Books Recs : The Pros and the Cons

Hello Lovelies!!

So I've been thinking lately about book recommendations.

I work at a bookstore in the young adult/kids section so it's not uncommon for people to ask me for book recommendations at work. I love, love, love that part of my job!!

But there are pros and cons for book recommendations.

Pro: I love suggesting books to people!

Con: I only feel comfortable suggesting books which I've read before. And as a sidenote to that con, I can only read so many books. (No matter how hard I try, there are just too many to read them all!)

Pro: I get to share wonderful books with people who otherwise might not have picked them up.

Con: Sometimes people don't listen to the suggestions I make and that makes me sad.

But here's the other thing about book recommendations. I'm not the only one to make them. People make them to me too. ALL. THE. TIME.

Now don't get me wrong!! I love being told to pick books up!! But here's the other thing...

People will suggest books to me or (even worse) lend me books, and I am the worst at reading them!! It's no that I don't want to, it's just that I have way too many books to read already. And I am terrible at shuffling books up the ladder to read them. Like once I borrowed a book from my friend for literally five years.

I'm pretty sure I still have a few books which I've borrowed from various people and have not returned. If I've borrowed a book from you and you know it, PLEASE TELL ME. I AM THE WORST.

I've also had a book from a very dear friend that I haven't read but she gave me and it's been like two and a half years--eep!!

I appreciate the thought that someone read a book and thought I would like it, but it's so hard to work the book in.

It's even worse when I end up not liking it. Because how do you tell someone who liked the book enough to recommend it that you didn't like it??

It kills this girl.

So how do you feel about book recommendations? Take 'em? Leave 'em? How do you break it to someone when you didn't like the book they recommended?? Let me know in the comments!

Comments

More Diversity in Your Book Diet

Hello Lovelies! As usual Top Ten Tuesday is brought to you by the lovely people over at The Broke and the Bookish . Today's topic is Top Ten Books for People Who Like X, and I'm going to go with... Top Ten Books for People Who Like Diversity Thanks to the efforts of groups like We Need Diverse Books, diversity is having a resurgence in young adult and children's books. For the last couple years, I have been trying to read more books with diverse characters or by diverse authors. (Diverse in this respect includes race, sexuality, gender, and disability). I haven't endeavored to challenge myself to only read a certain type of book i.e. only those by women of color or anything that isn't by a white heterosexual male, but I try to be extra aware of the characters and ask myself if they actually are white (sometimes the text doesn't say it, sometimes people just assume it!) and if being white is necessary for the character or not. But here are my top t...

TBT: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

In middle school, I was a member of this reading club where we had a set of books to read as a team, and then we did like little quizzes on them against other teams. (SUPER NERD!). And now, I'm not entirely certain, but I feel pretty sure that club was where I read this book for the first time. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare is a Newbery award winning historical fiction novel. Orphan Kit Tyler has been moved from her home in the Caribbean to her puritan relative's home in Connecticut. She feels like she has nothing in common with these relatives, but she does form an attachment with an old Quaker woman and a young sailor, Nat. Of course breaking out of the mold is not without its price, and Kit learns this for herself when she is accused of witchcraft. This is one of those books that I think about constantly. I haven't reread it in several years, but I always want to. I recommend it frequently to other. This is a book for readers...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a very entertaining classic. I think everyone knows the story of young Alice who follows a White Rabbit into the world of Wonderland where everything is just slightly (or significantly) strange. For some reason, every time I've picked up Alice's Adventures before, I've put it down without making it more than 10 pages or so. But this time, I managed to finish it. It's a quirky sort of book, but I enjoyed it. It did make me think of The Phantom Tollbooth (here's my review of that classic), but I preferred Carroll's novel to Juster's. There's some great play on words and delightful misunderstandings because of homophones and characters not paying attention to each other. I think this is a worthwhile classic, but I don't actually have that much to say about it. Middle Grade March Count: 5

Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Search This Blog