A list of links to the articles I’ve written for Books Rock My World. The site is run by the beautiful Ana Jembrek from Zagreb and the community of writers there is so great. My fellow writers there come from all over the world. It’s a site for bookworms, written by bookworms, and we fly our booky flags with pride! Come on over and give it a look.
I’m linking to the articles here because having them appear on both sites is bad for Google search stuff (SEO) but I’m still proud of them. Since the site doesn’t pay writers these are written for pure fun and I love them like a redheaded stepchild.
Trope Pieces
6 Romance Tropes We Love to Hate, containing Amazing Outdoor Sex, the Damaged with a Heart of Gold character and a Dictionary of Synonyms for Engorged.
5 More Romance Tropes to Love, making fun of the dreaded love triangle and how terrible an angsty paranormal boyfriend would be, with mentions of pregnancies and Vag Magika.
6 Horror Tropes to Slasher Kill, my favorite of the trope posts. Horror is my guilty pleasure reading. Also, Chuck Wendig is my favorite recent discovery in the genre.
7 Literary Fiction Tropes to Sigh Meaningfully At, was an entertaining one to write too. Tropes are an endless font of fun.
6 YA Tropes That Make Us Angsty with first person. First person everywhere.
4 Science Fiction Tropes to Drop in a Black Hole so you can calculate the weight of disappointment.
Book Recommendations
5 Books for Readers Who Love Pride and Prejudice.The enemies to lovers trope is evergreen.
5 Books for Readers Who Love Jane Austen’s Persuasion, one of Jane’s books that doesn’t get enough love. And the second chance/redemption plot is one of my favorites.
Books that Cook for the bibliophiles who want to know how to make foods from the Redwall feasts, or the chocolates from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
10 Top Romance Authors, a gentle way to ease yourself into the genre and avoid the heaving bosoms.
7 Beautiful Love Stories You Won’t Find in the Romance Section, mostly written because I wanted an excuse to plug some Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman.
14 Children’s Books That Aren’t Just For Kids, because when it comes to “children’s” books I firmly believe they should be read at any age.
8 Medical Books You Will Want to Read containing body-snatching and fluids. Lots of fun.
5 Reasons Why You Should be Reading Stephen King All true.
For Fun
When We Said Critique, a gif. list post depicting the stages of critique. I love gifs.
10 Fun Pranks to Play on a Bookworm, NOT embarrassing or mean ways to joke with your favorite book friend.
I’m In Love With Books, My Partner Is Not, 3 ways to work towards acceptance.
9 Movie Adaptations That Are Worthy Of Their Book, also hit a nerve. Whoo boy people get opinionated about their movie adaptations. The commenters were uniformly nice, but firm.
The 10 Books Most Likely to Get Thrown Out of a Window I’m getting really good at hitting a nerve and it doesn’t seem to occur to readers that the more they want to argue with me the more views the page gets. So, OK then.
Book Genre Recommendations: Based on Your Myers-Briggs Personality People get extremely intense about their personalities, but the commenters were nice which is always a blessing.
5 Books Your Used Bookstore Doesn’t Want I bet you can guess which ones before you click.
Every Bookish Holiday a Bookworm Needs to Know About It turns out there are a lot of days devoted to books.
Jolabokaflod or Holiday Book Flood-Gift Ideas for Book Lovers #bringjolabokaflodhere
featured image courtesy stocksnap.io & Rachel Walker
5 comments
I read your article on YA tropes and I was never originally onboard with 1st-person POV, but it seems this is what every reader of YA expects nowadays. I don’t know if you can get away with 3rd-person much anymore if you want to sell books.
First, thanks Cathy! And yes, first person seems like it’s here to stay for a while, it’s even creeping into New Adult and erotic! But the YA book Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo has been getting a lot of great reviews lately and it’s in third.
It’s the same in middle grade fiction–tons of first person and cliches. You try to do something different and next thing you know, everyone else is doing the same thing!
It’s a personal dislike, but I’m a little tired of first person POV. It’s super popular and not going anywhere though!