Social media is all about saying more with less. Even book blurbs have dwindled to a few simple phrases to try to peak interest. So instead of judging a book by it’s cover, we are forced to judge by its promises.
In cases of using book tropes as descriptions being helpful, it may benefit people with triggers quickly avoid a story that may cause them harm.
There was a push for books to have reviews by other well-known authors or publications, who also have reduced their quotes to just buzz words. On When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill, all Buzzfeed had to say was, “Powerful.” Which very well may be, but that’s not what made me pick up the book. Simon & Schuster recently made a statement in an essay for Publishers Weekly, “It has been tacitly expected that authors-with the help of their agents and editors-do everything in their power to obtain blurbs to use on their book cover and in promotional material.” He continues by saying that it won’t be “required” to spend “an excessive amount of time” getting these types of blurbs. It is difficult for new authors to obtain these quotes and it’s all a performative act for distributors, not readers. For more that, Slate wrote a great article.
I feel the same way about defining books by their tropes and even by declaring “From Booktok!” in a brick-and-mortar store. It takes away the magic of discovery. It could also backfire for some readers, causing them not to pick up a book due to the labels.
The other issue with defining by tropes is mislabeling tropes. One huge example I cannot ignore across book conversations and advertisements is the mislabeling of Enemies to Lovers when they mean Forbidden Love. If someone is of a certain station and they shouldn’t have romantic relationship with someone else, that is Forbidden Love. Think Disney’s Aladdin, Romeo & Juliet. Enemies to Lovers on the other hand has more violence, more murder, more holding knives to each other’s throats. Think The Cruel Prince, Pride and Prejudice, or A Court of Thorns and Roses. The characters have to overcome their differences and misconceptions to fall in love. Romeo and Juliet fell in love despite their families, but they were never enemies themselves. Anyway, I digress.
Mislabeling can lead to false promises for the reader. They set up certain expectations. You could maybe argue that the book can be labelled with a trope that you expect but the author has twisted it for the plot, but then that book isn’t that trope anymore; it has become something else. Promises are important for the reader. Broken promises or expectations has caused me to DNF or not like many books. And I am not talking about plot twists. Those are delightful.
I personally try to avoid reading a trope list before diving into a book because I want to be surprised. If I can guess what is about to happen (i.e. they come to an inn and I know it’s a one-bed trope), I lose excitement. I could be in the minority, as I know some people like to know what is going to happen.
This is different than defining by genre. Genre does make certain promises as well, but they are overarching categories, not specific labels. I have expectations when I pick up a fantasy book, but I don’t necessarily know what will happen in the book.
So I have a proposal: don’t put these quotes and tropes on the cover or even the back cover. If the industry doesn’t want to do away with it, make it its own page in the front of the book. Some books have already done this in the past. It makes it nice and easy for me to skip all the quotes from reviewers and get right to the story. Trigger lists are also done this way, so why not add tropes to that list?
I am a fan of back cover descriptions as I don’t want to read a whole review on a book before I read it. I want to read the back, maybe the first page, and then decide whether or not I want to buy the book.
Maybe I am being traditional and not with the times. But I’m tired of false promises and buzz words.
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