Hello lovelies!
This week our topic was a suggestion from the lovely Sirtsu from Little Pieces of Imagination. She wrote "I'd love to know if you follow the hype or what you think about it in general, if you think it's good or bad or if it can sometimes ruin a book etc." We thought that was a great idea because there are so many books coming out that have so much hype surrounding them. I myself have been bitten by the hype bug on more than one occasion. So, watch on to see some examples of hype doing me wrong and even one where it did my right:
Oh yeah, I totally found out how to film on my iPad and have it take up the whole screen!
*happy dances*
Have you ever been bitten by the hype bug? How do you go about avoiding it? Or does it not bother you at all? Let me know!
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I agree that it is SO easy to get burned when a book has a lot of hype. I also sometimes feel like I am just hopping in the bandwagon, and people just view it as 'another 4 star review'.
ReplyDeleteIf it's a book I know I'm reading soon, I try and not read reviews, and often just look at ratings, so I don't get bogged down in the stuff they don't like.
And try and seek out gems that are missing hype! Every book deserves a little love :)
You made me wanna take my socks off!
I totally see what you mean. When there are so many high reviews for a book it can start to seem like it's a bit monotonous. I'm with you on not reading reviews of books that I plan on reading soon for sure. Seeking out gems is great, I love seeing reviews on blogs that are not on every other blog.
DeleteWho needs socks??
I tend to read books with a lot of hype. Most of the time it's long after I've read all the amazing reviews so I forget just how much hype it has, but with Shatter Me, I had it held up pretty high with all the amazing reviews, yet I didn't feel as strongly about it as everyone else did. I was actually a bit disappointed even though it is a great book. It just wasn't what I was expecting.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good idea too, waiting until the hype has died down and isn't so fresh in your mind before reading the book. That's exactly what happened to me with Renegade! Had I not had it so built up in my head, I may have enjoyed it a lot more than I did.
DeleteI have been bitten by the hype bug: Incarnate. Just thinking about that book makes me irrationally angry. But everyone else loved it!
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy you loved Easy. That book was sooo worth the hype.
I haven't read Incarnate yet for that exact reason, everyone loved it so much so I'm scared of it.
DeleteYes Easy is so worth the hype!!
Lol!! Love that you totally go on about your filming issues!! I totally fall for the hype sometimes even when I try so hard not to. I won't go into it all here since my post for this goes up on Saturday. OMG I am going to get so ranty in mine. I have a list!! Yes, a list... I will most likely lose it before I actually film though haha!! I'm sure I will end up babbling nonsense like I usually do!
ReplyDeleteUgh I'm still so mad about them, I guess it's a good thing I bit the bullet and bought an iPad or I don't know what I would do. Can't wait to see your post!
DeleteAaaahh!! What a lovely surprise. Okay, now that I'm done being honored and giggly I'm gonna watch the video, lol. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I WANT TO SQUEEZE YOU INTO A HUG RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MWAH :*** =) Love ya!! Ok, I'm done smiling. LOL. Maybe not, but I'm going to watch the rest of the video right now. Oh, and by the way, I lived in England for three weeks about four years ago and no problem with my name or nick-name pronouncation. You're not the first one to wonder;) You did perfect, though!!! :)
ReplyDeleteMy hype bugs are Delirium by Lauren Oliver and Matched trilogy by Ally Condie. Matched was just boring. Delirium was okay, but it was too poetic for my taste I guess and I like dialogue in books, but there wasn't much. I thoght these two were going to be epic, but they just weren't for me, I guess. On the other hand, I thought that I had read so many similar books to TSoT that why should I read it? However, everyone on my GR wall was raving about it and recommending it to me like there was no tomorrow so I picked it up and I kan kiss hype's toes for that or do a foot massage to it for the rest of this year. Too bad it isn't a real person, lol. But yes, sometimes my expectations are so high that these books just can't surpass my hopes. The main example is Deity by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Gosh, I thought it wasn't anything special, just the same old by JLA, but most of the readers/bloggers thought it's the most holy and perfect book to have ever been on the Earth. It was good, don't get me wrong, but it was just that - good. Ahh, this just made my day. LOL, just a funny fact for you from my day: I had a free day from Uni and decided to ditch biochemistry and read Night School instead (I bet you've heard of it since it's coming out in US/Can this spring by Harper I think, but since it came out last year in UK and it's already been translated to Estonian, then I got to read it, yay!!) and I thought it was gonna be about vampires, because quite a few people had marked it so on GR, but surprise, surprise, it had nothing to do with supernatural. At least not in the first book :D Ok, I'm off to studying now. *hugs*
LOL I'm happy you're happy! Oh happy I got it right! I never pronounce names right so I am so surprised. And then I had looked at your twitter and there it says Siiri so I didn't know LOL
DeleteOh no so sad to hear you weren't as big a fan of Delirium as I was! I haven't read the Condie series. I also haven't read that JLA series. I have read Obsidian and Onyx and after loving Obsidian so much I was so let down by Onyx I mean give the angst a break already! I hope you enjoy Night School!
Haha, yep. Well.. Siiri is my real name, but Sirtsu is kind of a nickname that stuck with me since I was little. Not many people call me that way, because my real name is shorter than this one and I don't even know why I have it on Blogger, but yeah, it's one of my very few nicknames:)
DeleteYeah, Delirium is a book I'm bound to give another try to. Someday at least. I haven't completely erased it from my books, lol. I heard that there's another guy in Pandemonium though and that creeps me out. Not a fan of love triangles. Wel.. If you plan on reading JLA's Covenant then it's good, in my opinion, but as a true Richelle Mead fan I can't ever give it full 5 stars I guess, because even though I love Jennifer to death, her first two books (and even some elements in the third one) are kind of rip-offs of Mead's Vampire Academy books. If you ever were to read both of them, then you'll know what I'm talking about. But they're still good and enjoyable. I like Lux series better and Opal is supposedly really sexy, snarky and adorable, too, so I can't wait to pick it up. But I think it won't happen until Origin is out, lol. The cliff hanger thing scares me like no other.
Oh, and Night School is something I think you'd enjoy. I just finished it and the mystery element was good. Since I just accidentally found out what happens in the second book and it pissed me off so bad, I don't think I'm gonna read the sequel.. I'll probably wait for the third one though (if there even is one) and then I'll decide if I'm gonna continue with this series. The first one was pretty decent!
I try REALLY hard to avoid the hype, because it sets up all kinds of unrealistic expectations. If I've decided to read a book, and particularly if I know I'm reading that book soon, I rarely read reviews. BUT it's harder to avoid chatter and excitement, hah. Still, I think it's bound to happen for everyone now and again, no matter how hard you try!
ReplyDeleteCute vlog as always. :)
Wendy @ The Midnight Garden
I'm the same, if I am reading the book soon I'm not reading reviews for it. I learned that the hard way with Renegade. It is hard to avoid the chatter on twitter when everyone around you has read it and loved it. I always seem to be the last person to read books, maybe I need to review them sooner, but I always try to review them the week before release day.
DeleteThanks Wendy!
Gah--Renegade was so good! Bitch!! haha. But I had ZERO expectations and actually, I expected a MUCH different and light read than it was. I didn't expect it to be any horror or gore and then ALL THE BLOOD!!
ReplyDeleteI really want to read Easy but, aside from my issues with bitchyface, I'm scared I'll hate it bc everyone loves it. I'm so often the black sheep! >.< I totally agree about negative side too. when I see a lot of bad ratings for a book I'm starting I kind of pick out all sorts of bad stuff from it that I may not have if I didn't expect to hate it. Like I got with it with a bleh feeling from the start. Anyways, I won't leave my whole post on this comment lol
It was TERRIBLE! Gah All the blood haha yeah like that one scene *eyeroll*
DeleteLOL Easy is so good, you NEED to read it. I don't think you will hate it at all, it's NA come on! Right? That's what I think too I am way more nitpicky when I have read other people's nitpicks.
Your iPad worked great for this video!
ReplyDeleteI've been hit and miss with hype, too. Sometimes the book is definitely so good, but then sometimes it totally sucks and I don't know what everyone sees in it.
And I agree with you -- I love commenting on everyone's blog, and when I see everyone raving about a certain book, I really want to read it! I think that's why I like my library -- I don't have to BUY the book, but can still give it a go.
Yay I'm so happy that it works!
DeleteI am often left wondering what everyone saw it in it *sigh*
When there is lots of hype around a book, I sometimes delay reading it just so that I won't be able to remember as many details from the reviews and comments that I read. I guess it's not easy for us to not have expectations when we see raving reviews after raving reviews.
ReplyDeleteGreat topic for discussion and thank you for sharing, Jenni!
That's a really good idea! Delaying reading it until the hype has died down!
DeleteLove this vlog discussion! I feel like I get burned by hype too many times, and yet, I still get excited and let myself build books up to mythic proportions in my mind if all the factors are there—buzz from bloggers I love, a killer synopsis/trailer/teaser, and big publisher support (I always think if the pub is spending time/money on that book over others, there MUST be a reason). I still get burned, but sometimes the hype is right. More often than not though, it's lovely to discover a book you adore that ISN'T hyped up, and share that with your blogging friends.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this thought-provoking vlog!
I find sometimes that when I read a hidden gem the excitement is much better because no one else knows about it!
DeleteWoo! You're not tiny!
ReplyDeleteSTRAPS.
The hype bug gets me a lot. If I'm the last one to read a book that's gotten a bunch of great ratings, I pretty much always fail.
You will never get over Renegade.
I wish I could go into every book thinking it would be crap, though I guess then I might be harder on them or something.
Woo! Socks!
I try to comment mostly on the ones I didn't plan to read and ones I've read.
BAAAAAAAAHAHAAAAAAA
Also, the recommended videos after your haul are mostly your own with the addition of some fat guy who sings and three different versions of Don't Stand So Close to Me. WEIRD.
DeleteI love your discussion vlogs! For me, I am such a lemming that I am pretty sure the hype always works well in my favour. Perhaps that means I have no mind of my own? I don't know, all I know is that hype usually translates into excitement for me, which translates into me loving a book. I can't remember a time when a book was getting massive amounts of hype and then I didn't like it. Works the same the other way, unfortunately: if I see bad reviews, I am not likely to go into a book with an open mind, which is sucky.
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky Aylee! I wish the hype always resulted in my loving the book! More often than not it is the other way around and it sucks!
DeleteThis is such an interesting topic! I think this is because I'm an author rather than a blogger, but I tend to react more negatively to hype when it's coming from the publisher, not the book bloggers. Sometimes the amount of praise/money/time they heap on one book just makes me roll my eyes. On the other hand, when tons of bloggers/readers love a book I often expect to dislike it, b/c my taste is so weird...and negative reviews don't turn me off either. There are tons of books I love that have less than 3 stars average on Goodreads...I like really quirky, weird, short books.
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I'm more likely to avoid reviews AFTER I've read a book, especially if I read it awhile ago...when I read reviews whose opinions differ from mine, I'll sometimes start doubting myself so much that I end up reading the book again, which I really don't have time for!
This is a great topic! I agree, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And what you said about reading other people's reviews and picking up on the things you would've had otherwise missed - so true! I didn't catch the Shatter Me hype/negativity towards it but I remember enjoying the novel quite a lot. Recently I read a review on it and wonder how did I manage to read through this sentence or the other?!
ReplyDeleteGreat topic & great vlog once again Jenni!! I only really had 2 big instances of being HUGELY let down by hype: The Mortal Instruments Series & Masque of the Red Death. >.< After that last one I stopped reading reviews of books on my reading list...ESPECIALLY ones I'm excited about already. Similarly, if I read reviews who point out huge issues with the book, I am likely to be bothered by those same issues too so yeah - I just avoid some reviews altogether until I've read the book. haha In another sense though, if I start seeing a book everywhere with 4-5 star ratings it makes me want to check out the book sooner! I've read SO many great books that way that I wouldn't have checked out at all otherwise!
ReplyDeleteHey, Jenni!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love watching your videos! You're so funny! Your comments are also interesting, honest, and entertaining.
This is a GREAT topic! I realize that not everyone can possibly like the same books, but still, it's SO disappointing when you read a book that's been surrounded by hype since its release, only to find that it falls flat for you personally... I do try to avoid reading too many reviews of a book that everyone is praising to the skies, but sometimes my curiosity does get the best of me, and then I end up reading the reviews! Then, of course, I'm sorry when the book just doesn't do it for me. But on the other hand, that's precisely what reviews are for -- to let readers know whether or not a particular book will be worth their while to read.
One good thing about reading reviews of books with a lot of hype 'attached' to them is that you can find out, ahead of time, if there are things in the plot that you might not like reading about. Of course, these are spoilers, and it's not good to have too many of those in a review. However, in the case of paranormal novels, for example, I do appreciate it if the reviewer mentions that there are zombies in a novel. I HATE zombies!! The one exception for me was Amy Plum's "Die For Me" series, because the zombies in these books (the third one is due out soon!) were NOT the mindless, half-rotted kind that eat humans. Instead, they were called "revenants", and looked like regular people.
Well, this comment is much TOO long already...lol. Anyway...I do think there are pros and cons to buying into the hype. I guess there are no hard and fast rules...
Thanks for your thoughts on this interesting topic! :)
Sometimes, I try to avoid reviews just because I don't want to have any expectations.
ReplyDeleteDude, I never wear socks in the house. I walk in, and I take them off. Haha :)
Hype comes with its pros and its cons. Sometimes a lot of hype makes me aware of a book or series that originally was nowhere near my radar. Then like you mentioned, there's times when you buy into all the hype, go right out and buy that certain book, then end up being burned. I feel like all you can really do is checkout a wide variety of reviews from trusted bloggers before you go and purchase a book, and even then, there's still a good chance you won't love it as much as others.
ReplyDelete