Picky Picky

Thanks Ellen!
Now I can complain about this one book I got from the library. ^-^
So, yes. I've been slowly making my way through the list, and there's definitely a lot of good stuff there so far (admittedly I"m still on the A's). This'll probably be pretty helpful the more I right. Some stuff I know already, and some stuff I hadn't really thought of. But like Ellen, I'm probably more forgiving about some things than she is.
So, there was this one book I added to my "to read" list who-know-how long ago. I don't even know where I heard about it. But I finally got it at the library and started to read it... and it was pretty much EXACTLY everything that she raves against in her story. Daughter of a rich noble doesn't want to wear pretty fancy dresses. She'd rather go walking in the woods, but her dad won't let her. And then I stopped, but it sounds like her dad got drunk and promised to marry her off. It was soo TYPICAL that it just made me want to gag. I read a couple chapters, trying to give it a chance, but there was NOTHING original in it.
Bleargh.

This is a problem I've been starting to feel recently, and I think these blog posts are just making it worse. It's getting harder and harder for me to find books that I really get attached to. Books that have potential just aren't written to my standards, or the characters aren't interesting, or the plot doesn't make sense or isn't executed well. I still read a lot of them, but that by no means includes them in my short list of favorite books. If you go the the "To Watch" list (I keep it updated with good movies/series to watch and good books to read - see the link in the side bar AKA the dooblydoo) you will notice that very few of the books in my nonfiction section are fantasies (even though fantasy is one of my favorite genres).
I think part of the problem is I tend to like books that you can love at all ages (like Watership Down which I desperately need to read again). So, sort of young-adult stuff, but it has to be written well. I read lots of adult books too, but more often than not they're not as interesting to me, or something. Maybe I just am not good at finding adult books that appeal to me. I need someone who's read all the books that exist and can tell me what I personally would like to read. Heheh. Don't we all need that?
Except for Nonfiction. Since those are all true stories, the plot and characters don't matter. They're all true. So there's plenty of nonfiction books I like.

Anyway, Ellen, can't wait to read your character bios! I think I kinda suck at writing bios. I'm not sure I can capture them without actually writing scenes with them or something. I seem to suck at describing my characters. I wonder how you get better at it...