Let’s Talk Bookish: What Makes You Pick Up a Book

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books and Dani @ Literary Lion. This week’s topic was suggested by Rafaela @ The Portuguese Bibliophile and is What Makes You Pick Up a Book.

What makes you pick up certain books? Is a pretty cover enough?

Word-of-mouth is the most powerful influence for me as a reader. If I see a lot of hype, positive reviews, or a friend recommends it, I’m almost guaranteed to pick the book up. As far as browsing on my own goes, covers are the very first thing I notice about a book, before the title and the author’s name even. And I am fully guilty of purchasing books based on their pretty covers and nothing else. Sometimes this turns out great and I fall in love with the book. And sometimes I wish I had actually read the summary or a Goodreads review or two so I’d realize the subject matter wasn’t something I was actually interested in. But since I am a frequent shopper of discount bookstores, I don’t usually count it as such a loss since I didn’t spend much money on the book to start with.

Do you check for good reviews? Is the synopsis important?

If I’m online book shopping, I 100% check for good reviews first. I don’t employ this as much when physically book shopping because I don’t really want to spend time searching books on my phone standing in the middle of a bookstore when I could be browsing for other books I may want or find good deals to make the most of. I also am not much of a synopsis reader. I may skim the summary on Goodreads to get the gist of the book but I prefer to be surprised without any expectations going in when reading it. I’m perfectly happy knowing it’s a “Beauty and the Beast retelling with a twist!” rather than reading the details included within its several paragraphs of summary. I definitely prefer to skim the top reviews for the book on Goodreads and make my decision based off them than the publisher’s summary. Never underestimate your power as a reviewer!

Do you look for diversity or #ownvoices? Do you look for any checkboxes? Do you have autobuy authors?

I’m much more conscience of diversity and #ownvoices now. If I see a book that appears to be #ownvoices, I do take the extra step of checking Goodreads to make sure it is before picking it up. If it turns out not to be an #ownvoices book, I’m more likely to leave it out of my cart since I know there will be one that is that I’d rather read in the future. When I was on BookTube circa 2016, I read several books in an effort to diversify my reading but ended up disappointed in the author’s poor handling or poor portrayal of diverse characters when it wasn’t #ownvoices so I find it to be important when selecting books now.

I don’t really have many checkboxes when picking a book. I read mostly young adult but I also branch out to new adult, middle grade, and even adult books sometimes. I tend to gravitate toward fantasy books within the young adult genre but I occasionally slip in a contemporary book or a historical fiction. Mostly if it’s a young adult, a fantasy novel, and it has over a cumulative 3.5 star rating on Goodreads, I’m likely to buy it. Extra bonus points if it has a pretty cover!

I definitely have some autobuy authors! Some of my favorites are Sarah J. Maas, Marissa Meyer, Rick Riordan, and Rainbow Rowell. Now that I’ve gotten back into reading and will be digging more into my personal library, I anticipate my list to grow more and more.

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This was such a fun topic to write about this week! I never really realized how casual I am about my book selections but I am up for reading most anything that can keep my interest so it’s not that surprising. Are you guilty of cover buys too? Let me know down in the comments and happy reading!

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