Unpopular Opinions Book Tag!

Yes, that's right! We are going to do the most famous tag in the book community. I am planning on doing this tag every year as I read more books and my opinions change. 

This tag was originally made by TheBookArcher on Booktube. Her original video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYfgq8HgDc0&ab_channel=TheBookArcher

1. A Popular Book or series that you didn't like.

Ooooh I have waaaaay too many answers for this one. I rarely gravitate towards popular books. But for this one I'm gonna have to say...are you ready for this one? Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Am I cancelled yet?

So many people I know, even outside of the book community, ADORES this book, but this was honestly--and I don't usually like using this word because everyone has different tastes--but this book was overrated.

I found it so boring! I'm surprised I even finished it. I guess I only finished it to see what all the hype was about, but I don't get the hype at all.

It's just about a bunch of rich people just standing around in mansions talking about marriage and money. Really shallow stuff. The characters themselves were so one dimensional. They seemed to have no other hobbies aside from discussing...marriage and money. None of them were memorable.

I also hated Jane Austen's writing style. It was so void of emotion and also too flowery. People tell me that she's supposed to have a satirical, witty tone to her writing, but I just found it pretentious and dull.

So yeah, this book was very disappointing.

2. A Popular Book or series that every one else seems to hate but you love.

This is a book that people are more divided on. I've seen plenty of people like it, and also plenty of people dislike it. That book is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

I can understand why not a lot of people like Wuthering Heights, since the majority of the characters are pretty unlikeable and it has an overall really angsty tone, but I loved this book because I loved how it was a deconstruction of the romance genre. I just love deconstruction stories, and while I normally don't like books where almost everyone was unlikeable, I felt like it worked here because the whole point of the book was to show how toxic the characters are to one another, and watching them suffer negative consequences for their actions, leading to their downfalls. It was almost as if Emily Bronte is saying to you "Hey! A lot of the clingy, jealous behavior you see in a lot of romance novels isn't cute at all! If you acted like this in real life, no one will have any respect for you."

But yeah, that's just me.

3. A Love Triangle where the main character ended up with the person you did NOT want them to end up with (warn ppl for spoilers) OR an OTP that you don't like.

Funny enough, I don't have an answer to this question (as of this year)! I haven't read any romance books with love triangles where the MC ended up with the person I didn't want them to (mostly because I don't actively ship characters in stories anyway), or I've read romance novels where there is no love triangle and there is only one love interest they do end up with.

4. A popular book Genre that you hardly reach for.

As of right now, horror. I have read and adored Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Coraline by Neil Gaiman which are normally classified as horror, but other than that I pretty much never pick up horror novels. As of right now I do have Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia on my TBR, along with We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House both by Shirley Jackson, but other than that I don't see any other horror novels on my TBR.

5. A popular or beloved character that you do not like.

I also don't have an answer to this one! I haven't read any books were I've actively disliked a character everyone seems to love, because normally when I dislike characters, they were already written to be unlikable.

6. A popular author that you can't seem to get into.

Again, too many answers for this one, but for now I will say John Green. This is an interesting answer because I love John Green as a YouTuber, but I could never get into any of his books. I tried reading An Abundance of Katherines and also Turtles All the Way Down and DNF both. I found his writing style to be a little bit pretentious sounding, and I simply didn't find any of his characters relatable. I do like though how in Turtles the main character has OCD, which Green himself has, so it's basically a #ownvoices book which I normally love, but the book's plot didn't really grab me. Oh well. At least his YouTube videos are still interesting!

7. A popular book trope that you're tired of seeing. (examples "lost princess", corrupt ruler, love triangles, etc.)

I don't think this is much of a trope but so much a phenomenon I've noticed in a lot of (so-called) romance books, but can we STOP with the romanticization of toxic relationships!? It baffles me so many popular romance books are ones were the love interest or even both the MC and love interest are horrible to each other, yet the author tries to pass it off as true love. I prefer swoony, sweet romances where the characters treat each other well. If you're gonna write a romance novel make it a healthy relationship, or if you do choose to write about toxic people, make it like Wuthering Heights where the purpose of the story is to show how wrong the characters are behaving, or have the main character walk out on the toxic love interest learning that they deserve better.

8. A popular series that you have no interest in reading.

Once again, too many to list. I'll just answer for now that I have no plans on reading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, or its sequel.

Yup, another unpopular opinion!

The book just gives off way too many grimdark vibes for me, which I am not a fan of. I have also heard that the book deals with a lot of heavy topics that might be very triggering for me. I've also heard that apparently the first 200 pages of the book are really slow and are hard to get through. I am not that type of reader. As a reader, if you as an author cannot hook me from page 1, I will not read the rest of your book, even if everyone keeps telling me "It gets better past chapter 10!", I do not care.

9. The saying goes "The book is always better than the movie", but what movie or T.V. show adaptation do you prefer more than the book?

The Princess Diaries.

I loved this movie as a kid and I still do now. I found out a couple of years ago it was based off of a book by Meg Cabot, so I checked it out of the library and read it.

This book...where to even begin...gave off a very different vibe than the movie!

It was still the same setup: a teenage girl named Mia lives with her single artist mother and finds out she is actually the princess to small European country called Genovia, but Mia and the rest of the characters in the book and the overall tone were not like the movie at all.

The difference was that everyone in the book was either unlikeable or uninteresting. Mia was super whiny and her grandmother the queen was really arrogant and rude. Everyone else from Mia's friends Lily to mean girl Lana were one-dimensional and boring.

Also, what I found so off-putting about the book was how inappropriate it was. For example, Mia's always complaining about her chest size, and then her friend Lily has her own web series and one of her viewers is obsessed with seeing her feet...yeah, pretty gross and creepy stuff. Along with a bunch of other dirty humor. I felt pretty grossed out and creeped out reading all that stuff.

I'm so glad Disney made the movie, because then they made it all family-friendly. The characters are more likable, too, in the movie. So yeah, if you want the best experience with The Princess Diaries, just watch the movie. Skip the book!

That's all for now! Do you have any unpopular book opinions? Let me know in the comments!