reading meme!
Mar. 27th, 2025 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavthis looked like a fun reading meme that is currently circulating youtube; gank'd by alaterdate :)
* How do you rate books? Give a quick rundown of how you do your star ratings (or if you don’t use star ratings, how you evaluate books).
★★★★★ - would go in my personal "top 100 books ever read" list much like david bowie's reading list. sometimes i'll prune this; debating on making a page on my personal website this living document. actually i'm going to make a mental note of setting this up on kradeelav.com/books.html at some point in the next month.
★★★★ - would physically buy and reread. solid read that makes me think about the topic or a has a quote i'll remember for at least five or ten years later.
★★★ - a good or enjoyable read; i'm likey to physically own it but might not remember much about it five years later other than pleasant vibes.
★★ - i do not have any memory or emotion of it. also rarely relegated to "this has historical value but is controversial in a queasy way" books.
★ - actively repelled by it in some unhelpful, bad quality, or tedious way.
0 - relegated specifically to "wings" .
back when i had a goodreads account I'd list five bullet points with a (-) and a (+) flavor as stand-ins for stars so i had a specific reasoning for them.
* How do you approach reviewing books? What’s your review style? Are you analytical, emotional, casual, or structured? casual! in all honesty started posting book thoughts here due toqueenlua when i realized i consistently enjoyed her thoughts and discovered New Things to learn and thought oh hey, somebody might like the same since i deliberately go digging for weird old shit. (versus the type of new books that are popular on review blogs). plus it's just interesting to see how somebody & their specific mindset approaches a text.
* What’s the book that made you a reader? Whether it was your first favorite or the one that got you hooked, what book started it all? frankly i was reading before my memory really got going, though i also tounge-in-cheek blame the various bouts of anesthesia on the lack of memory there. my mom deeply enjoys telling the story of me reading the first aid manual in the car before the age of five. that said, redwall was probably the first reliably long series i moseyed through.
* Do you have a genre niche? Are there certain genres you gravitate toward? Or do you read widely across genres? i'm roughly split into three categories as a reader these days:
1/3 nonfiction - whether milhistory in general, biographies, or specific research for an art project. (mercenaries for iron crown, kink stuff for YRMR, etc.)
1/3 fanfiction because i like supporting my friendos and it's less testosterone heavy than the milhistory while also in general being better quality kinky fuckery than published work ~
1/3 sequential art - manga and "everything else" whether old crufty animation history or old fiction classics or truly oddball academic-y books about old hacker circles
* Do you generally prefer character-driven or plot-driven stories? reluctantly character-driven; it's not a good trait but i get very bored if there's not at least one interesting hot mess of a character. good generalized nonfiction will hold me much longer than fiction though; i used to be very limited to sci-fi/fantasy in my teens and now it's the other way around. honestly just feel like i'm making up for missed time by reading about interesting people i wasn't aware of as a sheltered kid.
* What’s a book you love so much that you don’t care if others don’t like it? back in the day i'd probably say republic commando (series). i'm not fond of star wars these days and frankly have never cared what others think so this question feels a little silly.
* What’s a book you love so much that if someone doesn’t like it, you know your reading tastes don’t align? i find this an equally silly question in spirit because there's people i respect very much that trash my favorite books lovingly and vice versa; which is a good sign. :P healthy difference of opinion! that said i had a crush on a dude in college for a bit but when he said he hated reading that crush kinda evaporated on the spot, lol. was still good friends with him, just... anything else wasn't gonna happen.
What’s in your “trash pocket”? What books, tropes, or themes that you know are bad but you love them anyway? this dead dove meme is probably a better catch-all for this question in spirit.
* Do you have any dealbreakers in books? Something that, if present, immediately turns you off from a book. i read from a much wider variety of people than i strongly suspect most people here do much less admit to, but consistent unchallenged dehumanization is my one hard line. you can learn a lot from how hateful minds think in short stints but in long chunks it really does get boring quite quickly. being fleet in thought tends not to be a strength of the simpleminded.
too saccharine happy endings annoys me too.
* What’s a strong opinion you have about a book released within the last year? Whether it’s overrated, underrated, or just a take you need to share. i actually actively seek out books older than ten-fifteen years ago. complained here a few times about how new books have a subservient-to-twitter tone that rubs me the wrong way.
* What do you look for in writing? What makes a book stand out to you? Is it prose style, themes, voice, structure, or something else? decisive, distinct, and visual prose. interviewing interesting people who aren't afraid to be a traitor or outsider, whether it's a net good or bad. a dollop of id/sleaze. an instinctive understanding of subversiveness and distaste for "cozy".
above all, makes me feel something.
* How do you decide what to read next? Do you plan ahead, mood read, or follow external factors (hype, recommendations, ARCs)?
* How do you rate books? Give a quick rundown of how you do your star ratings (or if you don’t use star ratings, how you evaluate books).
★★★★★ - would go in my personal "top 100 books ever read" list much like david bowie's reading list. sometimes i'll prune this; debating on making a page on my personal website this living document. actually i'm going to make a mental note of setting this up on kradeelav.com/books.html at some point in the next month.
★★★★ - would physically buy and reread. solid read that makes me think about the topic or a has a quote i'll remember for at least five or ten years later.
★★★ - a good or enjoyable read; i'm likey to physically own it but might not remember much about it five years later other than pleasant vibes.
★★ - i do not have any memory or emotion of it. also rarely relegated to "this has historical value but is controversial in a queasy way" books.
★ - actively repelled by it in some unhelpful, bad quality, or tedious way.
0 - relegated specifically to "wings" .
back when i had a goodreads account I'd list five bullet points with a (-) and a (+) flavor as stand-ins for stars so i had a specific reasoning for them.
* How do you approach reviewing books? What’s your review style? Are you analytical, emotional, casual, or structured? casual! in all honesty started posting book thoughts here due to
queenlua when i realized i consistently enjoyed her thoughts and discovered New Things to learn and thought oh hey, somebody might like the same since i deliberately go digging for weird old shit. (versus the type of new books that are popular on review blogs). plus it's just interesting to see how somebody & their specific mindset approaches a text.* What’s the book that made you a reader? Whether it was your first favorite or the one that got you hooked, what book started it all? frankly i was reading before my memory really got going, though i also tounge-in-cheek blame the various bouts of anesthesia on the lack of memory there. my mom deeply enjoys telling the story of me reading the first aid manual in the car before the age of five. that said, redwall was probably the first reliably long series i moseyed through.
* Do you have a genre niche? Are there certain genres you gravitate toward? Or do you read widely across genres? i'm roughly split into three categories as a reader these days:
1/3 nonfiction - whether milhistory in general, biographies, or specific research for an art project. (mercenaries for iron crown, kink stuff for YRMR, etc.)
1/3 fanfiction because i like supporting my friendos and it's less testosterone heavy than the milhistory while also in general being better quality kinky fuckery than published work ~
1/3 sequential art - manga and "everything else" whether old crufty animation history or old fiction classics or truly oddball academic-y books about old hacker circles
* Do you generally prefer character-driven or plot-driven stories? reluctantly character-driven; it's not a good trait but i get very bored if there's not at least one interesting hot mess of a character. good generalized nonfiction will hold me much longer than fiction though; i used to be very limited to sci-fi/fantasy in my teens and now it's the other way around. honestly just feel like i'm making up for missed time by reading about interesting people i wasn't aware of as a sheltered kid.
* What’s a book you love so much that you don’t care if others don’t like it? back in the day i'd probably say republic commando (series). i'm not fond of star wars these days and frankly have never cared what others think so this question feels a little silly.
* What’s a book you love so much that if someone doesn’t like it, you know your reading tastes don’t align? i find this an equally silly question in spirit because there's people i respect very much that trash my favorite books lovingly and vice versa; which is a good sign. :P healthy difference of opinion! that said i had a crush on a dude in college for a bit but when he said he hated reading that crush kinda evaporated on the spot, lol. was still good friends with him, just... anything else wasn't gonna happen.
What’s in your “trash pocket”? What books, tropes, or themes that you know are bad but you love them anyway? this dead dove meme is probably a better catch-all for this question in spirit.
* Do you have any dealbreakers in books? Something that, if present, immediately turns you off from a book. i read from a much wider variety of people than i strongly suspect most people here do much less admit to, but consistent unchallenged dehumanization is my one hard line. you can learn a lot from how hateful minds think in short stints but in long chunks it really does get boring quite quickly. being fleet in thought tends not to be a strength of the simpleminded.
too saccharine happy endings annoys me too.
* What’s a strong opinion you have about a book released within the last year? Whether it’s overrated, underrated, or just a take you need to share. i actually actively seek out books older than ten-fifteen years ago. complained here a few times about how new books have a subservient-to-twitter tone that rubs me the wrong way.
* What do you look for in writing? What makes a book stand out to you? Is it prose style, themes, voice, structure, or something else? decisive, distinct, and visual prose. interviewing interesting people who aren't afraid to be a traitor or outsider, whether it's a net good or bad. a dollop of id/sleaze. an instinctive understanding of subversiveness and distaste for "cozy".
above all, makes me feel something.
* How do you decide what to read next? Do you plan ahead, mood read, or follow external factors (hype, recommendations, ARCs)?
so i uh. "got"/brought all of my to-read books in advance, dumped them in a folder on the computer and i drag a .epub file out on the desktop at random when i've finished a previous book. said file sitting on my desktop makes me much more likely to finish it just to get it off. i like being tidy, and gamifying that!! usually it's books mentioned in places/videos i enjoyed; the most recent added ones were a bunch from contrapoints videos for examples.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-28 07:49 am (UTC)Redwall! What a good series. That's one that's on my list to show my niece. I have been itching to reread it to see if it holds up to my memory of it. I never got through all the books myself though.
there's people i respect very much that trash my favorite books lovingly and vice versa
I had the same issue with this question (and the one before it). My best friends have a similar taste to me, but our favorites have never been each other's favorites and we don't care. That's why I answered this question with the opposite metric: If someone adores something I really didn't vibe with I'm just gonna take their recommendations with a grain of salt.
i read from a much wider variety of people than i strongly suspect most people here do much less admit to
That's a good point. I'd assume you run into this a lot with nonfiction. Do you tend to pick up books you think might contain your dealbreaker on purpose, just to see, or do you find it more in things you wanted to read?
above all, makes me feel something.
Hard agree.
i drag a .epub file out on the desktop at random
Genius. I stuck all my epubs on the ereader I was gifted, but then I tend to not touch the thing. A visual reminder on the desktop sitting there like clutter must be such a motivation.
Glad to see someone else answer this here. Like you said it's interesting to see how someone approaches a text, same goes for memes of course. I'll have to check out that Dead Dove question meme too I think I missed it.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-29 06:59 pm (UTC)your dealbreaker question's so good... honestly usually i think i find myself reading it for two distinctive reasons:
1) getting a better sense of context in history of where their views come from; a good example was reading books of all worldviews when it comes to the Sex Wars of the 1980's when kink-positive and kink-negative/radical feminists clashed. a lot of the arguments make so much more sense when grounded in what they were both resisting *against* in the past and i feel better equipped to talk to the importance of kink in fiction for me while having empathy to engage at all.
2) reading about various extremists in recent history from the point of view of de-radicalization activists to actually engage in what's most likely to change their minds. sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't. both worldviews are often explored in depth. but at least there's a good-faith engagement with it that's not entirely uncritical either, you know? fine line, that.
you're also so right about the visual reminders XD sometimes it's the silly little things that work the best.