The Nope Book Tag!

I've seen this around on YouTube a few times, and it's always quite interesting for me - I try to be positive about books, but it's more interesting to hear about negative opinions, so I decided to do it myself. I'm not sure who created this, but credit to them.

 

1)      A book ending that made you go nope either in denial, rage, or simply because it was crappy

The ending of The Northern Lights trilogy – everyone I’ve talked about to about this agrees with me. The series started off really well, and the ending totally off-set all of that. It felt like the author really hadn’t put any thought into it. To me, it was the same quality as an ‘it was all a dream’ ending.

 

2)      A main character you dislike and drives you crazy

I haven’t finished Jane Eyre yet, but she’s starting to really get on my nerves. She had so much agency at the start, and I’m about three quarters in and she just feels like a foil for Mr Rochester. The book is starting to get so boring because all of Jane’s personality has been leeched out of her.

 

3)      A series that turned out to be one huge pile of nope, or a series that just wasn’t worth it anymore

If you’ve read my review of the Miss Peregrine trilogy, it will come as no surprise that that’s my answer. The first book was ok, and then I despised the second and third. People have told me to read the next three, but there’s no way I could put myself through that after how much I hated it.

 

4)      A popular pairing or ‘ship’ you don’t support

I’m not sure if this counts because it’s not technically canon, but Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. I just don’t see the appeal – they didn’t like each other, and I’ve never in real life seen the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope so it just seems weird. This might also be because Ginny is my favourite character and I want her to be happy.

 

5)      A plot twist you didn’t see coming or didn’t like

This isn’t a ‘nope’ because I absolutely loved this play and the twists, but I did not predict the ending of An Inspector Calls (spoilers) when they’ve just decided the Inspector wasn’t real, but then get a phone call saying a police inspector is coming to talk about the death of Eva Smith. It leaves the play on such a high-tension point, and I absolutely didn’t see it coming, and every time I read it I get chills.

 

6)      A character decision or action that made you shake your head nope

I hate Mariam’s decision to stay and take the death penalty in A Thousand Splendid Suns. I hate it so much. It made me cry when I read it, and I still feel sad thinking about it. This wasn’t something I didn’t like as part of the book, it just destroyed me. Also the fact that Laila didn’t perform an abortion on herself so Zalmai wouldn’t have been born – I hate that kid.

 

7)      A genre you will never read

Probably romance. Not to hate on the genre, because I know there are a lot of good romances, I just have no interest in them. I don’t mind books with a romance as a sub-plot (I actually enjoy when there’s some sort of love interest), I just couldn’t read a whole book dedicated to romance.

 

8)      Book formatting you hate and avoid buying until it comes out in a different edition

Hardbacks. Only because they’re generally more expensive and difficult to carry around, and I like to take a book on the bus, or just have one in my bad. I’m also pretty weak, so trying to hold up a heavy hardback while I’m reading is just too much effort.

 

9)      A trope that makes you go nope

Any that are misogynistic or pit women against each other. I despise the ‘not like other girls’ characters, because it really affects how a young teenage girl thinks – I definitely remember thinking I wasn’t like other girls, just because I had an actual personality, and certain YA books like this led me to believe other girls didn’t have interests or complex thoughts. It’s really damaging for girls’ perspectives of themselves and each other, and it’s something that’s hard to grow out of. Even in my later teens, I see loads of girls who think they’re better and not like other girls, and they should only have male friends, largely due to how girls are portrayed in fiction.

 

10)   A book recommendation that is constantly hyped and pushed at you that you refuse to read

I remember when The Fault in Our Stars came out and I read the first 20 pages, skipped the middle, and read the last chapter because I was so uninvested. All the characters, and the writing style, were so goddamn pretentious that I couldn’t handle it. Since then, people have told me to reread it, or told me to read another John Green book, and I refuse. The male love interest is always the least appealing person on the planet, and I can’t read about some perfectly fine girl (if overly pretentious) falling in love with a trash guy that’s clearly just John Green’s projections of himself.

11)   A cliché or writing pet peeve that always makes you roll your eyes

I know this is quite easily avoidable if I just read more diverse books, but I’m so sick of the main character in every YA novel being white, thin, and conventionally attractive. No one really talks about Rick Riordan any more (probably because we’ve all grown out of his books) but one thing that really made an impression on me was the representation in Heroes of Olympus. Even with Annabeth being the main white blonde girl, it still feels different because she’s so jealous of people with dark hair. I want books with more diversity, but in which the character’s race doesn’t play a big part in the novel, nor is it ignored. In Heroes of Olympus, Riordan clearly didn’t write the characters then throw in some diversity for good measure – he wove the culture into the characters, which is an accurate representation of diversity. This is as simple as Piper relating incidents back to the Cherokee stories her dad would tell her, or Hazel having grown up in the poor, black area of New Orleans, or even Leo’s mother calling him ‘mijo’. Race doesn’t encroach too much on the story, but the diversity is realistic.

 

12)   A love interest that’s not worthy of being one

Am I allowed to say Adam from the famous duo Adam and Eve? I mean in Paradise Lost not the actual Bible, so I’m not shitting on Christianity, just Milton’s Adam. He’s the worst. Charlotte Brontë wrote something along the lines of ‘Milton didn’t see Eve, he saw his cook’, and yeah, that’s pretty much the vibes I get. Adam didn’t deserve her.

 

13)   A book that shouldn’t have existed and made you go nope

I mean it’s not exactly a book but Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I haven’t read it, don’t intend to – the abridged version was enough to know I absolutely hate this and I hate Shakespeare. It doesn’t require any explanation; everyone should hate this play.

 

14)   A scary villain/antagonist you would hate to cross and would make you run in the opposite direction

At the time of writing, I’m halfway through The Killing Place by Tess Gerritsen and oh my god it’s been a long time since I’ve read a horror. We haven’t been told exactly who or what the villain is yet, but I 100% do not want to cross their path. Every time I read a section I’m super paranoid for at least the next hour that some creepy man is coming to kill me and drag my dead bleeding body across the floor.

15)   A character death that still haunts you

All the deaths in The Book Thief. I don’t cry that often, but after reading this book I sobbed for about an hour straight, and I still feel sad thinking about it. I’m thinking of studying it for my coursework, but I don’t know how I’ll get through it without crying.

16)   An author you had a bad experience with and decided to quit

Both John Green and Jennifer Niven are applicable here. I’ve never finished a book from either of them, and I make a conscious effort to avoid books that they’ve commented on. For example, Jennifer Niven’s critical appreciation is on the front of Everything Everything and guess what – I also didn’t finish that. I don’t know what this subgenre is called, but I can’t handle it.