Top 5 Wednesday – Changing opinions!

It’s been a while since I have done a top five post but I really loved this topic so I just had to do a post! As always Top five wednesdays is the creation of Sam from Thoughts on Tomes and the topics can be found on the Goodreads group.

This weeks topic is:

Bookish things I have changed my mind about

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1) Paperbacks

I admit it I used to be a bit of a book snob, I liked all my books to match, in pretty hardback making my shelves a thing of beauty. But as a UK reader of all things SFF I had to get over that really quickly. Most SFF and YA publications go straight to paperback in the UK and I have to admit the covers tend to be stunning. While, I wish UK publishers would embrace, the floppy paperback a bit more readily, my commute has made me love the fantastic portability of paperbacks.

2) Annotating Books

Again I was a bit of a purest, my books had to be pristine things of beauty on my shelves, till i discovered the joy of scribbling all over them. I don’t annotate every book but when I do I really enjoy making notes, using tabs, underline it quotes and just filling it with all my thoughts. It’s great fun to flick back through and see what my opinions were. I am hoping to go back and annotate some of my favourites.

3) DNFing Books

I used to be a real stickler for finishing books weather I enjoyed them or not but recently I realised that life is too short to read bad books, my TBR is far to big to be obsessing over finishing books I am not enjoying. Sometimes I am just not in the mood to read a certain genre, or a particular authors style. I am finally getting round to saying it’s OK to put it down and pick it up later, or to put it down and not finish it at all.

4) Unhauling books

I have also recently started to get rid of books that I am never going to read/re-read. Most of my book collection now comes from my local charity shops and I have no problems in returning them to those shops, if they no longer capture my interest. It’s much better that the book goes to a home it will be read and loved than gathering dust on my shelf, and the charity benefits twice!

5) The gender swap/Undercover Lover trope

We all have read these kind of books, the Mulan retellings where our heroine has to dress up as a boy in order to save the world etc and the first boy she befriends actually falls I love with her despite thinking she is a boy, he is confused by his feelings for her, but when he finds out she is a girl is relieved and instantly is deeply in love with girl her. In my youth I loved this trope. I adore mulan and used to love all the awkward angst filled scenes this trope created. But after reading a couple of books recently that has resurrected this idea I found myself feeling uncomfortable with it. The older I get the less angsty this gets and I have started to find it rather negative towards the LGBT+ community. While we usually read these books from the female persepective, the questioning of the male characters feelings towards their “male” friend now impacts me is being almost homophobic. Usually the male character is not allowed to explore those feelings and usually is relieved to find out the “male” friend is a girl and that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

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What have you changed your mind about, when it comes to all things bookish? Are there any tropes you used to adore and now are iffy about? Have you recently changed a reading habit, revisited a genre etc.etc. I would love to chat all things bookish with you! You can comment down below or find me on Twitter or Goodreads!

Happy Reading!