Even though I read way too many books, I can’t read them all. So every new book I take on involves a selection process. For me, that selection process is pretty straightforward; at least for novels.
At the beginning, there is discovery: I have to know about a book in order to consider reading it. Recommendations are usually my prime discovery tool. I get few recommendations from friends and family because our tastes are too different. So it’s usually through blogs I follow, through random folks on Twitter, or through Amazon’s algorithm that I discover new (to me) books. I used to browse bookstores a lot, but between a pandemic and a dwindling number of bookstores, this route of discovery, while the most enjoyable, has faded into the background.
Once I’ve found a potential candidate for my ever-growing TBR tower, the selection process starts in earnest.
Let’s start with first impressions: the physical form of the book (I almost always read analog books), with the cover as its most important part. But also the layout and even the binding. Can someone please explain to me why anyone would purposely make a book whose pages look like they’ve been chewed on by mice? Anyway. A well-designed cover is a book’s calling-card. It will give a pretty good idea of the contents and even the style of the book. If the cover’s pink and flowery, chances are that this isn’t a thriller (or a grimdark fantasy). Conversely, a battle axe on the cover doesn’t usually point to a romance. If it did, I might read more of them.
Once I’ve determined that this is indeed a book that looks interesting, I read the back copy. Sounds interesting? I’m off to Chapter One. This is when I’m checking out the writing itself. Stilted prose, or prose that tries too hard to be “literary” turns me off. A less-than-assured command of language and style turn me off. Misspellings that go beyond the occasional typo make me roll my eyes. What can I say? I’m a linguist in my day job.
Still, I can forgive a certain level of linguistic mayhem if there’s at least one character who draws me in. Character development is by far the most important component of any novel to me. Who cares about a devious plot, deep world-building, and cinematic settings, when the characters that move through the lushly laid-out, and intricately plotted novel have the personality of zombies, or are so awesome in everything they do that I’m wishing the author would kill them off already?
I’ll keep reading if there’s at least one character I can care about and root for. When that character is intriguing enough, I don’t even care much about genre. Once a character has drawn me in, the rest is icing on the cake. I enjoy an immersive setting as much as the next person. A multi-layered, internally consistent world, a world in which the characters act, and which acts upon them in turn, is very appealing to me.
Anf finally, there’s plot. I confess that plot isn’t all that important to me. There’s many a mystery or thriller that left me scratching my head, because the plot was too convoluted for my straightforward mind. Even in epic fantasy, intrigues and machinations of world-spanning import aren’t very important to me. Actually, I prefer my stories up close and very personal. I’m interested in the psychological ramifications of the characters’ experiences. I want to see where they’re broken, and how they try to hold themselves together. I want to be in their skin as they despair and as they triumph. A book that does that for me is a rare book indeed. It’s the search for books like these that keeps me reading as voraciously as I do.