Book Talk #2: Bookish Pet Peeves

 

So we all have those awful book pet peeves that show no signs of going away any time soon but they vary for us all. Whether it's the ones listed below or ones not mentioned, we all have them and there's honestly no getting over them or even coping with them. It's a daily war we have to face and we as book lovers need to vent about these things sometimes. So read on for a very understanding rant!

 

1. Bent Pages.

One thing that always annoys me more than anything is dog-earing pages! Every time I open a book, I want to take in the beauty of it's perfect and white pages that are still fresh and crisp without having to see the ugliest line on the corner of my page. Not only does it damage the book page (seriously, once the crease is there, it's there for all eternity) but it makes no sense to dog-ear a page when it's so easy to reach into your pocket or purse and pull out a receipt or gum wrapper to mark your place in a book. Also, bookmarks are, what, 49 cents? Even a leaf can work as a bookmark! Please, mark your place in a book with anything around you but whatever you do, don't dog ear my page! Thank you and good day.

 

2. Damaged Spines.



Another kind of damage that drives me bananas, is a damaged spine. Not only can it be damaged on the actual spine of the book, but it can also be damaged on the spine of the dust jacket, which could honestly be worse. Imagine a beautiful and perfect dust jacket that couldn't be any more perfect and then you see a small tear on the top or bottom. I've had it happen to me multiple times. It's a true nightmare.

3. Stickers.
There's nothing more annoying for some people when you buy a brand new book or a used book from a bookstore with a sticker or two on the cover or back and no matter hard you try to peel it off as smoothly as possible, the sticker just won't come off! It leaves behind sticker residue and you have to scrape off the stuff with your nail or wet cloth and it would make life a lot easier if the stickers weren't on there at all. Let's face it, stickers are not going away anytime soon and we just have to learn to live with that fact as best we can. No matter how many stickers you're able to peel off without a problem, eventually you're going to have that one sticker that doesn't want to come off and wants to forever connect to your book. Just scrape and scrape and eventually you'll get it off. Until you run into that problem, my very best bookish wishes are with you.

 

4. More stickers, but worse.

This is a problem that occurs mostly at the library for me. Don't you just hate it when a book catches your eye and you turn the book over to read the synopsis and you can only read about half of it because there's a sticker covering the words? Most times when this happens, I have to look on Goodreads to read the synopsis when it'd really be nice if the sticker was placed in a better place and I can read what it says right then and there. You'd think people would want to strategically place the sticker where it's not covering anything important. Just saying.

 

 

 

 

5. Mismatched books.



This is a pet peeve that's pretty much the number one among book lovers and readers. There's so many series and trilogies that have only a few books that match both in height and cover and look beautiful together because of that. And then a publisher decides ten books into a series to change the look of the rest of books and your chance of having that series to all match goes completely goes down the drain. You can only hope with everything you have inside of you that one day in this lifetime the books will all match by being republished in the same look and/or format (hint, hint, Shatter Me by Taherah Mafi).

 

6. Covers that don't cover?

Okay, so this one I just don't get. Covers are made to cover the whole book from front to back. Not MOST of the front and back. It makes no sense to have a random little strip of paper peeking out, like, what's that supposed to do? Cover the whole front of the book for goodness sake! It's annoying to see that random slice of paper peeking out at the edge of the "cover" and does nothing for the book or for me. What's the point of it? If you're trying to hint at the fact that there's something cool on the inside, I'm going to open the book to check for that regardless if I know there's something cool inside or not. There's just too many books like this in the world and I demand that they get a full cover or be published in hardback to make everyone happy. Please, make a full cover for a book. That's all I'm asking for.