responding to your bookish HOT TAKES🔥🔥 and sharing unpopular opinions 📚

hello hello! i'm working on 2 fun videos that take a little bit more time than usual for you guys, so this week i have a simple discussion video: responding to your bookish hot takes and sharing my unpopular opinions!

🌼 s o c i a l m e d i a
• twitter: @thebookleo
• instagram: @thebookleo

🌺 a b o u t m e
Hi! My name is Leonie and I am a 25 year old girl from the Netherlands who loves talking about books! From YA to non-fiction to classics, I read it all (although fantasy will always be my fave).

🌹 m u s i c
Music, art, and video by Jokabi

Download / Stream Lost Woods

[scorpionbraid]

To me cracks on a spine are like lines on a face: inevitable over time and a sign of a lived in life.

[joquz]

I dont know if its just me, but i enjoy reading physical books because of the interaction with paper, i feel like i dont focus when i read virtual

[GlassesBooksCookies]

My hot take would be this:

Not everything you like has to be a masterpiece and you don't have to like every masterpiece.

I feel like I see far too many people (both in the book sphere but also in the more general art(?) sphere) who feel the need to justify their enjoyment of something by saying it's perfect, that there are no flaws, and that it's way deeper than it actually is. I feel like there's far too much judgement nowadays about liking something that isn't flawless (and also pressure from fellow fans not to admit to any flaws) that people end up going a bit overboard trying to justify why they like something, why they are allowed to like something.

It's okay to like trash people, trash can be fun, trash can be exciting, trash can even have person meaning even if it doesn't particularly have a deeper message. Embrace liking trash (or even just mediocre things) and stop worrying what other people will say about your tastes.

Likewise with "classics" or books that have won literary prizes and acclaim. You can acknowledge that something is technically well executed/had a lot of impact without having to like it, in fact it's a health thing to do! Just because something is well done doesn't mean it's to your taste and there should be absolutely 0 shame in saying you didn't enjoy a literary darling. The fact that you didn't like it also doesn't have to mean that it's bad, it literally just doesn't have to be the book for you.

[kajielin]

sometimes being spoiled about a book makes me actually interested in it and leads to me reading something I wouldn't have otherwise!

[Aureia_aurita]

My hot take: a lot of more recent books (especially romance books) are just fanfics, just without the background information of pre-made characters and the characters end up feeling shallow.

[anastasiaafanasieva]

To add to the "morally gray characters" debate, I'm really tired of "neutral good" main characters killing people and feeling absolutely no remorse about it (usually in fantasy/sci-fi). Especially if the main character is a teen or in their 20s and has been living a pretty great and fulfilling life with no struggles. Like, they can kill a dozen of strangers and feel guilty only when their friends/family members are in trouble because of them.

[YoshiLove-ppco]

One of my hot take is that I don’t really read to see myself in books. If I relate to a character or if the author puts into words something I’m very familiar with, that’s cool and great but I don’t seek it out. I mostly like to read about people that have have had experiences that I’ve never had and are very different from me, I want to go to new places. I find that much more interesting. The amazing thing about reading for me is the fact that I can get inside someone else’s head and understand them even if they’re the polar opposite of me. I thinks that also why I rarely find characters annoying. As long as the character is well fleshed out I feel like I understand them.

[alma]

a tip for everyone who misses going to the bookstore not knowing what books are popular: go to a library and pick books that seem interesting to you! most of the time (at least where i live) libraries have larger selections of less popular books/authors, and if you don’t like a book, you haven’t lost any money.
some books i’ve found this way have been a frisian book about floods and ghost horses, a book of a ufo sighting in rural China, and a translated mongolian poetry collection. none of them i would’ve bought, but i am happy to have read them.

[.dhritiagrawal]

Dr. Doofenshmirtz is one of the prime examples of morally gray characters and you cannot convince me otherwise-

[nayosk]

Leonie out of context:
"I just break spines sometimes"

[elinh]

“All reading positions are uncomfortable” YES. Truer words have never been spoken. I also move around a lot when I sit down or lie in bed. When I was still in school, everyone was sittning perfectly still and at the same time you could here my chair creak when I switched position😂😂 I like your bookish opinions! They feel healthy, somehow

[swanlake]

Can we take a minute to appreciate Leonie's shirt? Chef's kiss.

[wochenente]

There is a german publishing house that puts the content warnings in the back of the book. The first page has a sentence that tells you that the book contains potentially triggering contents but if you want/need to go through that list you need to go to the back of the book. So people that don't need trigger warnings can go on reading without accidentally "spoiling" themselves

[cae]

I annotate books on my second read because it means that I loved it so much that I reread it and so I just want to put my thoughts and feelings down and information now that I know the plot and lore behind it... its also just very satisfying to flick through a book and see little notes idk why

[Quelquundici]

(W : I'M NOT AN ENGLISH NATIVE SPEAKER)
I noticed that the most unpopular opinions of people were about the big book community on the internet. I totally agree with them, I was overwhelmed by it and I took a break. Now, I'm just doing what I like, it's been more than 1 month that I'm reading 1 book and it's ok even if people on the internet said that it's "bad" or make you feel bad to read only one book in this time but idc anymore. I take my time and I read for myself only. Nice video 👍

[dnzkmr]

I love how you always discuss both sides of the argument. It reminds me of my English teacher who always says to think of a counter-argument 😊

[TinyGhosty]

I do think hardbacks can be overall prettier IF the cover is inlaid and there is no dust jacket. Dust jackets are my arch nemesis!! Overall paperbacks are more comfortable to hold, so I am a paperback girlie💜

[mauratyson]

🗣️sometimes I like spoilers because I enjoy seeing how we get from point A to point B 🗣️

[nightengalenorth]

I dislike rainbow shelves because it usually means that series, authors, genres, etc are all mixed together with no rhyme or reason beyond the color of the spine. I have to have certain things grouped together in a way that is logical. That being said, it would be totally awesome if an author (or even multiple authors) deliberately released their books in a way for rainbow shelves to work while maintaining some kind of logic. There's a romance author that occasionally shows up in my reels feed on instagram that has a covert edition of her books that are color coded based on the type of story it contains. Her shelves look so pretty like that.

[Sophie-lfzn]

I never DNF books, like ever, and apparently that‘s a hot take 😅 I just can‘t stand the thought of leaving a book unfinished and even when I don‘t like the plot or the writing I just make it a study of why I don‘t like it. I genuinely feel like that helps me with my own writing 🙃