Let’s talk about unpopular opinions today in our blog. I feel like the term is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case you are not familiar with the term, it is about an opinion that could be considered not likable, or doesn’t stand with the general consensus of the topic. Today we will be discussing some opinions that I have that don’t match with the general population. Please remember that this is my personal opinion.
This the Unpopular Opinion Book Tag.
A popular book/series that you don’t like.
Twilight, I hate this series of books. I will admit that when I did read them back when they first came out, I did enjoy them. However, this was back when I was a teenager and way before the movies came out. When Twilight started becoming more popular was about the time that I stopped liking it as much. The books got decreasingly worse as time went on, and when Breaking Dawn came out, I was super excited about reading the finale, but was SOOOO disappointed with the ending. If you’ve read the series, you might know what I’m talking about, but if you haven’t SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! Basically, the series ends in a very anticlimactic way. So, the vampires have been training for this huge battle against the Volturi and essentially, they just talk it all out and nothing happens. Not to mention the way that Jacob’s character is reduced to only liking Bella because she had Renesmee in her was ridiculous. Just everything about the series that I liked was reduced to nothing in this book. Plus, I was always weirded out that a 100-year-old man was interested in a 17-year-old girl because he couldn’t hear her thoughts. Plus, the fact that he felt the need to watch her sleep at night without her permission, and she didn’t find it creepy at all! ‘Sure, I’ll accept that this guy I don’t know has been watching me sleep without my knowledge. That’s completely okay!’ That’s the impression it gave. The whole romance in the book was borderline possessive and the amount that they “needed” each other was just too much for the amount of time they knew each other. Everything about Twilight makes me cringe and I really don’t like when I have to talk about it. I just feel like it’s a mess of a series, a mess of characters, and has no reason to be as popular as it is. If you want to read books about vampires that are actually good, in my opinion of course, read Anne Rice books.
A book/series that many people don’t like, but you love.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Yes, I guess technically this is a popular book, but it is also very well known to be hated. I’ll admit I’m a Jane Austen fan. Have been since I read Sense and Sensibility back in high school, and although that book is my favorite, I do still like Pride and Prejudice. I think for most people the reason they don’t like this particular book is because it’s over done. This book has been made into a movie/TV series 30 different times, which can seem excessive for sure. But if you put that aside, and I do, I generally don’t watch adaptations, so that doesn’t bother me. The source material is actually really good. There are some problems I see with the book, but in my opinion it’s a great read.
A love triangle where the main character ended up with the person you didn’t want them to end up with/an OTP that you don’t like. (OTP stands for One True Pairing in case you didn’t know.)
I think for this one I have to go to a manga by the name of Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers. The whole plot is about a love triangle between Tsukushi Makino, Tsukasa Domyoji and Rui Hanazawa. Makino is a middle-class student who goes to an elite high school in Japan where the super-rich rule the school, in particular four boys known as the F4. The leader of the F4 is Tsukasa Domyoji and Rui Hanazawa is also a member. Makino falls for Rui at first, but Domyoji starts to pick on Makino once she stands up for another student. This tormenting makes Domyoji fall for her, and the love triangle forms. Makino and Rui do date at one point, but its short lived and she ends up with Domyoji. Which made me VERY angry, because Domyoji is spoiled, tortures Makino, and has a terrible attitude; in general, he is a pain in the neck. Rui Hanazawa however, is quiet, supportive, gentle, and nice. He really is a great character, but she picks the bad boy, and I can’t handle it to this day.
A popular genre that you hardly reach for
Honestly, I hardly reach for most Adult Fiction. I don’t like the darker themes and more realistic fiction that most Adult Fiction is. I prefer to read more fantasy elements and I do occasionally pick up an Adult Fantasy book, but even then, they tend to be darker and more have adult content than I care to read. Just overall I’m not the biggest fan of most adult fiction. I will read it, but I tend to avoid it.
A popular or beloved character that you don’t like
I really had a hard time with this one as most the characters that people like, I also tend to like them. Or people don’t like them as they’re a character that people have a love/hate relationship with. However, I ultimately chose Leo Valdez from The Heroes of Olympus Series. This mostly spans from his character being the “comedy relief” of the series, until he meets Calypso, even then I just didn’t find him to be all that great. He is the son of Hephaestus and has some interesting powers with his fire element, but overall, something about him was just off for me. I generally don’t have anything against comedic characters, but I just didn’t really mesh well with him. He’s a nice enough character, I just think his constant feeling like he did nothing to help everyone made me irritated, because he was the engineer that got the Argo II running, and he helped with fighting monsters constantly, so something him just made me not really enjoy reading stuff about him. When his chapters came up in his POV I usually just read what I had to and moved on. I really just found him annoying.
An author that you can’t seem to get into
Honestly so many….but I think the most popular would have to J.K. Rowling. I know, WHAT? You’re a Harry Potter Fan! I am, but I don’t like the author. Especially after the books that she has written as Robert Galbraith and what she has revealed after the Harry Potter series has ended. Another author I can’t stand is Stephanie Meyer, but I feel like that is pretty self-explanatory considering how much I trashed Twilight. Sorry.
A popular book trope you’re tired of seeing
I don’t know if this is popular, but any books that deal with memory loss or specifically amnesia. I shudder at the thought of amnesia as a plot device. It’s annoying to me when two characters or more are getting close to someone, and then boom they’re hit with amnesia due to some accident. Then of course they don’t remember the other person or persons, and it takes them just as long or super-fast to get to know them again. It really is just an annoying trope to use. I also have some personal experience with someone who had Alzheimer’s and using a memory loss thing as drama for your plot hits me in a terrible way. I just can’t read it.
A popular book/series you have no interest in reading
Anything by Cassandra Clare, but more specifically the Infernal Devices series, I’m not a fan of Cassandra Clare to begin with, but the Infernal Devices is not a book series that interests me. I have read the first three books of the Mortal Instruments series and at the time I thought it was done, then come to find out that three more books had been written. However, I was already over the books that I had read. The story became convoluted and a little boring for my liking. It was a series that had great potential, but in the end of the three first books it lost my interest and I have no want to read anything else by Clare now.
The saying goes that “the book is always better than the movie”, but what movie or TV show adaptation is better than the book?
How to Train Your Dragon is so much better than the book series. I tried so hard to read the series after watching the first movie, but it’s nothing like the movie. Hiccup is not near as endearing as he is in the movie, and Toothless is not as fun in the book. The movie is by far the easier and more fun to consume. Watch the movie, that’s probably the only time you’ll hear me say that.