Seven Things: Bookish Thoughts

01 - For some reason, the hot weather make me not have much patience for reading long books or even long series —  It's like the time goes so quickly that spending it reading long books just seems tedious and too much work. I've been reading a lot of short books and standalones (which I will post about later) and and I'm a much happier reader.

02 - "She hosted a grin of nostalgia," from Hands On Homicide by Sarah Hualde — What does this mean to you? I had written this down to think about it and still it just seems like a weird phrase and not quite right. Is this just one of those writings that you have to tear it apart to understand or do you just suppose to shrug it off as something quirky that means something but not really? I didn't read the book but I'm sure it wouldn't help to understand this phrase any better.

03 - If you're going to have the word ghost or ghosts in the title and if it's a fantasy, please have a ghost in the book — Same thing with mermaids and whatever else that promise something. I think there's an unspoken or unwritten promise with book titles. I know you shouldn't always take book titles literary but I can't help myself. How do you stop yourself from judging book titles?

04 - I hate those cute cute illustration for romance books that are smutty. At least with those shirtless man/half naked lady on the cover, we know what type of books they are but with these cute covers, you cannot be sure. These make people think they are some type of family-friendly, wholesome romantic comedies but no, they are filled with explicit sex scenes. Why can't modern romance books say exactly what type of books they are? (Example of these cute covers: The love hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, The hating game by Sally Thorne, The Brown sisters series by Talia Hibbert, Fix her up by Tessa Baily)

05 - I know age shouldn't matter when comes to authors but when I find published books written by teenagers, I just kind of judge the books and maybe unfairly. What I want to know is why adults are publishing books by teenagers but failed to edit them properly. By that I mean, they just aren't written better. So maybe books written by teenagers are aimed at children and teenagers and perhaps this is why they kept the writing as it is but that didn't mean they shouldn't be properly edited.
    But I guess it can be said the same for adult writers. Some books written by adults aren't properly edited either so why are publishers do such a sloppy job at editing their books? Self-published authors, I can understand they may not be able to afford more thorough editing but major publishers have the ability and yet, they don't do it. But then again why do they have to care about good editing as long as the books sell? I'm not going to name names but some books could do with better editing and cutting the length down.

06 - Romances disguise as murder mysteries and how hot guys ruin murder mysteries — So maybe books aren't disguising their genres but when you put the word mystery or murder in your book title and said it's a murder mystery, it had better focus on the murder mystery in equal focus with the romance. I don't want to read a book focusing on romance with a side of murder mystery - those are romances.
    What's with using the word hot? It always sound like some teenager is saying it. And of course our main character (most of the books I read have female main characters) always ends up romancing the hot guy. And these hot guys (some of them are a bit extreme in the looks department) are always quite intelligent. So they (the authors) are telling us there isn't a single hot guy who is dumb even in the entire fiction universe? I'm not making fun of dumb hot guys but I just think they are unfairly under represented. But I suppose no one wants a main male love interest to be dumb so it's why they are always intelligent and good looking.
    There was a book (actually I think read several of these) that I remember reading where the main character returns to the home town where she grew up but her ex-boyfriend/childhood crush/whomever stayed hot (or they get even hotter - they must be in need of fire hydrants badly) and I thought, he stayed that way because he was waiting for her to come back or else he would be an overweight guy with receding hairline because we can only have hot guys as love interest for our heroines because having an ordinary or plain-looking guy is just not good enough! Oh no, that would blasphemy!
    What's annoying is when these women keeps drooling over these hot guys with internal drooling with monologues and whatever. Lust is okay but in a murder mystery, it's distracting and it makes it seems like I'm reading a romance.

07 - Does knowing more about an author makes the reading experience better or worse? — If an author is the kindest human on the planet, does this make reading their books a good experience? No, it makes no difference to me. If an author is an asshat, does this make reading their books a horrible experience? I would still say no. It all should depend on the books themselves. It's because authors and almost everyone post their lives on the web, readers can't always avoid not knowing anything. But more so because the news just pours out whatever they could find no matter what the effect is on people. Perhaps it's better to avoid reading about authors' lives or perhaps readers shouldn't get to know authors so well, not as fans. I prefer not to know an author in depth. I prefer to just know whatever the short bio in the back of the book or on the book jacket said. Why do we need to know more?

What bookish thoughts do you have today?