review so the person reading will know I’m in the minority on either end of that spectrum. I mean, I don’t want to steer anyone away from a book that most people liked just because I didn’t like it.
A really good example is Divine Rivals. I didn’t understand the world building and I hated the romance. It moved too quickly and didn’t make sense, but 99% of people liked the book so chances are if you are interested in it, you should give it a try.
It really just depends on what I felt while reading and what I think other people might want to know.
What’s the book that made you a reader? Whether it was your first favorite or the one that got you hooked, what book started it all?
I did a Let’s Talk Bookish post about this in January called How I Got Into Reading. If your interested in my backstory of going from hating to loving reading, please check that post out.
But in short, it was Stephen King. I loved horror movies and later turned into a horror reader. Which is weird because I don’t really read a lot of horror these days.
Do you have a genre niche? Are there certain genres you gravitate toward? Or do you read widely across genres?
I have always read very broadly in genre. I love reading all over the place. As a matter of fact, I get genre fatigue. I can’t read more than 3 books in the same genre before it starts putting me in a slump.
I also love to be proven wrong about what I don’t like. In the beginning of my reading journey, I only read vampire books. At 15 years old, I would’ve never picked up a book without some sort of creature in it.
Over time, I have learned I like a bit of everything, even genres I was sure I hated for so many years like contemporary romance, scifi, and even thriller books.
Do you generally prefer character-driven or plot-driven stories?
I am a big character driven readers. Characters can make or break a story for me.
What’s a book you love so much that you don’t care if others don’t like it? What’s that one book you love enough for everyone?
I would say Twilight or any other book that is widely made fun of now, but was huge when I was a teen. It’s so popular to make fun of things women like, especially young ones.
I don’t think Twilight is perfect or anything like that, but it holds a special place in my heart because 15-year-old me loved it. I was such a big team Jacob girl. I’ll continue to love it because of how much I loved it then even if everyone hates it now.
Is anyone else getting that $100 box set in October? I don’t usually get expensive or pretty books, but I am getting this one.
What’s a book you love so much that if someone doesn’t like it, you know your reading tastes don’t align? The book or books where a difference of opinion is a strong indicator of different reading preferences.
I feel like this varies by genre, but Rebecca F Kenney books. This series is a little dark, it’s spicy, it’s weird, and also quite violent. I know it’s the type of book people read and either love or hate.
I know if you don’t like this type of romance book, we probably don’t have the exact same taste in romance. Fin is genuinely my favorite love interest in a book I’ve ever read.
What’s in your “trash pocket”? What books, tropes, or themes that you know are bad but you love them anyway?
I have to say object shifter romances. This is such a niche genre in romance and I know they are really weird, but that is why I like them. I like when things get a little bizarre.
Do you have any dealbreakers in books? Something that, if present, immediately turns you off from a book.
Because I’m on the topic of romance, I would say when people say a romance has forbidden romance or an age gap. These type of things make my skin crawl. I know forbidden romance doesn’t always mean an uncomfortable age gap, but most of the time it does.
Another is an open ending. I am not joking when I say this will ruin a book for me 9 out of 10 times. I go out of my way to find lists of books with open endings so I don’t read them.
The genre of dark romance. Most of it is just too much for me. I can’t do all that non-con stuff or other taboo things like that. I am not saying I’ve never loved a dark romance, but I try to steer clear of them especially if they are compared to Haunting Adeline.
What’s a strong opinion you have about a book released within the last year? Whether it’s overrated, underrated, or just a take you need to share.
I haven’t read much in the past year that was a new release. My problem is that most of them haven’t been good. I read The Ministry of Time and really didn’t enjoy it. And I felt the same for Incidents Around the House. But, I by no means had an unpopular opinion on either one.
What do you look for in writing? What makes a book stand out to you? Is it prose style, themes, voice, structure, or something else?
Personally I am not too picky about writing style. I more have things I don’t like over things I do. I don’t like super flowery writing that is way too descriptive. I mean, I like descriptive writing. But not where it’s just exhausting to read.
It just constantly reminds me I’m reading a book. And I don’t want to feel like I’m reading a book. I want to feel immersed in a story. I don’t find flowery writing to be atmospheric, I feel like it takes me way out of the story.
How do you decide what to read next? Do you plan ahead, mood read, or follow external factors (hype, recommendations, ARCs)?
I like to do a mix of both planning ahead and mood reading. I have been picking out my TBRs more lately and I do enjoy that a lot. But sometimes I’ll also pick up something random. I do like knowing what I’m going to pick up next before I finish the book I am reading.
Where do you get inspiration for your bookish content? What sparks your post ideas—other creators, trends, personal reading experiences?
A big part of my content is doing reoccurring posts such as Let’s Talk Bookish, tags, or Down the TBR Hole. People seem to like these types of posts the most, so I focus my time on them over anything else.
Other than that, I will do whatever comes to mind, or I’ll send a topic idea into LTB so I can see a lot of people’s thoughts on what I want to talk about.
If you could make any book go viral right now, what would it be? A book you think deserves more attention and why.
I would honestly say anything I love that is middle grade. The book community devalues middle grade so much.
I’d love to see everything from Alex Gino’s books to the Mr. Lemoncello series or even Nevermoor go mega viral. There is so much value in middle grade books that most people refuse to even look at because of the age group they’re in.
Who are some Book community members with reading tastes similar to yours?
When it comes to book community members, I look at different places for different kinds of books because I read so broadly and most other people do not.
I always look at Book Riot for diverse books. They have specific posts about diverse middle grade books and also graphic novels, which are lists that are hard to find. When it comes to Booktube, I like to watch Books With Emily Fox for scifi recommendations. She also has a beauty channel that I love.
I genuinely read and watch so much content from people who have completely different tastes from me. Most of the time, I am there for the opinions of that person, not just because we read the exact same things.
Who Do You Tag?
If you enjoyed this post, check out my Book Tag Masterlist for more book tags I’ve done!
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