17 Things That Make Me Want to Pick Up Your Book

I definitely have my fair share of bookish weaknesses.

I think we all do, of course. We all have our preferences that make us want to pick up a book, and I thought it’d be fun to share my own! I guess you could say this was inspired by that old Top Ten Tuesday topic, but it’s not really a tie-in? So enough confusing you, let’s get into it!

1. An unreliable narrator. Any mention of reading about a main character that I can’t trust makes me super excited. I just really enjoy wondering if they’re telling the truth or if they’re lying or if I can trust them. Some people are tired of this trope, but I just can’t get enough.

2. Promises of “twists and turns.” Okay, this is totally cheesy, but when a thriller or horror novel promises me that it’ll be a twisty ride, I can’t help myself! Onto the TBR it goes.

3. The story’s told using flashbacks. Some people totally hate flashbacks, but when I’m told that a book is going to be told in the present and the past, I NEED THE BOOK. I love that type of story-telling everywhere – in my books, in my shows, in my movies. So, just enjoy it in all formats.

4. It’s like “insert favorite book here” or “insert favorite author here.” Obviously, these are usually marketing ploys, but I can I resist myself when I’m told that the book is a combination of Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo? Or if it’s like The Hunger Games? No, no I can’t.

5. It’s a character portrait. I don’t know why, but I really love it when a book observes a certain character and what happened over their life to make them the way that they are. I’ve seen this done a lot in literary fiction, and it always interests me. I don’t even know why.

6. It takes place in a small town. Did you say that the book takes place in a small town filled with secrets? Because if you did, I AM THERE. I feel like I’ve just read so many of these types of books and fallen in love with them all, and now they’ve become my favorite thing.

7. The characters are anti-heroes. I LOVE ANTI-HEROES. Are they good? Are they bad? Are they really villains? Is it weird if I love them? Anti-heroes are just so endlessly interesting that I’ll be sold on your book if I know that there’s a gang of them.

8. It’s about missing people coming back. This has been a recent trend in thrillers, and I’ve absolutely fallen in love with it. It’s one of the few tropes that you can do so much with that it never really gets old. And I just really like the idea of having to awkwardly adjust back to your normal life after being away from your family for so long.

9. It’s a dark fantasy novel. I’m already deep in love with fantasy, but if it’s a dark fantasy, COUNT ME IN. Bring in the anti-heroes and the villains and everything to do with them.

10. It has a magic system. I absolutely love magic in my books, whether it’s a fantasy novel or just some good old magical realism. I emphatically blame Harry Potter for giving me this obsession.

11. It contains an awful family with lots of secrets. For some reason, I just really love stories where some rich family is at the center of it, pretending to be perfect, and then some event upends their persona and spills all these secrets. It’s just so interesting to me. AND I’m nosy, so I always want to know what those secrets are.

12. There are some sort of games going on. I don’t care how many times I read a summary that is clearly trying to cash in on The Hunger Games and its popularity, I just love the idea of people having to compete in some sort of games. It’s just so much fun and always manages to keep me on the edge of my seat!

13. The world is split into two (or more) different sections. I know this usually makes zero sense and people are tired of this type of story, but I’m always intrigued and I’ll always add it to my TBR. I don’t care how cliche it is, it’s just my favorite thing to read about.

14. There’s a curse. Who caused the curse? Why are they cursed? Are they actually even really cursed? What does the curse entail? Can they get rid of the curse, and if so, how? I don’t know, but I’m definitely going to find out!

15. There are creepy, creepy woods. Because I obviously need more reasons to be convinced to never go camping. But, seriously, this type of setting is one of my favorites in thriller and horror because there’s just so much mystery and uncertainty. Points if the book mainly takes place at night.

16. It promises to be a quirky, weird book. Because I’m weird and into really weird things, so if the book is also weird or has a weird sense of dark humor I enjoy, then that obviously means that that book is meant for me.

17. It has something to do with cults. For a while now, I’ve been really interested in cults. How they start, how they grow, how people even manage to get involved with them in the first place when the leader is CLEARLY out of his damn mind. So I really like observing characters in that type of setting, whether it’s them just living in a cult or even realizing what’s wrong with it and escaping.

What makes you pick up a book? Do we share any of the same things?

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