Happy Friday! I am very pleased that my hand/wrist is doing better this week, because it made typing and putting this post together SO much easier!

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish discussion meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @DiniPandaReads. Each Friday, bloggers will write posts about a particular topic and share on their blog.

This week it’s all about hype! Does anyone else find that to be a really weird looking word if you stare at it too much?

Has the hype ever ruined a book for you? Has the hype ever made a book better for you?

If you’ve been reading my chatty posts for a while now, you might be able to guess at what I am about to say here…

I have never, (and I really mean never), read a book because of any hype. I genuinely barely ever see hype for books. I am not on tick-tok and the people I follow on Instagram are those whose reading tastes generally align with my own. Don’t get me wrong, book hype does eventually filter down to me because in this day and age, it is very difficult to not see and hear things on social media. A lot of the hype I tend to be at least a little aware of is usually for romantasy books, and I am not a romantasy reader. I also feel like (and do correct me if I am wrong!) I don’t read a huge amount of mainstream fiction, again, because I think at this moment in time a lot of the online community are still really loving the romantasy!

I guess the only hype that I do somewhat buy into is the ‘anticipation hype’ that appears before a book is released. Due to the nature of that, very few people will have read the book, so the hype is very different. It’s more of a ‘can’t wait to see what this is like’, rather than ‘aaaa so good everyone must read’, so that sort of hype doesn’t tend to pre-influence my expectations around a book.

So that’s a long winded way of me saying, no, hype has never made a book better or worse for me!

Do you like lesser-known reads, and finding a gem of a book that no one’s heard of? Or do you prefer to read the more popular, mainstream books? Where are the majority of the books you read, in terms of popularity?

I would say that the majority of the fantasy books I read tend to be lesser-known, or at the very least, not the books that everyone is going feral for. As I have said several times now, I don’t read romantasy and at this moment in time, they are the books that are dominating the mainstream. Of course, I have read a few books that are incredibly popular, but I don’t read them because of their popularity. Guys, I basically live under a rock, okay lol. As I said, I have no idea if a lot of what I read is actually popular or not – I assume not so much because again, I read straight fantasy rather than romantasy/romance.

I’m also not someone who is easily influenced when it comes to reading choices. I don’t spend huge amounts of time scrolling around on social media, so I don’t really see a huge amount of hype or discourse around books. Most of my online time is spent talking to friends on Discord, so I get their hype, but again, a lot of them read lesser-known books.

I always get incredibly happy to see a book I’ve read gain popularity. This has happened recently with books like The Spear Cuts Through Water. I loved this book in 2023, and this year I am finally seeing it get more love!

You Tell Me – Do you enjoy book hype? Does it make you pick up certain books?