The lovely and wonderful Cait of
Paper Fury started off the year with a great discussion, asking
Is Book Hype Trully All That Bad? It's a really great post full of Cait's usual humour, but it also makes some really great points, especially about how everyone is different and we should read what we want, but not to necessarily ignore the hype. However, there was one point Cait made that I would like to look at in more detail. In her post, Cait makes a list of pros and cons for hyped books, and one the cons is:
"It’s NOT being hyped because it’s a “good book”…it’s being hyped because it fills a hole in the book world. I think this is monstrously unfair. And I’ve definitely seen it happen! Oh this book features a blind, asexual, ethnic protagonist? HYPE IT. IT MUST BE GOOD. Um, excuse me but: not necessarily. It bugs me when a book gets hyped because of content, not good storytelling!"
(All emphasis in the quote is Cait's, not mine.)
Now, as Cait pointed out, not all books are going to be liked by everyone. So just because a book is hyped doesn't mean you'll like it. But I do think this kind of hype is important.
Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate (eProof) - The juniors at Paloma High School all have their secrets, whether it's the confident young woman who's done with being slut shamed by her classmates, the closeted pansexual who only cares about his drug-dealing profits, or the neurotic genius who's planted the seed of a school scandal. But it's seemingly perfect Juniper Kipling who has the farthest to fall. After Juniper accidentally exposes her secret at a party, her fate dalls into the hands of the other six sinners, bringing them into one another's orbits. All seven are guilty of something. Together, they could save one another from their temptations - or be ruined by them. From the press release.
