I have no idea if this will be a recurring post or not, but I found the title of the post amusing because I do have a lot of pet peeves when it comes to books. I started reading, Five Broken Blades today. I have high hopes for this book. It has received a lot of praise in the last few months. But, it hit a few of my pet peeves and I feel like ranting a bit about it. You can check out this book HERE, Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

Peeve #1: Trigger Warnings

I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate this fad of putting trigger warnings in books. As someone who has enough of my own trauma to write several books on the subject, I certainly understand the idea that certain topics and things that happen in a book could be triggering to people’s trauma. I am sensitive to that, but honestly, that’s what book reviews are for. That’s what Google is for. That’s not what the first page of the book is for. If I am concerned about a book’s content, I Google it and I read reviews to see if there’s something in there I might prefer to avoid. But I hate being “forewarned” about the book’s content. It feels like a spoiler. Oh gee, thanks author for telling me all these things that are going to happen! So, with that said, I bring you the trigger warning that peeved me:

Again, I perfectly understand that some of these ideas and topics may trigger people, a few of them trigger me too. But….thanks for spoiling so many elements of your plot? I would have preferred to discover those parts of the story naturally. Can we at least put it at the end? Where I don’t happen upon it immediately after opening. Probably not a popular opinion, but it gets on my nerves.

Peeve #2: The obvious sequel announcement

One of my favorite things to do when I start a new book is to read the first line and the last line. Just something I picked up in a creative writing class a long time ago that I’ve never given up. I like the idea of seeing where we begin, seeing how we end and discovering the story in between. And I stumbled across another thing that I absolutely hate about books.

Ugh. I am a fairly intelligent reader. I can usually put the pieces together while reading a book and determine if the author intends to write a sequel. If you have given me a sufficient buy-in during the book then I will seek out that information. Several books I’ve finished this year, I eagerly Googled as soon as I closed them to see if there was a sequel in the works. I dislike being told as if it’s a big carrot on a stick. I probably already surmised that there will be a sequel before I got to the ending. I don’t need an incentive. Just end the book. This might just be me, who knows?

Okay, now that I’ve expressed my pet peeves, I will say this about the book….it has a spectacular binding. I really love painted pages. Especially when it’s this pretty.