Why We Should Read On Whims ft. Marvellous Books I’ve Read Via Whim.

Taking a break from my highly opinionated posts. . . 

Today I will be discussing the beauty of whims. Whimsical writing is by far my favourite writing styles, but reading on a whim? EVEN BETTER, yet, I hardly pick up books on a complete whim anymore, but recently, I’ve started to do it more!! Kristin did a post a while ago on books that she picked up on a whim, and it inspired this post, so go check it out!

Some Books I’ve read on a whim:

• Turtles All The Way Down: I was really nervous about this book, and I decided that I wouldn’t read it, but then while I was in London, I wandered upon a Foyles and then thought “why not?” I didn’t even know what the book was about, but I was nervous about it being a John Green book since I tend to love or hate them. .. But I then read this book, and OH MY I loved it so much. . .

• Warcross:  I didn’t know anything about this book, and to be honest, I didn’t know if I would like this book, and I’d heard mixed things about the author’s previous books. I just saw it on amazon and just bought it.

• Illuminae: NGKDSJNGDFKJGNDFJG Okay. everyone was going on about these books, but I still only knew it was about spaceships and that seemed pretty cool, so again. .  . why not?

• The Raven Boys: This was mainly because of multiple people screaming on this internet about this series. I had no idea what it was about, and I just took all the flailing on the internet as a good sign.

• THUG: I heard that it was own voices and I just had to read it.

 

Recognise some of these? YEP. Not only are they popular books, but they’re some of the books that I scream about, until my voice is hoarse, on this blog the most!*

MY SWEET RAVEN BOYS!!!!! NIKKK. EMIKAAAAAA. STARRRRRRR. 

… continuing on from the minor freakout… some of the best books that I’ve read  / the books that surprised me the most were books were books that I picked up completely on a whim. And to be honest, I’m not surprised!! Here’s why:

*because we all know, a book is only popular if I scream about it. . .

fewer expectations. 

This makes sense? If you go into a book not knowing much about it, and not really knowing about the hype that may surround it, then there’s less chance for you to be let down since you don’t expect it to be “OMG AMAZING!!” and to make you want to hand out cake to the world because you’re so full of joy because you found this perfect book!!

Sometimes you go from this:

to this:

because your expectations are just too high, and it’s not even your fault they’re that way.

I don’t know about you, but when I get really excited about reading a book, I get SO HYPED but then when I get around to actually reading the book, I just feel like it was too hyped up because of how much other people had been talking about it and therefore I start to think that it’s going to be the best book in the world. It happened recently withSimon Vs. which I was pretty bummed about, but still really enjoyed!!

fewer spoilers hitting you in the face. 

I think that especially if you’re reading a hidden gem on a whim, it’s really easy not to find any spoilers. Or, if you’ve stumbled upon a semi-hyped book, and you just think “I’ll buy that!!”, and you haven’t really seen much about it (reviews etc,) then it’s so much easier not to come across things that could spoil it.

And also!! If you weren’t really interested in reading the book before, you wouldn’t really read many reviews for it, (or get spoiled) but thennnn if you pick it up, it can really surprise you and can be really unexpected and you can really enjoy it!! (COUGH WHAT HAPPENED WITH TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN COUGH)knowing less of the premise = more surprises = happy smol readers. 

I’m sure I’m not the only potato that likes to have huge plot twists and get constantly surprised? Exactly, no!! No one likes to read a book’s blurb and then know literally the entire plot of the book or to have read the blurb, and then be able to guess what happens as they read.

I generally only like going into books with a brief (VERY VERY BRIEF) idea of what the book is about. That way, it’s easier to be surprised by what happens? For example, when I read Simon Vs. I literally had no idea what it was about, apart from someone who was coming out as gay and that he had awesome friends. I kid you not. And I LOVED that book!!

I think that reading on a whim is generally a nice thing to do since you don’t subconsciously put pressure on the book to be soooo outstanding and completely brilliant since you’re not hyping it up in your head as much.

What do you think about reading on a whim? do you read on whims or do you like to read reviews first? Would you ever read a book on a whim? Do you think there’s something that links cover-buys and reading on whims? Do you think that it’s easy to read books on a whim will all the coverage that they get? Let me know!

Luuuuu