What's In a “Good” Book?
When you think about your favorite books, what stands out? Action? Adventure? Romance? Whole new worlds? Do the characters have to memorable? Does the plot have to thrill or mystify you? I love a book that can catch me off guard with a twist.
You probably have a few things you really love in a book. Sometimes you like them so much you might even be willing to put up with a subpar plot to keep learning about the characters or the world they live in. I’ve often felt like the readers I know who love the Lord of the Rings series must be super-readers because they can get through the 2-page long descriptions and still somehow be able to focus on the plot.
Maybe you like these kinds of because you enjoy an escape experience, or because what you’re reading is so unlike your life that you are learning through someone else’s eyes. Maybe you want to have a feel good experience, or maybe you want to be so scared that you and your pet are hiding under your blanket in bed.
Whatever those “good” factors are, they’re important for your experience. You won’t like a book without at least some of these factors. Although I try to keep my mind open, I definitely gravitate towards specific patterns and types of books that I’m generally interested in learning about outside the book.
My Good Factors
Below are the top factors I look for when I’m interested in a book. This list is obviously not exhaustive, but most of the books I read have at least one of the following elements.
Fiction
As a learner, this is actually surprising to me. I’ve often thought that my love of learning would lead to liking nonfiction, but that has never been the case. I’ve always liked being able to read as a bit of an escape from reality.
The escape aspect is why I love magical books like Harry Potter - it’s so different than reality that I enjoy thinking about the differences and the possibilities. I recently read The Rules of Magic and Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, mostly because I love the movie with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. The idea that someone could have powers like that in another, but similar world is fascinating.
When I know something is based in reality, I also often feel the need to research other information about the people and setting. So when I know the book is fictional, I don’t feel that pressure to know more - I can just read and enjoy.
Strong Female Character(s)
As a woman, I tend to relate more to female characters than male characters. I understand their experiences more because I’ve lived some of those things. Relating to the characters or having some sort of empathetic understanding is important to me because even if they’re in a different world, they’re still people (I will talk more about this in a little bit).
It’s always a pet peeve for me when a book has a whole cast of characters and not one of them is a woman who shows some sort of actual personality or spunk. Or, there is only one woman character that plays a larger role but is demonized or thought of in a purely negative light. We all see you, Heart of Darkness.
This isn’t to say that all of the books I like need a heroine at the helm, but I mean, jeez. Not all women are passive and gentle creatures. This is sometimes a struggle when I read a work classified as part of the western literature canon or a “classic” because the roles really were different back in the day. And not in a liberating sort of a way.
Spunky females pop up in many of my recommended books blog reads. If you want to read a book with really scandalous women (at the time), you should check out Peyton Place by Grace Metalious.
Historical Aspect
History has always been one of my favorite subjects to learn about, so it’s no surprise that I love books that include an aspect of it. The time periods I am most interested in include: Medieval times, the Civil War, and World War II & the Holocaust.
These time periods are so drastically different from the world I’ve always lived in, so I find it fascinating. These were also times of great tumult and tragedy and I always am just astounded by the atrocities that happened. I continue to be amazed by the fact that there are many things in history that are so awful that it seems like someone should have made them up instead of it being fact.
I particularly like when an author can effectively weave a present day narrative together with a historical narrative. That’s one of my favorite factors in a book, actually. I just finished The Key by Kathryn Hughes that did this really well. One narrative was set in the 1950s and one was set in the early 2000s.
An Actual Conclusion/Ending (Or Known Continuation)
For me to really enjoy a book, it has to have some sort of actual ending - good or bad - or another book to bridge the cliffhanger at the end. I hate it when you’re reading along and all of the sudden the book is done with no sort of resolution and no other books to read.
I don’t find this to be a problem too often because I’ve seen it mostly in books that are sci-fi or fantasy based, but it is really irritating. It almost seems like, in these circumstances, the author just ran out of things to say or something.
“Classic” or “Canonical” reputation
As a student of literature, I do have a personal interest in what most people call the “classics.” These are generally books that have been acclaimed as good and presented as capital “L” literature that’s better than popular fiction.
I enjoy seeing the prose of “the greats,” although I’m a firm believer that we shouldn’t be afraid to be critical of them. As you can see in my blog about Books I Feel Like I Should Love But Don’t, there are many of these books that made the list.
On the whole, though, I like being able to read the book and then contextualize it so that I can see how it would have been taken and understood at the time.
My Avoid Factors
On the other hand, there are some things that just turn you off of a book almost immediately. I’m sure you can probably recall a time when you picked up a book and read the cover summary or the first few pages and put that book right back on the shelf. I have moments like that every time I go to the library!
Maybe it’s missing some or all of your “good” factors. Or maybe it has them but assembled in a way that makes you think “What the heck was that writer thinking?” Maybe you just don’t like certain things.
Below are the top factors I avoid in a book. This list is, again, not exhaustive, but chances are, if a book has one or more of these factors, I won’t like it very well.
Sci-fi & Fantasy Genres
This is kind of disappointing to me, actually! I like movies that are fantasy based, with some sci-fi thrown in, but I really do not like these books too much.
I recently tried an audio book, The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett, because I read about it in an article. I sometimes struggle with audiobooks because of boring narration, but this guy is the full package doing different voices and everything. I just can’t get into the book, though! Which is sad because it’s the first of a super long and apparently really cool series.
I just can’t grasp the idea of this world that’s sitting on the backs of four huge turtles floating slowly through space, even in my wildest dreams.
Contemporary Romance Plot
I’m not a racy paperback romance kind of gal. If romance is an offshoot of the main plot, I am fine with it, but you won’t catch me reading any of the (what seems like) thousands of Harlequin romance novels.
The main problem, I think, is that all of it is way over the top. It’s too much. Cute romance is one thing - boy meets girl, you know the kind - but I don’t need anything graphic. Plus, 9/10 times I feel like the situations don’t and wouldn’t happen, so I’m just not into it. It also feels like there are about three types of romance plots that run through every book like this. Not my type of escape!
Bad Writing/Prose
10/10 a problem for me in any book, even if the subject matter is really interesting. I need my sentence structure and vocabulary to be varied!
This is the prime reason I don’t care for any Nicholas Sparks books because his writing is just flat for me. And, although I enjoyed the story of the Twilight series, the writing is just...not good. I’ll say that.
Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic Setting
Like the other genre-type factors, I can’t relate to anything, and I can’t imagine the world ending in any of the ways I’ve seen it in fiction. Zombies? Literal nothing-ness where somehow one or two people have managed to survive? At least there are a variety of different ways people see these events happen, which keeps things interesting.
In particular, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was troublesome for me, as was World War Z by Max Brooks. I understand, or at least I think I understand, that the point of these books is really about humanity, but survival during end times is not really the kind of humanity I enjoy reading about.
Flat or Irritating Characters
So, I don’t find this to be a problem most of the time, honestly. Or if it is, the other factors outweigh it and I keep reading. But, isn’t it the worst when the character kind of just lives on the page and doesn’t change at all? Or has zero real personality? As a reader, I need to be able to see some kind of growth or changes throughout their arc.
I’m not trying to pick on Twilight again, but Bella Swan? Absolutely a big part of the overall story, and she was written to be that way, but still irritating as heck. Kristen Stewart was criticized like crazy for how she played that role in the films, but guess what? That girl was dead on how Bella was in the books!
Everyone’s reading experiences are different and everyone loves different types of books! That’s why we have such an amazing selection available to us.
What do you think, though? What makes or breaks a book for you? What are your go-to factors or factors you avoid?
I’d love to hear from you!