Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog! Today I’m once again participating in the weekly meme Let’s Talk Bookish hosted by the lovely Rukky @ Eternity Reads 🙂
I would have to without a doubt go for good plots being the most important thing when it comes to picking up a book for me. I think especially if I’m in a bookstore, gorgeous covers can attract me to a book but if the plot fails to interest me, then I won’t even try to read it.
I didn’t always used to be like this however, I remember when I was younger I would sometimes start reading a book with an alluring cover without even properly reading the synopsis, and that just kept leading to disappointment after disappointment, so that I came to learn the hard way “not to judge a book by its cover!”
I guess another reason that more inclined to the plot of the book is because I actually rarely purchase physical copies of books, so I mostly tend to read ebooks on my Kindle anyway! And when you’re reading a book on a Kindle, you are hardly able to appreciate the cover of the book than if you were reading from a physical copy, which is certainly one of the cons of reading on Kindle.
The other day I was in a bookstore and stood in front of the classics section for maybe half an hour, admiring how beautifully illustrated the Puffin editions were. I was sorely tempted to purchase one, however I simply could not justify buying a copy of “Pride and Prejudice” or “Frankenstein” because despite their gorgeous editions, I had already read them and it was pricy to buy again simply for a reread that may never come.
Whilst I was in the bookstore, I was also faced with the dilemma that a large majority of the classics in the section that I hadn’t read were either ones that didn’t interest me, or were absolutely enormous (there is nothing wrong with book books, obviously, as I am reading Anna Karenina at the moment and it spans almost a thousand pages – but I was scared to spend so much money on a lovely edition of an enormous book I may really dislike or not even end up reading!). So I think it’s possible that whether you choose a book for the cover or the plot, also depends on whether you can afford to.
On the other hand, a good cover may be good at attracting you to books that you other may not have read, opening you up to different genres and stories that you end up really loving and enjoying – so that can be a plus! It just hasn’t worked out that way for me in the past, and at the end of the day, it is the story that you read the book for.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you ever read a book for its cover, and has it ever turned out successfully for you? Do you think a book cover is more important than the plot?
Speak soon!
many things bookish 