Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly book meme started by Lainey @ gingerreadslainey and hosted by Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes. If you would like to join the group on Goodreads and post your own top 5’s click here!
This week, the topic is tiresome book trends and boy do I have some opinions on this! Here are some things that I think are overused in the book world right now/in the recent past.
Love Triangles
I think we can all agree that love triangles are both tiresome and over done. I have so much love for so many books that contain love triangles (i.e. The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, and the Infernal Devices series’), but I would not be heartbroken if I never ever read another love triangle. I get that, psychologically, we humans like things in threes, but relationships should not be part of this… at least in my opinion. Basically, I am super tired of love triangles and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here.
Dystopian Tropes
This one is a little more vague because there are certain elements that have to exist in a dystopian novel in order for it to be classified as dystopian instead of just science fiction. But in general, dystopian societies have been a bit over done in the last decade and it has become really difficult to enjoy something that I feel like I have already read over and over.
Floating Heads on Covers
This is another one where if I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it enough. I like when there’s a depiction of a main character on the cover of a book, but not just an extreme close up shot of a face. Please. I like covers that give me an idea of what the book is about or give me a vibe about the book’s content. A giant face can only go so far. That said, I know I have complained about the cover change for the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld because I “liked” the covers with the faces. Literally, me making this argument right now has made me change my mind. The new covers do a much better job of illustrating something about the content of the books, so they’re actually so much better.
The Stereotypical Trilogy Color Scheme (red green and blue)
There’s probably another psychological answer to this, but why do almost all YA trilogies have these three colors in the covers (as in they have one book in each color)? Examples include but are not limited to: Divergent, Matched, The Hunger Games (sort of because there’s no green), The Selection (sort of)
I suppose it’s most the the colors blue and red that are consistently present, but there are just too many books in those colors! I found a ton when I googled teen trilogies so do so yourself if you’re curious and have a good time scrolling through the proof.
Movie Adaptations
I love page to screen adaptations, but only if they are made on the right platform for the books that are being adapted. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Twilight (I’ll admit they did well enough on screen in general), etc were able to be translated really well for movie adaptations. But the idea that seems to be but there is that every YA book series should now be turned into a movie franchise. the truth of the matter is that some of these series are just not meant for film, but will do really well as TV series. For example, I think the Shadowhunter series has so much more potential as a TV show on Freeform than the movie did when that tragic thing happened. A Series of unfortunate Events was a pretty bad movie, despite it’s A-list cast because there was too much material being smashed into a 90 minute film, but the Netflix show is the perfect platform because it allows more room to give the right amount of time and energy to each book. Other books I think would make good TV shows are: Vampire Academy/Bloodlines by Richelle Mead, Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan, and probably a bunch more!
What book series do you think would make a great TV show or Netflix original series?
Katie x
LadyKatieReads 