Fun for Monday: The Contradictions Tag

I saw this tag a little while ago over at the lovely Laura’s Corner of Laura. The original creator is Booktuber Daniela of Only if for a Page. And as it’s a busy Bank Holiday over here in my corner of the world, it seems the perfect time to be a little contradictory (because I should definitely be relaxing with a book right now!)

 

I love this genre, but I didn’t like this book

I love me a great dystopia (I love me a great utopia too, but they’re harder to come by) and Vox by Christina Dalcher, which about women having their voices taken away, should have been amazeballs. Instead it was so very, very meh.

 

I rarely read this genre, but I loved this book

I had a ton of fun reading David Koepp’s Cold Storage which sits on the line between thriller and horror, neither of which I’m overly comfortable with. It helps that Koepp is funny. I spent a lot of time reading this book chuckling to myself, which made it easier to ignore the gross bits.

 

I love this trope, but I didn’t like this book

Please bear in mind that I have a real problem defining what a trope is. I get it, in theory, but ask me to identify one and I struggle so hard. But I love sci-fi stories where people are dumped on new worlds and have to survive with limited equipment, with or without the added challenge of local wildlife/residents. I’m thinking of books like The Martian or the manga series Astra: Lost in Space.

Philip José Farmer’s To Your Scattered Bodies Go is about just such a situation – briefly, everyone who ever lived on Earth awakes on a pristine paradisical planet, but with none of the trappings of their previous lives – but I will not be reading anything else by this author. Ever. It was that bad.

 

I hate this trope, but I loved this book

I don’t really go in for teen romance, whether it be a pair or a love-triangle, an on-then-off-then-on-again or a soulmates-forever thing. It’s all just so darn dramatic (except Heartstopper which is the purest love story I’ve ever read and I will fight you), like, you’re not even two decades old and you think she/he/they are The One?! Get a grip! Take a shower! Read a book! My eyes are rolling so hard I’ve got a headache, now go play outside!

However, I didn’t hate Kady-Ezra romance going on in the background of Illuminae. I was way more interested in the mega-corporations and the mutated virus, but Kady and Ezra’s banter throughout the book was acceptable. It helped that they were on different ships for almost the entire novel, and I didn’t really need the smooching at the end (zzzZZZ), but it was OK (I feel so much like the kid in The Princess Bride, right now).

 

I love this author, but I didn’t like this book

 

I loved Camilla Bruce’s beautifully ambiguous You Let Me In and picked up Triflers Need Not Apply (the British packaging for In the Garden of Spite) because of this. Unfortunately, Bruce’s second book didn’t really float my boat. Not because it was a straight-up historical novel, nor because it was about a real-life serial killer (I enjoy fictional serial killers on occasion), but because the writing left me unmoved.

 

I previously disliked a book by this author, but I loved this book

I so very rarely revisit authors that I don’t like the first time round that I can’t think of an answer for this one. My reading time is in far too short a supply.

 

I love this cover, but I didn’t like this book

 

I loved Ronan Le Fur’s (aka DoFresh) cover art for Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee, but wasn’t grabbed by the story. It was good, just not great, for me.

And as I posted a couple of weeks ago, while I adore Fei Fei Ruan’s cover art for Becky Chambers A Psalm for the Wild-Built, I didn’t love this story as much as I hoped I would.

 

I don’t like this cover, but I loved this book

My favourite terrible cover for a book that I truly love to pieces (to actual pieces – my one copy has fallen apart and I’ve had to acquire a replacement), is this Fantasy Masterworks one for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A McKillip. It’s just so very dreadful. If Beasts hadn’t been recommended to me by a trustworthy source, I’d not have read it based on this cover.

This is the cover I have now – much better:

But not as gorgeous as this new (most coveted!) Fantasy Masterworks cover:

 

 

That’s me done, what about you? Fancy having a go? Then it’s over to you!